anatomy of a layout

I love the monthly themes at Two Peas in a Bucket. I love that it gives me a general idea of where I need my layout to go, but then I can take it from there and freely create. When it came to this month's "milestone" theme, I had to think. For several days. There are lots of ways you could go with this and I almost went with Aven losing his first tooth. That's a milestone for our family. Then we were cleaning out the garage and came across these play boots.

Each boy has worn these boots. They've splashed in the rain, been caked with mud, climbed rock mountains, played at the park, worn to ride bikes and to the pool, worn with fireman and army dress up and covered miles and miles and miles of ground in little boy adventures on little boy feet.

And now they now longer fit either boy and we had to make a decision to throw them out.
It's hard, you know. Something so seemingly insignificant that you buy at the time that becomes a symbol of childhood days. I just can't believe they can't wear them anymore.
So I scrapped about it.
I lined up the boots, snapped a photo and in my own way, kept a piece of them behind. To me, it's almost like a milestone of crossing into big boy territory. Granted, we've been there awhile...they are 5 and 7 after all, but this kinda sealed the deal in my mama head.

I printed off the photo in color and tried to scrap with it that way and just couldn't get it to work.  I had already decided I wanted this Studio Calico light blue paper for the background and had laid out some embellishments to use that were all neutral. I totally dig these Crate Paper alphas, so much that I have 2 packs and am contemplating a third. They remind me of vintage signage. So I had my color scheme: light blue, black/white, touch of brown, and reddish-orange. The green in one pair of boots was throwing me off so I printed the pic in b/w, which made it look 100x better and with a theme like milestones, helped it look timeless in a way.

I decided to make my photo layered and off to the side so everything would be semi-contained in a painted outlined rectangle. I added the polkadot paper with a constellation vellum layer and stitched a piece from this new printable onto the photo. I love these frames from this ephemera pack and add the same vellum to the openings of those pieces.

Why the title on the side? No idea.  There is no real reason and maybe it looks silly, but I like it. I combined the bold "miles" with some handwritten to the title.

I kept all the embellishments to the left side, which I think helps balance out the big title on the right side. The label carries over the title color. I left out  a word in my typed journaling. I'm okay with it. I'll handwrite it in. The black tag had a heart on it, which was cute, but didn't go. I covered it with the Basic Grey star and added a 5 (from the same pack as the die cut frames) because that is the age my youngest son is, the number when neither pair of boots fit.

I love these cork pieces from Studio Calico and when paired with some enamel dots they almost create an arrow effect. Maybe you love arrows (I'm a fan) or maybe you are so over them. I was just going to scatter them randomly, but I needed the color from the title to repeat, these were perfect and when I put them with the cork pieces I liked the look. I didn't start off thinking "I'll make an arrow alternative!" But it works and I'm sure I'll do it again.

This past week I found this layout on my desk and the bottom part was bothering me. I wanted it more simple. So I took this Heidi Swapp color pop paper with it's varnish (love) and covered over my original strip. I think it makes it look better. In the end, I had a little "2/3 rds" rule going on that I hadn't intended.

It's funny how layouts come together, for me at least. There never seems to be a rhyme or reason, but once I really think about it, maybe there is more intentionality that I originally thought. All the garden girls came up with amazing layouts for their milestone theme! So much talent right there. You can see them all here.