Just Because: Cuddly Boy

Hey everyone! After a bit of a creative break here on the blog (since I have been creating lots here in real life), I'm finally back with some layouts to share. Yep, layouts! I know I haven't been making quite as many layouts this year, as I've been focusing more on my Project Life album and other random album projects. But a week or two ago, I was inspired to create a handful of photo collages with the intention of creating some layouts. And this past weekend, I managed to create three new layouts, just for fun.

This layout is kind of an update on a layout I created a little over a year ago. You can see that layout HERE. The photo collage on that first layout was all of the rocking chair photos I had of Derek his first year of life. That year when he would only nap on my shoulder, while I held him, in the rocking chair. It was a LONG year. Lol. Then he was home for the summer (mom's a teacher), and when he came back to me he was super good about napping on the floor with his other friends. He was only 14 months at that time, but napped right on the floor. 

But it never failed. As soon as his little eyes would pop open, he would come straight to me, wanting to get some snuggles in. Every. Single. Day. I'd pick him up, and we would head straight to the rocking chair. Sometimes, he would fall right back to sleep and we would hang out in the rocking chair until his friends woke up from their naps. Sometimes, after a bit of snuggles, he would be energized and ready to play. 

And I found myself, once again, taking those super fun rocking chair photos. The first photo in the collage (upper left corner) is Derek at 14 months, and the last photo in the collage (bottom right corner) is Derek just days after turning 2 years old. Basically, these photos are his second year of life. And I just love it. I love collages like this, that show an assortment of photos taken over a long period of time. And once I realized how many of these photos I had, I knew I wanted to do a second version of that first layout. 

I kept with the same collage template, from Kerri Bradford's Storyboard: Instagram Style kit, as it works perfectly for my square photos. Once again, I ended up with twelve photos. So once again, I left three spaces in the template empty, knowing I would add my journaling there. I arranged my photos by the date they were taken, so they all go in order from oldest to newest. 

This past weekend, I was inspired to dig out some older products when creating my layouts. There's a lot of color going on in this photo collage, so I didn't set out with any particular colors in mind. I think I actually started with the white embossed cardstock, from Core'dinations, as I had also pulled out another color of that same cardstock for another layout. That strip was all I had left, and it ended up being the perfect size to hold my title. 

The green dotted cardstock came just like that. It wasn't something I die cut, although I think most of you know I'm a huge fan of die cutting circle background pieces like that. It was actually a part of a super old kit-of-the-month from Creating Keepsakes, and again, all I had was that strip to work with and the size was perfect. From there, I came across some older Studio Calico patterned paper. The striped paper just seemed perfect to go with my photo collage, as it had a lot of the same colors. 

For my title, I searched in my Silhouette library, looking for something like "snuggles", and while I couldn't find that, I did find "cuddly". That would totally work. I added "boy" from one of Kerri's cut files, to get my "cuddly boy" title. Derek is seriously the cuddliest boy ever. None of these other kids here cuddle, or even sit still on my lap. Except him. He's up for it ALL the time. 

When I went to add some buttons to my layout, I may have said "who has buttons that would match that striped paper" out loud to myself. I had a few jars pulled out, and then remembered that I had some Studio Calico buttons I had picked up on a big sale a year or two ago. Since the striped paper is by SC, it made sense to use SC buttons. 

I wanted to add a little something under my photo collage, and had this yellow tone-on-tone dotted paper pulled out. I punched some quick half circles, and adhered them across, tucking them under the collage. 

Little dude is home for the summer again, and I miss his already. I miss his snuggles. He'll be back before I know it, and I'm feeling pretty confident there will be more of these rocking chair photos to come ;)

Comments

[Deneen]

Oh how this makes my heart happy. It's inspiring me to want to scrapbook and actual real layout page LOL. Derek is such a cutie too!