Underwater Camera

So the other day, my daughter told me that I have become a card-maker who also scraps. GASP! However, judging by the looks of my blog, she may be right. While I definitely consider myself to be a scrapper at heart, I have been making 10+ cards each month in my effort keep up with all of the special occasions being celebrated by family and friends. Finding time to make these "must-have" cards seems to require lest justifying than scrapping. (Sadly I have only scrapped once or twice this summer.)

The other reason behind showcasing more cards than layouts on the blog is that, frankly, I find cards to be easier to photograph than layouts. And, because of that, I have a stack of layouts waiting to be photographed before I put them in an album. Here's one that I did manage to snap a few photos of before adding it to the album.

These pictures are from Roatan, Honduras. We cruised there two years ago and wound up getting stuck at sea for two extra days thank to Tropical Storm Lee. (But that's a story for an entirely different layout!) This was Mark and Melissa's first time snorkeling and I bought a disposable underwater camera for them to share. The pictures are far from perfect, but I love how they captured they day.

To create this layout, I used the ombre patterned paper as my background since it totally matched the hues from the water. On the left side, I fussy cut the scallops on the Studio Calico patterned paper and layered them with the Dear Lizzy stripe and a Crate Paper border sticker. The "R" came from Crate Paper chipboard and was perfect just for this layout about Roatan. And, seriously, since no one in my family has "R" for an initial, when else was I going to use it!

I created a visual triangle of wood-tone elements between the SC paper, the chipboard letters in the title and the banner in the upper right. Since that banner did not have a sentiment appropriate for this layout, I layered a sticker on top of it. (Yellow elements form another visual triangle.) I also added some stamping on vellum in the upper and lower right-hand corners. The button helps ground the sentiment and creates a third visual triangle of round elements.  Here's a closer look at the title. I added the letters on top of the picture to hide some of its imperfections.

Since I made this layout about six months ago, I am a little fuzzy on the product details.  Sorry :( I will do my best to capture them below.

Supplies:
Patterned Paper: Studio Calico, American Crafts (Dear Lizzy);
Embellishments:  Crate Paper border stickers and chipboard; October Afternoon label stickers, button and flair; Bella Blvd. letter stickers; Technique Tuesday stamps; Papertrey Ink ink; My Mind's Eye enamel dots and word stickers.