MORE FROM THE BEACH CIRCA 1996

I have been (and will be) sharing more over the next few weeks some layouts that I have created using photos from a trip to the NJ Shore back in 1996.

For today's layout I used a sketch for Make It Monday challenge #43 from The Memory Nest.

Here's the sketch -

For my layout I rotated it 1/4 turn clockwise.

Here's my layout - 

and a few fun close-ups-

I have a really hard time with 'white space'.  This started out as a solid pale blue piece of cardstock. I had this new rolling stamp so I inked it up and ran it diagonally all over the page.  That still didn't quite cut it for me so I got out a red Pitt pen to match the embossed red cardstock mat under the photos.  I added my favorite swirls all over.

The ivory mat on top of the patterned beach paper is a piece of paper made from banana skins!

I hope you have enjoyed my layout...oh BTW the top photo was my husband and the bottom one is my half sister who is 20 years my senior.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I hope that you will leave a comment letting me know you were here and what you thought!  Have a great day!

SECOND FLOOR CHALLENGE - HIGH FIVE!

For this week's Second Floor Challenge you had to choose ONLY 5 items to work with.  This includes the surface you are working on.  I decided to do an art journal page so my first item was my journal.  I nearly always coat my pages with gesso, and besides, gesso is such a great medium for doing other things so that was item #2.  I love my Pitt pen for adding quotes when I am done with my background so that was item #3.  I realized that I needed something to apply the gesso and whatever else I used so for me that would be #4, an old credit card.  I just got a new set of tubed watercolor paints so I decided that would be my last item.  Now to get to work.

I started as I usually do by coating my journal page with gesso using a credit card.  (3 items used already!)  I put little blobs of watercolor paints one at a time and smeared them with the credit card.

I was happy with this but realized it would be too dark for my black Pitt pen.  I could either switch to a white Sharpie paint pen or lighten things up by adding more gesso.  I opted for the gesso as the Pitt pen really is my favorite as it never skips no matter what I am writing on.  

Now for my final item - the black Pitt pen.  I began to write my quote and realized that some of the paint was still a tad too dark to get a clear reading with the pen so I added more gesso.

and now to finish my quote and hence finish my project!

Just like Julie and Nathalie said, this was much harder to do than one would think.  I am so glad that I chose gesso as one of my items.  It gave me the flexibility to continue to make changes as I went along.  

The quote is by Beverly Sills.  It is "...You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try."  I loved this quote as I love to try new things - sometimes they work well, sometimes they don't but I would never know if I didn't try.

Hope you have enjoyed this 7th visit to the Second Floor.