Jennifer - A Snippet Layout

Afternoon All

Well, its been a dreich, dreary, dreadful weekend ... rain, rain, and yet more rain ... and this while the rest of Britain swelters apparently. So, with nothing to tempt me outdoors, I holed up in the craft space and created this wee 8"x 8" layout ... another one for Granny Ann's album.

This photograph of my oldest granddaughter, Jennifer, was taken by the local newspaper photographer on her first day at nursery school. She was a very solemn three year old then, and it seems like it was only yesterday, but she's nineteen and a mother herself now! Unfortunately, the photo is in black and white so we can't see the colour of the pretty dress she is wearing, but I remember it well enough to pick out papers and embellishments that are similar in colour ... pinks, creams, greens and a touch of brown.

Apart from the floral backing paper with its reverse of brown dotted design, all the papers are from my snippets pile. The photograph is matted onto a piece of pink gingham paper - origin long forgotten! The cream polka dot embossed card and the butterfly embossed vellum matts came from my box of testers ... the result of me playing with any new embossing folder I get. The vellum is white but backed with the last snippet of a much loved pink paper called Indian Summer by Basic Grey. A bit of distress inking around the edges, punched edging, ribbons, dragonflies, butterflies and flowers complete the layout.

Materials used:
Base: Basic Grey, Kioshi Motochi;
Snippets of Basic Grey, Indian Summer Woodrose, Cream cardstock & White vellum;
Embossing folders: Docrafts Papermania Mini Polka; Craft Concept Wings;
Other materials: Tim Holtz DI, Shabby Shutters; X-cut border punches; Craft Essentials Butterfly embellishments; Green satin & pink saddle-stitched ribbons.

Because the layout used a healthy amount of paper snippets and ribbon scraps I'll be submitting this to Jules' Crafty Snippet Challenge - Week 39.  Despite being quite assiduous in my use of leftovers, scraps and snippets wherever possible, the pile doesn't seem to be getting any smaller ... sigh! However, it does exercise the old grey matter looking for ways to use them up.

This is not the first time I've made a layout around this photograph. I made a page some time ago for my own heritage album and I thought you might like to see this version, a 12" x 12" layout, just as a comparison. I apologise for the quality of the photograph ... it was taken over a year ago with my old camera which did not give particularly good results.

As you can see the colours used are very similar in both pages but this one is more vintage in style. And, it was made in the early days of crafting for me so no border punches to make pretty trims, but I see I sneaked a bit of stamping in :) This page has a computer generated title ... a bit predictable perhaps, but I'm useless at thinking up titles.

Materials used: My Mind's Eye 'Wild Blossom Paper', Basic Grey 'Indian Summer in Woodrose, green cardstock, 4 types of lace in cream, white and pink, Prima Essentials 'Shabby Chic' in brown & pink, handmade lace flower, rose sprays and pearl droplet trim from the haberdashery department of my local department store, butterfly charms and pink heart-shaped buttons from a local bookstore, journal stamp from Papermania Boutique collection, black Stazon ink, various adhesives.

You may have noticed that for Granny Ann's album page I've not used anything other a little bit of  journalling, the basic information in fact. This is because I think Ann, and her family, will want to know who, when and why more than anything else. I find it difficult, when making an album for others, judging just how much to put in and, more importantly, what's best left out.  I'm hoping I've struck just the right note here.

I hope you have all had a great weekend ... weatherwise it couldn't have been much worse than we've had here, that's for sure. I can hear the sounds of Songs of Praise coming up from the TV so it must be time to think about dinner.

Happy crafting all,