2016 PL Week One

Hi, everyone! I'm back with my week one spread here.

It's a one-page spread. I had some more photos and really struggled with making this one page or two, but I ended up pulling out the photos that didn't "sing" for me and only used the best ones! I also used a flip pocket to hide a few of the less-than-cute but still-very-meaningful photos. I love how the colors coordinated on this page. I am so happy with the black and white, plus blue is my favorite, so of course this looks good to me!

 The top left pockets are my weekly card with some pink stars sprinkled on it in a triangle and a picture I took at the gym. On the gym picture I used one of the Studio Calico white and green/blue tags. I stamped it with the Citrus Twist kits "simply begin" stamps and used a "crushing it" puffy sticker. I loved how the grey and green/blue looked together (I think this photo is not doing it justice) so I was happy with the little cluster. The top sticks up a little over the page to give it a bit of interest, I especially liked how the round tag played up the round ball. (It's the little things, right...?) I also edited this photo to death to give it an interesting color, because the subject matter is just not that interesting!

The top right corner is my flip pocket. The biggest thing that happened this week was that my little puppy had to have 22 teeth pulled! TWENTY TWO! I was so scared she wasn't going to make it through the operation! First I used a photo I took of her on our couch. Our couch is an medium cobalt-y blue, so I made it black and white so it wouldn;t clash with the grey-ish colors on this layout. I also liked how dark it was to balance the picture in the lower right corner. I fussy cut some numbers out of the Maggie Holmes Shine 6x6 paper pad from the January CT Verona kit. I have to say again how much I like that CT gives us 6x6 sheets, the size is just perfect for PL! I layered it over a circle cut out of a pink SC card that I fussy cut and used on a different page. Then I used my Silhouette to cut out "teeth," which I had welded together in Silhouette Studio so it was one piece and easy to pull up. The silhouette adds just the perfect touch to my pages! I layered it over one of the white and green/blue metallic tags from Studio Calico. For the sewing, I layered everything, glued it down lightly, and poked holes a quarter inch apart. Then I used thread to sew through it. I have a sewing machine but it's so much work to get out! So I did this by hand. After the poking holes, it wasn't so hard, I just did it while binge watching "The Tudors!" No problem! 

So I inserted that whole photo into a WRMK waterfall sleeve. On the back, I put my doggie's medicine box and I stapled the "she said" cut apart tag from Citrus Twist (because my vet is a woman and she told us to give my dog the medicine! Get it? Hahaha- so clever!) I used one of the SC tickets with numbers on it to staple to the outside of the pocket. It's kind of a cue that this photo is interactive. The photos underneath are a screenshot of a text message from a friend, whom I was texting while my dog was getting her operation. Again, I was freaking out. She said my dog was a "tough little smidgekin" which I thought was the cutest, so I screenshotted it and wrote "tough little smidgekin" with my Uniball Signo in white on the picture. That second picture makes me laugh so hard! My little smidgekin was so high after her operation... I used the fuse tool to put the whole thing together. The trick with that is to let it warm up for enough time, like 15 minutes. I definitely had a learning curve with that thing!

I really liked this little trick because I got to put in the photos I love and that tell my story without having to worry that they didn't perfectly jive with the rest of my colors. Will definitely do this again!

The first pocket here is our lottery ticket (yeah, I did it! No, I did not win!). I sewed myself a little vellum pocket using the same method that I described above. the "this is meant to be" is cut out from a Citrus Twist card. It was really a moment of growth when I could bring myself to do this! I really liked that blue! But the sentiment was perfect and I love the little banner so I will try to do this again once the anxiety subsides. I added a yellow label from the CT cut apart and a pink ticket from the SC kit. I clipped it all together with a gold paperclip. I picked up a packet of like a hundred of those for about $3. Definitely check out office supply stores for scrapbook supplies! Though this pocket is technically "interactive," I don't plan on taking that ticket out. The ticket and label are not glued down and I'm worried about the ticket fading. The pocket on the right is a Studio Calico journal card I printed some journaling on with my laser printer. I added a washi strip to bring in some of the colors from the rest of the spread and it also goes with the numbers theme I have going on.

Alright, let me just talk about this selfie for a minute. It was snowing and I took a selfie but you couldn't really see the snow in it. Which is fine on its own, everyone loves a good selfie, but it didn't tell a story. So, I opened pictapgo and found the "snow" filter. Voila! Insta-snow! Also, I look amazing in it if I do say so myself, so of course it was going in! I stamped "brilliant" with the SC roller stamp and grey pigment from the SC kit. Then I added some more of those pink stars. Let me tell you, attaching those pink stars to the paper was *hard.* But I finally got them to stay down with some roller dot adhesive. And a lot of swearing! The card on the right is a journal card about my puppy's operation and all of my tears. I stamped "less of that" from the CT stamp kit (I LOVE THOSE LITTLE STAMPS!) and an frown-y face from an old SC kit on one of the SC white and blue/green metallic labels. I stamped the date all over it with my roller date stamp. Then I printed my journaling on it. I spent so much time making sure it would fit perfectly. Then when I finally printed it, I forgot to remove the text box lines! That is classic me... So careful yet so spastic. So I whited out the lines from the text box and covered it with white and black polka dot washi tape. I like the final effect and I wouldn't have gotten it without my screw up, so happy accident, I guess! I also added the cats and dogs flair badge from the SC kit on the outside of the pocket, to keep it from buckling too much. I love the black and white of that card.

This is a photo of me and my pixelated-faced girlfriends from a night out. I layered a piece of the circles I cut out of another card, a ticket with the date stamp, "dinner and drinks" stamp, and "more of this" to play off of the dog's teeth surgery card. I tiny attached it and added another pink star (grrrr!). We almost never go out and are trying to make more friends here, so I liked that I could memorialize our new friendships.

The bottom right is really simple. This is a card that came in the SC kit. I have to use it now or wait a whole 'nother year! I also liked the sentiment for our resolution to do more stuff with our new friends. Finally, a really good selfie of me and my boo taken by the lights from the Christmas tree that was still up outside the restaurant we went to. The little tree lights are sparkling in our nerd glasses! These are two 3x4 cards in a 4x6 pocket. I am waiting to see what my next layout looks like to decide how to handle these. I can either glue them on the back of the 4x6 I put behind it, or I can use my fuse to make it into two 3x4 pockets. I love that little tool gives me options!

So that's it for this week's layout, but in other news, I ordered the Basic Grey warehouse box! Go get it while it's hot! I will try to do an unboxing video if I can figure out a set-up for that. Or at least take some pictures of what comes in it. So, keep an eye out for that!

Thanks for reading! Leave any questions here or follow me on instagram @hello_elle_wood. I'd love to interact with other PL'ers! Bye for now!