layout | well hello there

Two months ago May Flaum taught her awesome May With May class at Big Picture. Every day she gave us new inspiration- sketches, color palettes, videos, challenges- you name it! One of my favorites was this color palette from Betsy White.

I had just started to seriously tackle the 1600+ photos we took in Aruba and was itching to scrap some of them. The aqua and green mix turned out to be the perfect match for this adorkable little crab picture!

Supplies | Patterned Paper: Crate Paper (Portrait "Bridesmaids"), My Mind's Eye (Fine and Dandy True Blue- 6x6 Pad, Lime Twist Happy Go Lucky 6x6 Pad); Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper (Avalanche); Buttons: Papertrey Ink; Ribbon: American Crafts (Dear Lizzy - Butter Rose); Letter Stickers: October Afternoon; Journaling Spot: Becky Higgins (Project Life); Tag: Making Memories (Vintage Findings); Pearls: Kaisercraft; Punch: Martha Stewart Crafts; Date Stamp: Office Supply

If I had to give my journaling style a name, it would have to be "Twitteresque." I like short little blurbs (often snarky, of course), which could be part of the reason I like one or two photo pages so much- it's a lot like a photo that's been posted to Instagram and has a comment or two underneath it- just a little snippet of life.

Oh, and I totally typed my journaling on this page with an actual typewriter. And, yes, I did make a typo. And, yes, I did just type over the incorrect letter several times and keep going. That's just real life. :)

So, the story behind this layout (since as of writing this post I haven't blogged that portion of the Aruba photos yet) goes a bit like this...

Darren and I got up waaaaay before dawn one morning to try to find the natural bridge near Seroe Colorado in Aruba. Why before dawn? Because we wanted to photograph the sunrise under it. So we searched around for the lighthouse that marked the spot where you're supposed to start scrambling down the sea cliffs (again, in the dark), but on this particular morning we couldn't find the silly thing (never fear, we did find it the next day). We settled for watching sunrise over the ocean, past the dunes on the south end of the island, and on our way I walked right by this little crab dude, just hanging out in the sand. He was kind enough to pose for some photos for me (instead of, you know, running away), so he got a scrapbook page of his own.

And if you're concerned that I just typed that whole story out but it's not anywhere on my scrapbook page, never fear! It'll eventually end up either on another page or in one of my divided page protector additions (which I'll start highlighting in a series called The Rest of the Story as I make them). If nothing else, it'll be safe and sound here on the blog (most likely both in this post and on the eventual photo post that it's included on).

One other interesting tidbit about this page? I used a mix of both 12x12 and 6x6 patterned papers. I love 6x6's for both their cost-effectiveness (you can often get 2 sheets of each pattern in a line for around $6 for a pad) and for their smaller scale patterns. You should try them out on your pages some time!