Everything Here is Wonderful - CMS / Scrap & Play challenges

Happy, happy Friday everyone!  So excited to be posting this week...work has been H-E-C-T-I-C and I'm ready for my 3-day weekend!  But...I'm sad for the reason we have this weekend so I plan on explaining to our 5-year-old why our American flag will be in the front yard Monday, and we'll have a moment of silence to honor our fallen brave men and women.  I'm making some cards to share with current military via Operation Hugs, too, so I'll share those when they are complete!  

Today I'm sharing a layout I created about my mom and her new horse.  Since my dad passed away, my mom decided that she'd fulfill a lifelong dream she had of owning a horse.  It took awhile to find the right one, but she's had Holly now almost a year, and since this horse makes my mom smile, she makes *me* smile.  :)  Presley and I got to meet Holly in December.

I saw this color challenge on Color Me Scrappy and immediately thought of these photos!  Since the rules say you can add a little of another color, I brought in a little of the red that matches Holly's bridle.

And then I saw this challenge at Scrap & Play and put them together.

For this layout, I pulled out an Echo Park collection called "Note to Self" since the colors really fit nicely with the challenge.

I turned the sketch sideways for my rendition, and used the brown as my base layer.  Then I took the tan grid paper and used my Cameo to cut three identical rectangles out.  I inked the edges of the rectangles, and then layered three different papers in each rectangle. You can see a close up of the blue polka dot paper below.

I matted the photos using the blue polka dot paper and with the top one I sewed to create a pocket to put a pull-out journal tab on, which I used for some private journaling.  I cut a tab out, inked the edges, and then used letters from the collection to spell "pull", which I then sewed over in gray thread.  I adhered the tab to my journal piece and tucked it behind the photo.

I created the title area on the lower left following my turned sketch.  I had a gray pocket page piece with "Everything here is wonderful" that I trimmed to use for the title.  I layered it over several of the Note to Self pieces, including a piece with a negative star that I cut for the bottom right of the layout.  And then I sewed over this section as well.

Finally I created a journal area to put my "public" journaling on.  To finish, I stapled several stars that I cut using my Cameo and Fiskars punches (inked in orange-red to help them pop).  I love the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher...I even created some chevrons using the staples in the top right of my page!  A couple of bronze star stickers complete the layout.

I hope you enjoyed my layout today, and I hope you are inspired to create something in earth tones, too.  If you do, share with me!  

Happy, chocolate-filled Friday, y'all!

Majken