Retrofit

Several weeks ago (maybe even months ago) a friend and I went to a local expo for women. Now that I think about it, I think it was on Mother's Day weekend... Anyway, one of the businesses there let you sit down and make a fun layout right there. It was a neat takeaway and it involved some techniques I hadn't done before, so it was double cool. Here's a photo of it.

However, as soon as I got home I realized I had no idea what I would do with it. It seems like such a crime to create something so pretty and then never use it, but trying to retrofit a completed layout to my photos is sooooo hard for me. I usually start with the photos and then figure out a layout to show them off.

In early May we got some great family portraits done, so when I picked them up in June I decided I wanted to use them for this rouge layout. Of course, then I realized another problem: I only had one layout and I always do spreads (two layouts that are meant to be seen together). Ug- a retrofit with a challenge...

In the end, I decided to cut the layout and put part of it on one layout and part on the opposing layout. Then I stole some white paper (see photo at right) from where it wouldn't show to frame NJ and added some blue as accents around the other two photos. I did my journaling on the computer and printed on vellum again (even though the snooty lady at the out-of-town scrapbooking store swears it doesn't work). Here's the end result! Now I just need some embellishments...