Laura Vegas

Hey all! I'm back to share another pocket page spread from my 6×12" album. For this one, I dug into the "Tough" Story Kits from Ali Edwards. This was actually the first kit that I wanted to work with, and one that I knew exactly what I would use it for. Well, the first project I would use it for, since there's still plenty left for some other stories. Which is good, because I have quite a few stories that come to mind that will really fit this theme. 

I really went back and forth on my plan for this project, going from doing a pocket page spread, to maybe a one page layout, back to a pocket page spread, and so on. I knew I wanted to include a good amount of journaling, and I finally settled on doing a pocket page spread, with one side being a full 6×12" page.

I used a 6×12" layered template from Ali Edwards (found HERE) to type up my journaling in. This made it SO much easier to know just how much space I had to journal in, rather than using Word and a text box (those 2 things and I do NOT get along). The template I used had space for a 4×6" photo on it, and I knew I would be adding a 4×6" card from the kit, so it worked perfectly.

I knew that I wanted to use the "tough" acrylic word in one of the 4×6" pockets. I picked out one of the 4×6" cards, and adhered the word directly to it using some mini glue dots. 

I don't have a ton of photos of myself, but I do have this one that I took of myself at the beginning of the year. I was actually working on my tax stuff at the time, but the look on my face felt fitting for what my journaling was about. And turns out, it was taken right around the same time that so many things really started changing for me. 

I knew that I wanted to include this 3×4" card with the quote "she stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails". I'm not a big one for quotes (meaning I don't pay much attention to them sometimes), but oddly this fit my story. And it's exactly what I did. Adjusted my sails so to speak.

My journaling took me way longer than I thought. I had a lot of words I would have loved to let spill out onto the page, just to get it off my heart (is that a saying, because it's what keeps coming to mind when I talk about it). I consider myself a pretty good writer. And while sometimes my writing can read more like ramblings, I think there are other times where my writing says everything I'm thinking, in a clear and concise way.

I tried to sum up some of what I've gone thru this year (and leading up to this year, if I'm being honest), and the lessons I learned thru the experience. It's real. It's honest. I think I've always been very truthful in my writing and in how I interact with people, and I don't try to sugar coat anything, just to make others happy. It's what happened. It's what I've gone through. Basically, it is what it is (my life motto).

After I printed out my journaling, and trimmed it to 6×12" in length, I adhered this 4×6" card to the bottom of the page. I had intentionally left room right above it to add a chipboard strip from the kit, and added one of the little plastic strips (which I totally thought was washi until I went to use it), adhering a few enamel dots to either end of the strip. 

In some ways, it felt very therapeutic to work on this spread. I needed to get some of these thoughts off my heart. Off my chest. However you want to put it, I just needed to get some words out of my head and onto the page. Sometimes, when things happen, when things change, you are able to get a sense of closure and turn the page, close the book, or whatever it is you need to do to move on and put it all behind you. Other times, there's absolutely no closure, nothing to make you understand why things happened the way they did. So it's a little harder to just move on and forget about it. That's where the "it is what it is" comes in, I suppose.