Kobra

Wow, two weeks of blogging and this is my thirteenth post which means I've done 12 layouts and an altered notebook. That's pretty good going for me. I've decided to change my post titles from the challenge to the layout name as I think that will make it easier to find old posts. Who can remember what challenge they did a layout for six months down the line? But I might remember the layout's title.

This is another one for Scrap Whispers - the challenge was to scraplift this page from Helen Salthouse:

Initially I was overwhelmed by this one. It's a beautiful layout but there is just so much going on, and I don't do shaped pages as once they are in the album you are going to see the back of another layout around the edges.

I decided to keep the three photos and their curly frames (using up some bought die-cut shapes) and confine my layout to about 3/4 of the page with a bracket shaped top edge, backed onto another piece of paper. I also intended to keep the semi-circle of journalling on the right. It evolved as I worked on it and I came up with this:

I dropped the semi-circle in favour of a cobra, cut from a photograph of the ride and I was going to journal on that, but when it came to writing I realised that there wasn't really much to say. I ditched that idea too and just added the date and location to a tag which I tucked behind the photos. The title was cut from another photo. My husband used to think I was mad taking pictures of signs everywhere we go, but I find them really useful for titles which match the photos perfectly and don't eat into my letter stash. I don't use a lot of embellishments on my pages and while I think that Helen's stitched flourishes and buttons are really lovely, they don't fit into this layout; I shall save that idea for another day.

Supplies
Paper - Crafts House Retro Brown, HOTP Clouds
Card Diecuts - Imagine That...