Summer boys

(A note from yesterday's post: when I want to print journaling strips rather than a block, I space them 1.5. It's the perfect spacing for trimming. I read that on a MB sometime.)

My boys are my favorite scrapping subjects. I especially love to scrap their relationship together. Here are two such layouts I made this weekend, both with Studio Calico's kit Partly Sunny:

This first one was motivated by the boys' fighting last week. Too much time together, I think. I used last week's Studio Calico sketch as inspiration. I love mixing patterned paper like this. There were a couple pieces I took out (another blue and green) and a few more (yellow, especially) I added in. Mixing patterned paper involves trial and error, but using similarly sized patterns and similar artistry helps--none of these patterns are distressed, e.g.

The next one was a photo from our trip to Idaho for Phebe's memorial service. We took the boys to a park to play. It had a ball field and one stray ball, and the boys proceeded to invent a game without bats. They were wearing the University of Idaho t-shirts we'd gotten them, and Dominic commented on them; I put the conversation on the page. I'm annoyed that I zig-zagged unevenly, but I'm trying to tell myself that the boys will not care. Well, Dominic might.

A note about taking photos of my layouts: I have a flat, dark ottoman in the living room that I lay them on (you can see it a little in the Idaho Brothers LO). It is next to a western window, so as long as I take a photo before sunset, the lighting is nice and diffused. I stand directly about the LO and move the camera until it appears straight; I don't zoom, but I do move my camera closer. Then I hold my upper arms by my body to be as still as possible and snap. If it is still a little crooked when I download the photo, I use a custom rotation--.7 usually does it.