cocoa daisy: in stitches!

photos: i finally scrapbooked the photos i took on g's 4th grade field trip to the hermitage, home of president andrew jackson.  these are some of my favorite photos from 2014.  the grounds and flowers were gorgeous, it was a lovely day, and my son looked especially charming in his straw hat.

the story:  the traditional fourth grade field trip at g's school is to visit the hermitage and act as jr. docents.  each child is given a location on the grounds and a small script to memorize.  they all took this task very seriously and it was really precious to watch them present their information to the visitors that walked by.  i say precious because there really was something sweet about their vintage costumes and earnest expressions as they recited their lines. 

when composing my journaling, i wrote my more emotional thoughts on the layout and then used label stickers to add the who, what, where, and when to the accompanying project life page.

design: i kept the design very simple.  the two photos are stacked to create the feel of a larger image on the page.  the design area is aligned down the center with one large main area and then a small addition at the bottom that acts as a bookend to hold the journaling.  as i've mentioned before, i do better with loose, organic designs, so this layout is very structured, but nothing is aligned perfectly.

technique:  i made a very simple, elegant mat for my main design area by blocking it off first with washi tape and using a blending tool to very lightly apply grey ink to the edges.  i then pulled off the washi tape and stitched around the whole area to create a simple frame.

product:  these projects were all created with the january cocoa daisy pajama time scrapbooking kit and goodnight moon add-on.  an amy tan stitching kit comes with the add-on.  this is just one of the things i love about kit clubs.  i probably would never have bought one of these kits, because i figured i could sketch these little designs myself and already had floss and needles to finish them.  the kit is great though.  it's nice to have amy's pre-done templates to give you creative ideas and the tools (needles, piercer, stencils, and mat) are delightfully self-contained.

i kept this spread very simple as the photos were all so nice and i didn't want to detract from them.

i only had one empty pocket that i filled with a journaling card i made with kraft cardstock and another image from the stitching templates.

i am so glad i started doing project life and decided to keep my layouts in the same albums.  for me, it's the perfect marriage of my moment scrapbooking (layouts) with the event scrapbooking (pocket pages) that i was missing out on.

one thing i love about the cocoa daisy kit club in particular is their packaging.  everything comes in paper bags and glassine envelopes sealed with stickers with the best graphics.  you can see a bit of one of the glassine bags peeking out the top of the layout above and just now i am wondering why i didn't stitch the heart on a piece of paper bag instead of the kraft cardstock.  that would have been cool.

some of the kits even come in little muslin bags.  i used one of those to keep my new stitching kit in.  i personalized it by stitching that heart template on it (just use a sharpie to mark off the template on the fabric instead of the piercer) and adding a little stamped image from my January box of goodies.