Life's a Beach

Mishal went to the beach during fall break with her friend, and these are the pictures I thought most represented the trip. The quote about doing something illegal in 55 states was something Sarah said, and Mishal found it so funny because there aren't that many states. You may be wondering what they did; they picked flowers, and that's what Mishal is wearing in her hair. This was a layout that I had to take one item at a time and be happy with before I could move on to the next section. I fell in love with this sketch, and used the collage feature in Picasa to create the pictures to go with this sketch. Then I chose the Lauderdale collection by Basic Grey because of the vibrant colors and the zebra print that would play off of the bikini Mishal wore. I was shocked how long it took me to chose which Martha Stewart edge punch to use at the bottom because once I realized which one I would, it was so perfect! I had to pry details out of Mishal for the journaling... plus a trip to her facebook page to see what she posted that week. Just do what you gotta do for the layout, right? Because I think that the journaling is the best part of scrapbooking, I wanted it to stand out on the page, so I framed it using a sticker from the collection and placing bling around it, and then I made it stand out a little bit more by using popdots underneath it. Then it was time to do the title. Mishal told me what it should be, but I didn't have an embellishment or stamp for it. I used the fonts on my computer to cut it out. My favorite tool to choose which font I want to cut out with my Silhouette is the AMP Font Viewer It's so quick to find exactly the font to convey the feeling you want. For the title I used the AR Hermann font, and used firefly stickles around the 'e's. It still didn't look complete, and then I remembered some Sizzlits that I have had for years. They were the perfect touch, and I am very pleased with the results. I used the echo park wave file from the Silhouette library for the wave, but it didn't stand out very well against the zebra print, so I created a shadow out of the same pink I had chosen for the title and for one of the vertical strips of pp; but instead of putting the blue exactly in the middle of the pink, I off-centered it for a more dramatic look. I printed the quote that Mishal laughs about the most and inked the edges with Tumbled Glass Distress ink. Finally, I took a heart from the collection's sticker sheet and matted that with white card stock and outlined that using a pink and then a green souffle pen.