Laura Vegas

i wanted to share a layout from the july/august issue of creating keepsakes with you today. when i received my copy of the issue, the first thing i noticed was that you couldn't really read my journaling. so i've been patiently waiting until i could share a closer look at this layout. 

as seen in the July/August 2010 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. copyright creative crafts group. posted with prior permission from the publisher.

my assignment was to create a layout that included conversation bubbles. i knew this was a summer issue, and that the photos i choose had to have a good story to them. so that's how i decided to use these photos of joe and sarah. these were taken at a trip to my uncle's cabin, back in the summer of 2003, i believe. will double check that in the morning and adjust if needed. but i'm pretty sure sarah was 4 years old at the time.

so, the story? the cabin is right along the edge of a river. and if you hike up the river, over rocks and down creeks, you get to this gorgeous area. you'll find nature-made waterslides. the land and the rocks have created these "slides" of sorts, and the water from the waterfall (a small hike away) goes through all the slides. once you hike up to the top slide, you make your way down each slide, one by one. once you go down the first slide, you're in for good. and the only way out is to slide down the other slides.

as we were hiking up towards the top, sarah actually fell into the #2 slide. on that slide, you actually sit at the top of a rock wall. then you splash water over the side, and slide straight down into the shallow pool of water at the bottom. but sarah? well, she was looking over the edge or something. and simply fell straight down into that shallow pool of water. mind you, she's 4 years old at the time. i think it was my dad, who jumped in after her and got her back out somehow. sooooo. we proceeded to the top, went to the waterfall area for a bit, and then hiked back down to the first slide. sarah got down the first one, and then the second one (the right way).

that's when she got scared. she did NOT want to go down the third slide. but it was the only way out. she had to do it. so dad walked her through it. i have always loved these photos of sarah and joe. and i always felt like they told such a great story. not just about what happened that day, in that moment. but about her personality and how she acts. so it was perfect for the conversation bubbles. click on the photo, to see the journaling better.

i used the great escape collection, from making memories, for this layout. the orange chipboard letters on the first page are from heidi swapp. but everything else on these pages is from making memories.

for the conversation bubbles, i ended up free-handing my shapes. i cut some practice bubbles first, and then used those as a quide for my journaling. it was just trial and error, to get the journaling spaced just right, to fit in the shape i wanted. i have no tricks up my sleeve for that. just holding the paper up to the screen, and mixing it around until it looks and prints right. lol! once i printed, i traced the basic shape around my journaling, and then cut around it. i then sanded all the edges of each bubble, to soften then up a little bit. each conversation bubble is pop-dotted on the layout, for some extra dimension.