Punchbowl Layouts

I didn't quite meet my goal of scrapping the remaining two layouts for my Hawaii album this weekend. I did finish one layout on Saturday night, and I had laid out the papers for a second one, but then on Sunday I got lazy and just read a good book after church. Ever feel like that? Today I woke up with my creative juices flowing, so I buckled down and finished the last layout. I totally changed the papers I had set out on Friday night, but I like the result much better this way. For the first layout, I created masks for certain portions of my layout, attached them temporarily to my background cardstock, and brayered over the cardstock using Dutch Blue ink. I was able to achieve a much lighter background shade than if I had used plain Dutch Blue cardstock, plus I got the look of patterned papers. I removed the masks and used the Simple Stitches stamp set to create the journaling lines, the borders around two of the pictures, and the large stars. For the second layout, I had made up my own sketch, but I kept moving things around until I got the look I wanted. In case you're wondering why I listed all those Word Puzzle stamps, I used portions of them to spell out the word "price" so it would match the font for "remember." I love how the twill ribbon I used to attach my tag is formed into a V for victory, an unintentional result that really fits the theme of the layout: the cost of freedom. I've always found the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (Punchbowl) to be pretty impressive. Seeing all the graves and realizing that the people buried under them gave their lives to preserve our liberty is a sobering thought. I only showed a small portion of them, but the memorial contains mosaics depicting battles (mostly naval) of WWII and the Korean War. Definitely worth seeing if you are visiting Oahu.


Recipe:
Simple Stitches, July Word Puzzle, Charm Upper Alphabet, Charm Lowercase Alphabet & Classmate Alphabet stamp sets
Colonial White cardstock
Dutch Blue, Desert Sand & Outdoor Denim ink
Desert Sand marker
Foam squares
Brayer



Recipe:
Friendship Alphabet Small, Tiny Typewriter Alphabet, January Word Puzzle, July Word Puzzle, August Word Puzzle & September Word Puzzle stamp sets
Free Spirit Level 2 papers
Cocoa, Indian Corn Blue & Colonial White cardstock
Cocoa & Indian Corn Blue ink
Twill & Cocoa grosgrain ribbon
Photo hanger
Pewter brads