Smiles are Joy

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!  We did here.  It's always such a wonderful time of year.  But, between playing piano at church and the boys having their Spring Break I didn't have much time for crafting!  I've also been in a little of a creative rut so let's hope that little break will get my creative gears flowing again.

Today's layout is very different from my normal layouts in the sense that it has flowers on it!  I hardly ever embellish with flowers but since this page was about my boys with their Great Grandma and she loved flowers I had to use them.  As an added bonus the challenge over at Scrapbooker's Paradise this week is Embellish a Little.  I just had to enter this layout.

I made three copies of this layout for both of my boys albums and my family album.  I was super excited to use up so many flowers.  Here is a close up of the cluster of flowers.

I love the little pops of red and the large blue flower.  Some sparkle brads add a little extra touch too.  The flowers were such an easy way to liven up the page.  I just may have to use them more often!

My title was a fun mix of diecut shapes, stickers, and stamps.  It took me awhile to come up with a title for this page as there really was nothing going on in the photo except my boys enjoying time with their Great Grandma.  I loved their smiles and the joy I felt looking at this picture and there was my title.

I cut out the shaped polka dot piece on my Cricut.  I used ink to shade the outer portion to set it apart just a little.  It makes a nice frame without adding another paper to the mix.  The flower that 'are' is stamped on was originally connected to the 'y' in 'Joy'.  I cut it off using scissors and used it to fill the little empty space under 'smiles'.  I originally wanted 'smiles' to be very straight and lined all the letters up on a ruler but when I placed it down they got all crooked.  I love it so much better this way!  Happy accidents are the best!

I hope you enjoyed this embellished page.  I like it more than I thought I would.  It's amazing how adding one element in a cluster can really add to your page.  It's also fun to try something outside your comfort zone.  Thanks for stopping!

Supplies:

• cardstock- Bazzill, misc
• patterned paper- Basic Grey (Oliver Collection Pack)
• ink- Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Pumice Stone), Close to My Heart (Colonial White)
• stamps- Studio G
• alpha stickers- Basic Grey (Oliver Collection Pack)
• Cricut cartridge- Gypsy Wanderings, Wild Card
• pen- Zig Writer (Pure Black)
• tools- Perfect Layers, Creative Memories (circle cutter), EK Success (circle punch)
• misc- brads, Daisy D's Paper Co. (Fresh Flowers), misc flowers