I just love my mom. Sometimes we drive each other nuts, because we're both really strong-willed women, too much alike in some ways. I'm a messy, and she's a perfectionist. That made for some interesting discussions about messy rooms while I was growing up! But the older I get, the more I realize I am in many ways a perfectionist, too, but only about certain things.
Scrapbooking is not one of them. I like a page that is colorful and compelling, with as many pictures as is possible fit in, but it doesn't bother me if the photo borders weren't cut with the Perfect Layers Tool or if the stamping isn't 100% perfect. I am able to get the whole spread (two-page layout) to a place where I like, and then I'm able to leave it and move on. I never spend more than an hour on a page...
Can't move on from this one. Spent way more than an hour. I call it a shadowbox page, and the picture doesn't do it justice, if I do say so myself. I cut the photo frame, double matted, with my Coluzzle, stamped it with the flourish from Baroque Motifs in very pale Bashful Blue ink, and filled the oval frame with Crystal Effects. The edges are scored for even more 3-d effect.
After I got the photo frame done, the background paper (now-retired Le Jardin DSP) that I had already chosen looked like antique wallpaper, and the "frame on a shelf" idea took form. The shelf is made 3-d by scoring faux crown molding into it and adhering with Sticky Strip, after adding crackly woodgrain with the Weathered background (retired now as well). I embossed the oval Hodepodge Hardware piece because at that time we did not have Vanilla, which we do now!!! It's also filled with Crystal Effects and looks like an enamel charm.
I finished off the shelf idea with a string of pearls from the Pretties kit. It looks like a necklace casually thrown on the dresser--at least that was the idea, anyway. I made the Pretties Kit flowers look like the vintage wax and cloth flowers you find on dusty old hats at estate sales, by dyeing them to match the So Saffron colors in the DSP, adding lots of brads to the centers, and coating them with Crystal Effects. I think I used about a whole bottle of that stuff on this page! Lastly I sponged everything to give it an even more vintage feel.
I probably should have chosen a different photo for this page, or at least had it printed in sepia or black and white. But the photo is very special to me, because it is of myself, my mom, her mom, and my first born child. Four generations. As I watch Dan create detailed puppets out of paper bags and construct elaborate robots from cardboard boxes and paper towel rolls, I can see that the creativity passed down from those amazing women runs in his veins, too. It's one of the coolest parts of being a mom so far--maybe THE coolest part. Watching his little mind work, form ideas, encounter obstacles, develop creative ways to go around or over or barrel through them. Another cool part of being a mom is watching YOUR parents watch your kids. That must be just as cool for them.
And he loves stamping. Maybe someday he'll be one of the hotshot Stampin' Up male designers who all the women swoon over at convention! I'd be so proud. And so would my Mum.
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