Step-by-Step: One Little Monkey

Supplies:

• Bazzill white cardstock
• Bazzill brown cardstock
• American Crafts patterned paper - A La carte Collection - Anise
• Heidi Swapp Ghost Alphabet - Reason - Pink
• rob and bob studio Funny Multi rub-on alphabet
• Paper Shapers large corner rounder
• Palette inkpad - Moulin Rouge
• Sakura of America Souffle pens - pink and white
• American Crafts black Slick Writer - fine point
• Zig Writer - mustard-colored
• brown chipboard circle
• QuicKutz dies - QDS1005 and QDS1006
• American Crafts buttons
• Glue Dots Pop Up Dots
• Glue Dots Mini Glue Dots

Instructions:

1. Photo Selection. First, of course, I had to choose which of the 100 photos I took to use on this layout. Rather than choosing only the best and sharpest photos, I decided to print a combination of "perfect" photos as well as several blurry action photos. I felt that they really showed the movement and excitement as she was jumping and diving and giggling all over the bed. I also decided to enlarge one of the "perfect" photos to 8" x 10" and one of the blurry photos to 5" x 7". These two photos seemed to sum up the afternoon to me-one showed how small she is on our great big bed, and the other showed how much fun she was having while her daddy was tickling her. Then I added several other 4" x 6" photos that I liked into the mix.
   
   
2. Photo Placement. Next, I worked on photo placement. I knew I wanted the two "perfect" pictures together on one page, so I placed the 8" x 10" photograph in the center of one side of my layout and cropped the photo of her sitting on the bed so that I could overlap it in the open space of the larger photograph. I decided to make that page the right side of the layout because of the way she is facing in the 8" x 10" photo. I wanted her to be looking "in" to the layout.
   
   I knew I wanted to group the photos of Ayla and me and the one of Ayla and my husband together, but I didn't want them to be the focus of the layout, so I cropped them and placed them along the far upper-left side of the left page. In the large open space next to that, I added the 5" x 7" photograph of Ayla laughing at her dad. Next, I cropped the photo of my husband holding her up in the air to a square and overlapped it with the 5" x 7" and the last photograph which shows her jumping.
   
   
3. Title Placement. While looking at the leftover space, I realized there was a perfect spot for my title to overlay the largest photograph in the bottom right section of the layout. I chose the Heidi Swapp Ghost alphabet letters because of their translucent quality. The title "monkey" came to mind because of the story of "5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed." I laid out the title "monkey" with the "m" on the left page and the rest layered on the right page on top of the photograph. I planned to add "one little" and "jumping on the bed" later, once I had glued everything down and had a better idea of what type of lettering I wanted to use.
   
   
4. Title Design. The "o" in "monkey" was just screaming for a little monkey head to pop through, so I took a look at my stash of embellishments and came up with a cute little monkey made with a brown chipboard circle and three yellow buttons. Using mini-glue dots, I added a button to the front of the circle for the nose and mouth and put two buttons behind the chipboard circle to create ears. Then I drew eyes and a mouth. My monkey needed hands so I was thumbing through my QuicKutz dies and saw some tulip dies and a branch that I knew would be perfect for hands and a tail (once the leaves were trimmed from the branch). I used a pop up glue dot to add the monkey head and tail to the "o" and glue it to the page. (At this stage, the "o" was the only element glued to the page.)
   
   
5. Color. With the basics laid out, I decided I needed a punch of color added to the layout, so I chose a patterned paper with similar colors to the polka dots in my daughter's skirt. Instead of using a large amount of the patterned paper, I cut some random-sized squares and rectangles and began placing them around the layout. I ended up with three blocks of patterned paper on each page, creating visual triangles. Depending on the placement, some I layered above and some I layered underneath my photographs and title.
   
   
6. Embellish. Next, I decided to soften the edges of several of the photos and the patterned paper blocks by using a corner rounder. I didn't round the edges of every photograph though. I wanted the photos with rounded edges to be shown off in a different way. To make the patterned paper blocks stand out a little better, I ran the edges of the blocks across a pink ink pad. I also ran the edges of one of the photographs (the one where my husband is holding Ayla up in the air) across a brown ink pad and matted another (the one of her sitting and smiling) with brown cardstock (also with rounded edges).
   
   
7. Glue. Finally, I felt like the layout was ready to be glued. Starting with the bottom layer of photographs and patterned paper blocks and working my way up, I began gluing everything down using a glue stick. Next, I used mini-glue dots to attach the title letters to the layout.
   
   
8. Finishing Touches. With everything glued in place, I decided to add a little bit of penwork by adding a thin pink line around the matted photograph. Next, I chose a fun multi-colored rub-on alphabet to finish off my title lettering.
   
   
   
   
   Finally, I hand-wrote my journaling along the right margin with a mustard yellow marker to complete the page.

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