I’m a bit embarrassed. I told you earlier that I was finished sharing projects from the Paper Issues Crop but, I was wrong!
I found another one. Oops!
Remember my eldest daughter’s Hawaiian themed birthday party in February and the goody bags with the leis on them?
Well, I had a lot of left over flowers so I used them to create this. 
The challenge I answered for this one was to stitch on your project.
Now, there’s a bit of a back story to that. I love the look of stitching on layouts and cards but my sewing machine (actually my Mum’s old one from her College days) is in dire need of a tune up. It’s also wired for British outlets and when we came to Canada my Mum and Dad purchased this super heavy, very clunky transformer for it. Basically, at the moment, it’s a giant paper weight! Taking up space and gathering dust (and a few cobwebs I imagine) in my garage.
At Christmas we stayed at my sister-in-laws place and she offered my girls her sewing machine. (Actually, my mother-in-laws old one.) I took it and it sat for another few months in my dining room. Marley kept bugging me to set it up but … there was always something else going on so it was pushed to “another day”. When this challenge was posted I knew that other day had finally arrived!
Being the over-achiever that I am (snort!), I decided to both machine stitch and hand stitch on this layout. A fun frame around the layout in straight and zig zag stitching was a great way to tie in the hot pink. The flowers needed something though so I gave them a knotted treatment for their centres.
I was using a Gossamer blue kit which included this fun stamp. Seemed perfect! Seeing it now, I need to dig it out and start using it in my planner!
A note on title placement: mixing the landscape and portrait orientation photos onto one mat left me with this awkward space. It was just tall enough for the letters that were in the kit but not long enough for the entire title. I had three options. One, place the word ‘party’ above the mat so the word ‘prep’ didn’t go onto the photo. Two. place the title in one line so it would start off the mat to the left. Three, place it as you see it, where the word ‘prep’ in on top of the photo.
Option three was the winner for two reasons. It kept everything neatly contained on that pink photo mat. Nothing hanging off the edge or floating above – both of which would have created discord in my design. Also, the photo in question didn’t contain any important details at the top so nothing crucial to the story was covered up by adding my letter stickers where they are.
If you are leery of adding your titles on top of your photos like I’ve done then just keep these points in mind. Would it cover up a valuable part of the story you are trying to tell? Would placing it somewhere else enhance the design of your page or detract from the focus – the story? With today’s digital technology, the odds are pretty good that the photo you’re using can be easily reprinted if you mess things up. Give it a go. It’s just paper after all!
All right, that’s all for today. My kids come home tomorrow from their week with Grandma and Grandpa so my house will return to its usual state of noise, chaos, and energy. I’ve loved every minute of the peace but will be happy to have my girls home again. Their bedrooms do seem oddly lonely!
Have a wonderful weekend! I’ll be back on Monday with a post on using up your wood veneer stash! Hope you tune in for that.
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