Auntie Love

Back in late April my niece and nephew were born.  They were 5 weeks early and spent some time in the NICU.  I got to see them the day after they were born, but they were still in the incubators at the time so I did not get to hold them.  They were around a month old before I finally got to hold those sweet babies in my arms.  I wanted to do a layout to commemorate the occasion of becoming an Auntie!

I made this layout during a weekend crop at my house.  Throughout the weekend we gave one another challenges to help stretch ourselves.  The challenge I was given for this layout was to using stitching on a page.  Something I've never done.  So I went looking for a layout with stitching.

I found this one in the March/April 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes Magazine.  When I saw that it only used a few pictures I immediately thought of the photos of holding my niece and nephew and decided to try it out.

I originally tried creating a design on my SCAL and cutting with my Cricut.  That didn't work like I wanted it to so I decided that using a border punch as they did in the original layout would probably be easier.  And it was...once I figured out how to make it work.

Here is an example of what I did.  I got my border punch and a piece of paper.  But once I punched the first one I had trouble making the punch line up for the second punch.  I had to turn it over to make it punch through one of the last holes so that it would line up.

Then the lightbulb went off.  You will probably say, DUH, but I didn't realize that if you used the design on the edge to line up what you'd already punched then it would keep your punches in a nice straight line.

Once it's lined up you can punch away.   Now, if you already knew that, you can chuckle at me and go on, but I thought I'd share for those of you  that, like me, may not have figured that out yet.  :)

Once I got my borders punched and added to the page I started thinking about my title.  I found these silver letter stickers and added the title directly to the picture.  There is so much text already on the background paper of the layout I didn't think a small title on that paper would stand out enough.  And I didn't want a huge one.  So adding the letters to the picture gave the exact subtle touch I was wanting.

I wanted to keep the journaling simple.  I could say lots about these two sweet ones, but I know that I will be doing another page about them soon featuring pics of them.  This one is simply about the first time I held them, and I felt like the photos told the story for me.  So I simply wrote their birth date, their names, and weights.

For the journaling tag I added some scraps from the border strips I hadn't used.  On the bottom strip I inked the edges so it would stand out against the journaling tag of the same color.  I also placed gems into the top holes of the strip.  That tied in the silver of the letter stickers on the opposite page.

Where is the stitching you ask?  Yeah, I didn't do any.  :)  I actually totally forgot.  And it wasn't until later when I was looking back at the page I even remembered I was supposed to add stitching.  I could have pulled the layout back out of my album and added stitching but it already seemed busy enough so I decided not to.  The other challenge that had been offered to me was to use a tag on my page which I did, so I felt like I hadn't cheated too much.  :)  And I ended up with a page I really like.

I'm entering this page for this week's challenge at Practical Scrappers.  I had to use 7 things on the page so here is what I used.

1. cardstock
2. patterned paper
3. border punch
4. letter stickers
5. gems
6. ink
7. pen