Love is in the Air!

Hi everyone! It's Ashley and today I'm stopping in to share two new layouts with you. Valentine's Day is only four days away and I'm sure you're wanting to document this special day. So I wanted to share some "love"ly ideas for creating love themed layouts, using the I AM... and Say Cheese II collections.

I think we all have a tendency to document what we feel are the "best" photos on our layouts. But I think it's important to also document the not so perfect photos too. We want our albums to be a record of memories for future generations, so I think that includes the good and the not so good. The photo I used definitely isn't perfect. The kids' hair was wind blown and our son had his eyes closed, but I love that it showed the bond between the kids.

I started my layout, with the idea to create the heart circle die cut and add water color paint behind it. Once I had my die cut paper layered over the dry water color paint, I mounted the white cardstock on the Courageous 12x12 paper. Then I used my sewing machine to add some messy stitched circles around the heart design.

I thought it would be fun to add some dimension to my photo, so I layered it over one of the Interactive Elements. After my photo was in place, I started adding embellishments from the I Am collection including Decorative Brads, Enamel Dots and Bits & Pieces.

On my second layout, using the Say Cheese II collection, I wanted to try out a fun trend that's been popping up lately...String Art. I cut out the letters for the word Love on my Cameo, and then placed them on my background paper. I traced around the letters, and then used my paper piercer to punch holes for my stitching

After I back stitched around the edge of each letter, I randomly criss-cross stitched on the letters using teal embroidery floss to create the String Art look. I wanted the title in the center of my page, so I added my photo and embellishing at the top. I chose the Teal striped patterned paper and embroidery floss, to balance out the Pink that was in my photo.

I also thought it would be fun to create some hand cut letters to finish the title for my page. I used four different papers from the Say Cheese II 6x6 Patterned Paper Pad and my small scissors to cut out the word This. Once I had the letters in place, I used my sewing machine to add some stitching.