Hybrid Hump Day and Nature at its Best

What do you do when you have photos of one adorable niece playing in the grass?  Scrap them, of course!

This one is hybrid and was published in ScrapStreet Magazine in August.  And here is how the layout evolved from a template:

Starting with this gorgeous Katie Pertiet template:

I moved elements of the template around to better accomodate my photos and added gorgeous digital paper to create the digi base:

and then embellished with flowers made from Jenni Bowlin Crepe Paper Ribbon:

Supplies: template by Katie Pertiet for DesignerDigitals.com, Jen Martakis Creased Kraft digi paper, Jenni Bowlin Crepe Paper Ribbon, Jenni Bowlin Rhinestone Buttons, Jenni Bowlin Stick Pin

I think my nieces were made to be photographed!  They can work the camera already!

If you're interested in making crepe paper flowers like those above, I've put my ScrapbookChallenges class on this blog.  The link is up top.

Now, something really amazing happened when we were in Rhode Island in August.  There were about ten of us sitting around at dinner.  DH had a north facing window right in front of him.  

dh:  Wow, there's a lot of dragonflies flying around out there.

eating and conversation

dh:  Wow, there's really a lot of dragonflies flying around out there.

more eating and conversation

dh: OK . . . I mean there are a MILLION dragonflies flying around out there.

dh gets up and goes outside

dh:  OMG!! You gotta see this!

We all rush out to see hundreds thousands millions! of dragonflies flying in a south/west direction.  Looking east, we could see the giant cloud of more dragonflies coming our way.

I took photos, but this was really hard to photograph.  Here's one bad photo:

and they were all flying this way:

I never knew that certain species of dragonflies migrate.  Incredibly cool.

thanks for stopping by! - betsy

A Layered Template + JBS Patterned Paper = One Cool Layout

Sooooo, I was having some trouble getting this layout together until I had an idea.  I loved this template by Kate Pertiet:

but I wanted to go hybrid and didn't want to wait for the digi part to be printed . . .  so I moved some things around, made all the elements invisible on the template except for the stitched, fish, and splatters, and stuck my Jenni Bowlin patterned paper through the printer.  I then used a combo of digi and 3-D stuff to finish the layout:

and if you want to learn how to make crepe paper flowers like this one:

using Jenni Bowlin Crepe Paper Ribbon and a Rhinestone button, head on over to the free class here:  Fabulous Flowers .  There's a challenge issued for the weekend and the pdf files and videos are loaded!

And I'll leave you will some pretties:

We'll be heading out for a great baseball tournament this weekend. Hope yours is wonderful!

betsy

Baseball is for the leisurely afternoons of summer and for the unchanging dreams.  ~Roger Kahn