Bella Blvd: First Day Of School

After a two month break, we're back with the Spread It Out feature today on the Bella Blvd blog, focusing on two page layouts. I went back and forth on what I wanted to do for my layout this time. At one point, I was just randomly scrolling thru my Silhouette library, looking for a fun cut file to jump out at me, and I eventually found one. I've had this circle/star cut file for years (it's from Pink Paislee), and have never used it. I just knew it would be perfect for a school layout. 

And I happen to have some first day of school photos in mind. These photos were scrapped on a layout I created for Creating Keepsakes magazine years ago. It was almost six years ago when I created the original layout, seen HERE, which was for an assignment that led to a very bulky and heavy layout. I actually had it pulled out and in a pile to re-create at some point, because it was just too bulky for my taste in the albums. 

I was able to pull the photos right off the old layout, and use them as is. This saved time, since if I had printed these again, I would have most likely re-edited the photo a bit, or I would have wanted to include more photos than just these four. Any time I can just grab photos and start saves me a ton of time. This also helped with the decision making, as to where the photos would go on the spread, as I kept them pretty much the same design wise. 

I sized the circle/star cut file to fit the left side of the first page of the spread, knowing that it would fill up a lot of the page. I cut it from black cardstock, and also cut out a few extra stars, thinking I would add them to the other side of the two page spread. Once I had most of the page planned out, and I knew where my patterned papers would go, I went back and cut out a few circles from the coordinating patterned papers to add to the large circle/star die cut. 

When it came to picking out my patterned papers, I turned to the Star Student collection first, and pulled out the few patterned papers that would match my photos - the black text, aqua stars, and navy blue dotted patterns. I was pulling my colors straight from my photos, using the colors of the girls shirts and backpacks. So I also added in the green dotted patterned paper and the pink woodgrain patterned paper. 

I also die cut the "first day" from black cardstock, for my title. I knew I wanted a mix of cursive die cut words and clean looking chipboard alphas. Once I had everything laid out, I realized the only way my "first day" really fit was to have the word "first" split between the first and second page of the spread. I don't usually cut things in half, between pages. But it had to be done. And just now, as I'm typing this, I realized that I forgot to dot my "i". Oops.

I knew I wanted to keep the entire center of my spread simple, so that the photos and the circle/star die cut would stand out, but I also didn't want to leave it plain white cardstock. I knew the typewriter Clear Cut transparency would work out great for my background. 

That loopy part of the "y" is part of the reason my title had to be split between pages. I had to find an empty space in my photos for it to fall. Those extra stars that I die cut came in handy too, and luckily, my guesswork on the sizing worked out perfectly.

I used both green and navy blue Sienna chipboard alphas for the rest of my title. It was a great way to work in a little more green onto the page, since I didn't have much green elsewhere. 

My original page had some large silver brads added to the center of punched stars. Since I had pulled them off that old layout, and had them out, I figured I might as well use them on this page as well. It was all the extra embellishing I needed for this spread. 

Comments

[Ivonne]

I love from beginning to end !!. You really are wonderful Laura, is a spectacular LO !. Your projects are always great inspiration for me because I have two daughters also, though little smaller than yours, it's amazing to see how they grow through your creations.
greetings from Mexico

[Tracey]

LOVE THIS!!! The black looks awesome on here!

[Alison Appel]

Laura, thank you for providing layouts that inspire me to keep my pages simple, clean and DONE!