Paperclipping.com March Monthly Challenge Layout

This is what I submitted:


I am submitting this layout for Challenge 2. Here are the tips from Paperclipping Tutorial #136 that I utilized to help me tell this story.
-Multiple photos are helped by the grid layout-helps to keep the layout from being chaotic
-Spread the photos with like colors across the layout so not all the greens were next to each other
-Chose a green background (not sure if that's in the tutorial but definitely from the newsletter tip about backgrounds!) to emphasize the lushness of the woods.
-Embellishments are similar in color and theme and form a visual triangle around the focal point photo
-The swirl brushes on the edges of the pages and by the title are intended to soften the hard lines of the grid
-Lastly, the journaling is subdued even though it's a lot the color kind of "hides" it in plain view.

(Paper and Elements, Vera Lim, Memories Makers No. 4)

The journaling: Norwich, VT (March 21, 2010)- Off Kerwin Hill Road is this piece of land on which the owners have several trails cut and blazed. We needed a hike with gradual inclines and dry ground to keep the girls motivated. I was just so happy. What more could I ask for? Walking through this beautiful, peaceful property on a sun-warmed March day with some of my favorite people in the world has got to be in my top ten things to do in life. As we walked we talked about not much of anything. We admired Mother Nature’s handiwork in the form of mushrooms and fungi feasting on decaying trees. We pointed out twisted and windblown trees whose desire for life outsmarted the winds that knocked them over. We marveled at the fairy glens of intensely green lichens and mosses reclaiming the fallen trunks to the moist boggy underground. The greens, the silvers, the almost-blue stones stacked into walls created a stunning canvas from which our imaginations extracted stories of what the land may have looked like a hundred years ago when 70% of Vermont was deforested. Human presence could be found amongst the handmade hunting stands, the abandoned barbed-wire roll, and the stone turned to fashion a chair upon which some long-ago hunter sat. Nature has been working hard to reclaim herself. It's the never-ending story, so beautifully crafted. I am blessed to have been there.