Hide and Seek

My camera is currently on vacation in New York. D went to see Opening Day at the new Yankee's Stadium. Anyway, since I can't photograph anything new, I am reposting one from my old blog and I'll be back with new goodies next weekend!

This will bore seasoned scrappers, but perhaps will be helpful to newbies. I know when I started a couple years ago; it was a bit of a mystery. Everybody finds their own way eventually. Here's mine.

I was thinking about my process so that I could apply it to mixed media art, that I so desperately admire on others' blogs. I don't know why I am timid and drag my feet to experiment on that!

Anyway, I guess I look at my pictures and pick a few. I already 'see' a story that I want to tell for my family. I know this top photo is what I want to emphasize.Then, sometimes I go to idea books and mags for layout ideas. In this case, I was not able to easily see what would be a good balance for 3 photos.This part takes the longest for me. Probably it takes me half an hour to pick cardstock and patterned papers. Do I want to match the photos? Do I want to go neutrals that go with any photo? What 'feel' do I want? In this case, I wanted the feel of summer but it looked too 'girly' to pull colors from the photos. That's why I chose a neutral brown as my background. Luckily, I had some 'summer' patterned papers that went with the brown.This main photo is the only one I will mat for emphasis and I chose yellow as yellow is in the photo and it helped it pop.I cut up pieces of patterned paper and made an arrangement. Also, I decided to crop the other photos smaller and stick them together as one.Next, I thought the word 'hide' should be partially hidden. Oh, I already knew the title and theme would be 'hide and seek' from my first step of choosing photos. So, I got some memory glass and inked it with alcohol inks. This was the first time doing this and I just love the effect, and it was SO easy!I put black vinyl letters under them.After that, I decided the patterned papers needed to have the edges inked to tone them down a bit and to draw the eye across the pages spread.I finished the title...this took a while, several experiments with letters. I decided 'seek' should have eyes. It looked a bit off-kilter. I added some subdued stamped swirls and I put photo corners on the top left to solidify the two photos together. I tried to use a visual triangle with the yellow patterned paper on the right, the '&" sign and the photo corners in the top left.To really balance this, I added written journaling and stretched it across both pages. Plus I put their names and the date and place on the right. Writing the name of the place is something I just recently began to do. I think this will give more of a 'picture' of our life for those that recieve these scrapbooks one day. I don't spend much time on my journaling, it's just 'off the cuff'. This took about 1 minute. I just put enough to allow the reader to 'fill in' with their own experiences. Personally, I don't like to read long drawn-out explanations, so I don't like to write them either. I know a lot of people agonize on what to write---my mom being one. As I said, the story is already there when I choose my photos. Have a nice day!