Project 365 Wk 5 - Neg space & hiding photos

Yesterday's post was about creating and using negative space.  This must have been stuck in my mind.  When I was finishing up this layout yesterday, I wanted a subtle title so once again turned to negative space.  To create the title, I just adhered stickers and then sponged over the area with a slightly darker shade of ink than the background paper.  After removing the stickers, a clear title shows through.  It accentuates the 'quiet hero' concept of my husband taking care of everyone in his life with all the little things he does.

Note:  Don't write anything on your ink sponged area and then try to erase it as I did with my penciled in "My."  The ink will come off with the eraser marks.  Just had to leave them in place.

This layout started from a lovely design I saw in an old Creating Keepsakes magazine.  The layout was of single baby photo beside a pocket containing several tags of journaling.  The elements were on a plain cardstock backbground. After 4 weeks of creating layouts with 7 photos each, I figured our eyes would need a rest as we perused our album someday.  So I created the layout using the pocket to hold the remaining 5 photos for the week. 

Try as I did, I just could not put all this on a solid cardstock background with no designer paper.  I tried, I really, really did.  But it was bare, boring, the elements were lost, I tell you, drifting on the page!  So I just had to find a strip of DSP and add a border to bring it all together.

Here's one of the tags inside the pocket.  Lenny has been trying to teach our cat the word "Mine" - meaning, "My chair, you need to get up now."  

The bubble says, "Oh you deluded human.  You think this is your chair."

Clearly, there is a steep learning curve.

Ingredients:  Stamps by SU!  One of a Kind, Office Accruement
Ink:  Night of Navy, Ruby Red, Whisper White
DSP:  Western Sky by SU!
Cardstock:  Not Quite Navy, Ruby Red, Kraft
Embellishments:  A variety of sources including one SU! ribbon and star chipboard from Oriental Trading.