{We Are Better Together]

Hello everyone and welcome! I hope you can grab yourself a bit of chocolate and check out this layout where I scrapped an old photo of me with my now-husband from around 1987/1988 that my mom found. It's so fun to come across older photos like this and realize just how long ago it seems (or sometimes it seems like yesterday, right?).  I chose to use the Simple Stories We Are...Family collection, a February sketch by Stuck? Sketches, and the Take 5 Challenge from Paper Issues (using the color red, the color pink, a heart, patterned paper, and ink/mist/paint - I actually used more than 5 suggested elements!).

I opted to watercolor and stitch a heart behind the photo area instead of the circles shown in the sketch.  I lightly traced a large heart to provide a guide for my watercoloring using Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a watercolor pen.  Then I let it dry and stitched around it.

Tip: when using water on a layout, to prevent it from curling up, first lightly mist the back of the cardstock.  On this layout, I didn't mist first, and it dried with a slight curl.  After my layout was complete, I misted it on the back and lightly flattened it until it was flat again.

I subbed one of the photos in the sketch with the "love" journal card that I punched with a cross-stitch die (the Simple Stories collection uses a cross-stitch element so I brought it into the layout that way as well).

I used several of the patterned paper, so stickers, so chipboard elements to create the mat, and I used the coordinating alpha stickers for the title.

Next I decided the layout needed to be "grounded" so I created a border with a border sticker, some chipboard and cardstock hearts, and stitching.

Finally, I included the embellishment cluster on the top left instead of on the circle shown in the sketch.

Here is the sketch:

Thanks for stopping by! I'm so glad you could come visit, and I hope this inspired you to do something a little different with a sketch.

Majken