1st Baby Photo Layout

Right now I'm taking a really great scrapbooking class at Big Picture Classes (see button in my side bar) and we're on week 3, during which we're supposed to be examining our scrapbooking process. I've been meaning to scrapbook some of my cat's baby (kitten? =P) photos for a long time, so I finally decided to get to work this week.

This is definitely the cutest photo I have of my cat as a kitten, and I took it on the first day that I brought him home, so I wanted to make a layout focusing just on this photo. I was inspired by the blanket in the photo to stick with blue embellishments and make this a monochromatic layout. The background cardstock is from the Core'dinations Whitewash collection, which is REALLY cool. =) All the other paper pieces on this layout are from Tim Holtz's Vintage Shabby paper stash. The top piece is one of the border strips in the stash and I was so excited to find this pattern because it works perfectly. The big "baby" letters are some Heidi Swapp acrylic letters I've had for ages. The other letters are Grungeboard Minis that I painted with light blue acrylic paint and "whitewashed" with a little Snow Cap Paint Dabber. Then I decided they needed a little more contrast so I added some Broken China Distress Stickles. The buttons are some Basic Grey Kioshi embellishments, and the brads I acquired this weekend at the Scrapbook Expo from the Eyelet Outlet. I also edged all the edges of my cut paper pieces with Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.

So part of the class this week was paying attention to how much time we spent on parts of the layout. I spent a rather disappointing 4 HOURS on this layout. Holy cow. I'll never manage a layout a day at that rate. It did take a significant amount of time to make the custom letters....the problem is I LOOOOOOVE making custom letters. =) It's become a bit of an addiction. I also wasted a lot of time figuring out what ink to use to stamp the "You're purr-fect" sentiment. I didn't have the right shade of blue, so I hemmed and hawed, then I had to quit working. When I came back to it I somehow had the genius idea to use a neutral color, and I finally stumbled onto the gray. I like the way it looks, but I didn't have a great matching gray pen for the journaling. Oh well.

Overall I'm really happy with the layout. I hope the lack of dark colors anywhere else makes my kitten really stand out. =)

Thanks for looking!

*~M~*