Hello friends!

I  have two layouts to share today,  which were created with the Gather Together Simple Set. Even though we Canadians have had our Thanksgiving under our belts (no pun intended) for some time now,  American Thanksgiving is just a few days away and so this is a perfect time for me to share pages that express Thankfulness and Gratitude.

Our family celebrated a very small and somewhat nontraditional Thanksgiving this year, as our older children could not make it home for the holiday.  We opted not to do a typical large meal, and spent the extra time doing fun activities and prepping more relaxed meals together.  We made the best of it and had fun, even though we missed our older boys, daughter in law and grandson terribly.

My first page documents how much we love to take fall nature walks and how my husband makes sure we all take this time to enjoy the fall colours, outdoors and time together each year.  I love that about him so much.
 

I was inspired to use a large, as in 12 inches tall, photo for my layout.  The only problem is I do not own a 12 x 12 printer, or 12 inch photo paper!  So I faked it, sort of.  Several years ago I shared a tutorial showing my readers the really cool effect of printing onto textured cardstock.  I thought I would revisit that technique so that I could create a photo that measures 4 x 12.  I printed it in both black & white and colour, and I love both, but for this page I opted for the black and white as you can see.  I did this because I wanted this story to be about gratitude and not the colours of Fall. The photo is not perfect, actually it is slightly grainy, but I really love that it has a sort of "aged" look.

I love this pretty heart paper and wanted it to feature heavily on my page, so I kept the other patterns to a minimum.  Then I created further impact with embellishments.
 

I used florals (mainly from the Hello Fall collection) and a few fussy cut feathers and other nature inspired stickers from the Gather Together Mini collection to create a beautiful cluster to the lower right side of my photo, it has such great impact!  My title is layered over the lower portion of my picture and I love the way it pops, and feeds into the embellishment cluster.
 

On the top right side of my page I added a spot to journal by cutting down a 3x4 cut apart card and adding embellishments around it.  It balances the first cluster really nicely.
 

For a last little bit of pop, I added a small cluster to the upper right of my photo, which completes my visual triangle.  I love that this page turned out pretty much exactly as I had imagined it!

For my next layout, I am focusing more on the food elements of the Gather Together mini collection.  As I was trying to decide what photo to scrapbook, I realized that I take many photos of food and not very many of us enjoying the food or the company at dinner - I think I need to change that! Anyway as I mentioned, we opted for a smaller non-traditional Thanksgiving meal this year, and if our youngest is choosing it is usually something to do with steak!
 

Once I decided on my background paper and the oh so pretty plaid as a secondary paper, my layout which features large and small focal areas, was also pretty much decided by the way I used the papers.
 

My main focal area includes my picture and title as well as a few embellishment clusters. Once again I pulled in a few flowery embellishments from the Hello Fall collection. I love the way these collections work so well together.
 

This smaller cluster at the bottom right of my page mimics my focal area, with the exception of the photo. I love the way this area turned out!  The pumpkin cluster was fussy cut from another sticker so it was missing some of the white border around it, I disguised this by doodling around the upper portion of it with a white pen.
 

I added one more small area to the right of my photo so that I could have a spot for my journalling, not to mention an excuse to use a few more sweet stickers!

I love the way this page turned out, although I do wish I had thought to add some machine stitching, but I think it is just fine without it.

Thanks so much for visiting today!

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