Hey everyone! I've got a new two pager up on the Bella Blvd blog today. I've had sports on the creative brain lately, and have numerous projects started using sports photos of my two girls. But when a photo of my husband, Joe, popped randomly into my inbox one night, I knew it was time to make a layout about him doing what he loves to do - umpiring baseball.
Joe has been umpiring for years and years, and I have to admit that I've never been out to watch him in action. He does mostly high school baseball, so I'm usually working when games are happening. So to have a photo of him land randomly in my inbox, sent from another umpire, it's a nice surprise. I have a few of those photos that I wanted to include here, and I also have some photos I took of him and his gear several years ago. I printed my two main photos as 4x6's and the others as 4x4's.
When it comes to scrapping sports photos, I turn to some simple basic patterns for my patterned papers, as Bella doesn't have a recent sports collection. I'm a huge fan of star patterns in general, and they're perfect for sports layouts. I also love a good grid pattern, and anything with circles. Three of my favorite patterns to scrap with. Although in all honesty, when I set out to pick my papers, I really look for anything and everything that will match my photos. That's my main goal.
An on-going trend you'll find on my layouts is a multiple font title. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I love to mix a large cursive die cut word with clean looking alphas. And the Sienna chipboard alphas are my go-to pick, as they add a bit of dimension to what is often an "all paper" layout. I die cut the word "forever" using a cut file from Kerri Bradford's Grateful kit.
Because I often use quite a bit of patterned paper on my layouts, I like to add a bit of die cutting to the background of my page. In this case, I die cut a circle border piece to go on both sides of the spread. Even though I die cut the border from patterned paper, that bit of whiteness that shows thru helps break up the heaviness that can come from covering the entire page with patterned papers.
I started out having four 4x4" photos, but one of the photos just didn't look right on the page. So I decided to leave that photo off, and added a 4x4" piece of star patterned paper in it's place. To help my chipboard star stand out, I punched a circle from patterned paper to layer beneath it.
I am a huge advocate for journaling on layouts, and it's very rare that you'll see a layout from me without it. Sometimes, I have more to say than other times, but there's always journaling there. I had more to say for this layout, so I printed out my journaling in a large paragraph, and matted it with some green patterned paper. I took out some of my older Bella Designer Tape to add to the top, and machine stitched over it.
This photo here is the one that recently showed up in my inbox, and it's such a great shot! It was this photo that inspired me to create a new layout about Joe, doing what he loves and what he puts his whole heart into. I fully admit that most of my layouts are about our girls, my daycare kids, and even about myself. I guess I needed a little nudge from the universe (or whoever sent that photo to me) to get my husband in the albums too!
This is fantastic Laura!! I so love your two-pagers!!
Posted by: Tracey | July 21, 2016 at 07:42 AM
What a nice tribute to Joe. And a eye-catching layout too. Nicely done. Love your eye for color and design.
Posted by: John Vonhof | July 21, 2016 at 05:28 PM