(You Are Such a) SILLY GIRL - Stick It Down August Double Page Challenge

Now this sketch over at the Stick It Down blog really was a challenge:

I very rarely use large circles in scrapbooking as I find it really difficult to incorporate them into a layout.

I considered cutting the circles from ledger paper and using it for journaling, but I changed my mind when I came across this patterned paper from the One Canoe Two 'Creekside' collection. I thought that those log slices would be ideal for the circles:

So in the end I came up with this double page layout:

Yes, it it extremely lilac, but there is method in my madness... Although I really wanted to use patterned paper for the background this month, I couldn't find anything remotely suitable, bearing in mind that I needed two of the same paper. So I had a choice: wait until the next time I place a scrappy order or make do with what I've got and settle for a cardstock background. I chose the latter in the end. After much debating I settled on the lilac cardstock as this appeared to be the most suitable one I could find (I didn't want to go for an all white background). My daughter is wearing a pair of lilac trousers, so the cardstock goes quite well with the photos.

The log slices created a nice contrast with the lilac background, both in colour and in texture. I used a large map stamp to stamp behind the log clusters instead of using ink splatters.

I used two photos on both sides - I had four photos printed telling the story, anyways, but I felt it balanced the layout better.

Because the log slices are smaller than the circles on the original sketch, the three clusters were too far apart from each other. To fill out the empty spaces, I positioned the title in the gap on the right side of the central cluster and I added a circular journaling tag to the left. It wasn't enough, the layout was still too 'bitty'. So I scattered some gold foil hearts in a wavy pattern across the two pages and followed it with some ink splattering. This seemed to bring the layout together.

As the double page is part of a longer story, I didn't add and dates... lets just hope that I find a way of incorporating all that lilac into the album... ;-)