Monday, June 25, 2012

Fly




I sincerely struggled with the layout I'm sharing with you today. I had a few ideas in the attic, but none of them really wanted to cooperate. After mulling it over at my desk for a couple of hours last night, I went to bed- still contemplating. I promised myself that I would find the time on Monday to google butterfly images and see what I could come up with. Hopefully everything else would just fall into place.

Fall into place is exactly what it did! It wasn't until later this afternoon that I had the chance to sit at the computer for a bit and search for images of butterflies. The one I chose you can find here: http://butterflywebsite.com/clipart/butterf17.gif

I printed it off at 125 or 150% resolution (I can't remember anymore- it was soooo long ago), cut it out and traced it onto the pieces of (scrap) patterned paper I wanted to use. I traced it a number of times, cut them out, and arranged them on my white card stock in a diagonal pattern across the page, surrounding the picture I wanted to use. I did.not.like.it. I just wasn't feeling it. (That was actually plan b-- plan a is what you see at the top of this post). So, I brushed them all off my card stock, then placed four of them above my photo. I immediately knew that was the direction I wanted to go in! (The only problem was I really wanted to stitch the trails the butterflies travelled on, but as you are aware, I am not confident in my stitching abilities. So, instead, I doodled them! Problem solved.)


I scrap lifted this idea from Kelly Klapstein. I do believe she calls this the 'morse code' technique. You can find it on her layout called "Fearless", which is on page 113 of the newest Canadian Scrapbooker magazine. I filled in the dots after I had the lines drawn on the page. I felt it helped 'complete' it a little better.

As I began working on this layout this afternoon, I began thinking that a butterfly quote would be a nice substitution for journalling- or at least, it would help enhance the theme a little more. Once again turning to my good old friend google, I typed in butterfly quotes, and this is what I came up with:


So you don't have to squint, this is what it says: "Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life. And everyone deserves a little sunshine." (Jeffrey Glassberg) How fitting for my Maren dearest! She is our little ray of sunshine, anyways! But, I know that in a few years' time, I may forget exactly what the story is behind the photo, so I added a bit more journalling to the top of my page:


Her cousins also had face painting at their birthday party, and I asked her if she wanted to get her face painted. Oh, she was all for it--until the air from the air brush started blowing. She had an honest to goodness, old fashioned freak out right then and there! Good thing I was holding her in my arms, and bless the artists' heart, she quickly airbrushed the butterfly onto her leg, and it was over and done with before she even knew what happened.

The funny thing is- she was so proud of it after she got it! She kept twisting around in our arms to have a look at her butterfly, and show us where it was. Its been a few weeks, but she still talks about butterflies. All.the.time. I have a stain on a tank top from painting, and she points to it and calls it my 'butterfly'. Yes, I think my sweet daughter is obsessed! Something that was so traumatic for such a short period of time, is now the one thing she's most fond of!


The bling in the centres of my butterflies was also scrap lifted, though at the moment I can't, for the life of me, remember where I saw it. I'll do some research and get back to y'all on it! I'm fairly certain its in the most recent Creating Keepsakes mag or PaperCrafts, but I'm going to have to go back and verify that. Don't let me forget! (No worries, I won't let myself forget. Sometimes I'm a bit anal).


And, second lastly- a message to my sweet daughter: to spread her wings and fly. Share that sunshiny nature with as many people as she can!

The inspiration for this layout came from sketch #138 over at Lets Capture These Sketches! Isn't it fantastic?!

And...speaking of Lets Capture These Sketches, I have some great news to share! I've been accepted onto their design team, and I'm ridiculously pumped about it! Keep an eye out for more sketches and layouts coming from this fantastic site!

Until next time...


2 comments:

  1. This layout is so special Ali! I can really tell how much thought you put into it. It's beautiful! Congrats on your new DT spot!

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  2. Alison!!!!! I can't even tell you how excited I am for you! Big congrats!!!!! I absolutely love you butterfly page! Thank you for sharing the details on how you made it!! Have a great weekend!

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