Love Photos

A while ago, I had some fun play time with Click Digital kit from Ali Edwards. I must say, the digital form of Ali's monthly kits is fast becoming my go to when creating. I love that I can play around with the placements of everything before I commit. I also love that I can choose to go 100% digital, or print only parts of my layout and continue the fun with my paper + stamps + embellishments. 

I almost always choose to go hybrid. I love adding wood veneers and machine stitching just like on this layout.  I snuck a little 'I love You' rub on from Pink Fresh Studio as well. These are the fun things that I will miss if I were to create a 100% digital layout.

That huge '♥ photos' word art has my heart, for real. I want to blow it up onto a 16 x 24 canvas and hang it on my wall. I might just do that.

“What i like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”

― Karl Lagerfeld

My love for photos is bottomless and never ending and that must be one of my favorite of Nidhi. How apt. 

Edited to add : Those tabs I used came from Pretty Little Studio :)

You, Me & The Sea

I have a sketch challenge up on the October Afternoon blog today. I even have my talented and super fun friend, Jill Sprott playing along with me, do click over and visit OA blog to see her sample layout based on this sketch! :)

Let me walk you through my layout so you can see where I followed the sketch and where I decided to 'bend the rules' a little. I'm not saying my sketch is a rule, but more of a guideline, a nudge, a little help for you to start your layout.

Instead of 'slicing my layout' vertically as per the sketch, I 'sliced it' horizontally, because I feel that it will be more suitable for my photo. I used the ship part of the Whale Bone Reef patterned paper, to compensate my small photo and also because I love that ship! Where we live, many ships (not pirate ships. haha!) come and go and if we pay close attention, on quiet mornings, we can hear them too! :) 

You can also place patterned papers on the little squares and rectangle in the sketch. I decided to imitate the squares with random machine stitching roughly in the same shapes. I housed my title in one of the stitched squares. If you haven't noticed, I'm totally crushing on the Daily Flash 'cursive' Alphas lately. This one is in Rhubarb. Such a beautiful pink. The ampersand is in Dandelions (my favorite yellow!).

On the cluster housing my photo, I used some stickers from Treasure Map 12x12 Shape Stickers and also some Doo-dads. 

I can't not stamp on my layout, I really like looking through my stamp and finding one or two that will work for my layout. For this one, the 'once upon a time' stamp from our Public Library collection fits perfectly because to be frank, now we don't really have the time to spend hours and hours at the beach anymore. Work and school take up chunks of our time and when weekend comes, we only wanna sleep and craft at home mostly! :D I do miss this a lot and will have to make the time and effort to drag the girls out again! :)

I hope you'll have time to play with the sketch. I'm @sashafarina on Instagram. I usually post sneaks and my layouts with #octoberafternoon in the description.

xoxo

Amazing Things Will Happen. . .

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

― Conan O'Brien

How true! Work hard, be kind. Always. At the same time, I like to remind my girls not to be too kind that people step all over you. Haha!

I'm contradicting myself, I know. I guess what I'd like to say is that balance is important. Be kind, but don't let people treat you as a doormat. You know what I mean? I'm sure you do.

I made this layout for a challenge hosted by Suz on October Afternoon blog. Hop over to see the Inspiration Piece.

I looked at the inspiration piece and was straightaway drawn to the design of the page, which means I used it as kind of a sketch, even though it is not technically a sketch. I decided to use a half sheet of the Treasure Map Label Stickers. If you take a closer look, the stickers on that sheet goes from light blue to dark blue gradually. I cut the sheet in half vertically and used them in the order the very order they came in. Don't you just love it when that happens? :) 

I machine-stitched the labels with straight lines down the middle, imitating the line on the center of the inspiration piece.

I then raided my stash of Mini Market Alphabet Stickers and completed the title of my layout, adding some typewritten strips in the middle. Back to my sewing machine again to stitch straight horizontal lines across the alphabet stickers, again, to imitate the lines + bulleted points on the inspiration piece. I had to use some of the fabulous embellishments from Treasure Map, I had to! They were begging to be put onto this layout! :D I ended up using one of the chipboard, a tin pin and a banner. I also stamped the star a couple times here and there because I just love the way it looks together with my mist sprinkles. 

I must tell you this, I am in love with Treasure Map! Expect more Treasure Map layouts from me in the near future!

This Little Story Matters

Because of you
I can feel
myself
slowly but
surely
becoming
the me
I have always
dreamed
of
being.

-Tyler Knott Gregson-

I first came across that quote/poem a while ago, and even then I knew that I will, one day, want to scrap it, with this particular photo. What I didn't know than was that Ali will come up with Story Of My Life brush pack. Seriously, I'm so glad I've not yet executed the layout I had in mind because this is even better.

As usual, I started my layout in Photoshop. Played with the placements and generally sketched where everything will go. I don't do this blindly, though. I take my embellishments tub out and (roughly) physically measure them and I also use the ruler in the software to make sure I have enough space for what I want to have on my layout.

I don't always get things perfect though. Sometime, I screw up, in photoshop and in real life (personally, I think motherhood is bloody hard, I told you that already, I think) but who doesn't eh? :)

I'm mommy. What's your super power?