Penscrappers June Challenge

I submitted this layout for the Penscrappers.com challenge for June. The theme was to scrap what you love using  a freebie kit by Michelle Coleman called "Wild Hearts." I love Michelle Coleman's work and have quite a few of her kits. I was trying to figure out how to make these photos fit with this kit. Sometimes it's not always obvious. There was some green paper in the kit but the pattern was all wrong. Thankfully there was a grungy yellow cardstock that works perfectly for the background of this layout. I wanted to use a little more color so adding the red reinforced the theme and drew the eye through the layout. I also worked the key-lines in to contain the layout and give it form (see this tutorial at Designer Digitals for more about this.)

I converted one picture of the peony using the Colored Pencil Filter in PSE. I like how the filter caught the water droplet detail. I used the same filter on the background photo before blending it into the background. I am trying to figure out ways to use the multitude of photo effects available in PSE in my scrapbook layouts. It just makes the layout more interesting than using the ordinary photo. I suppose it also depends on the story I am trying to tell and making it all fit. So much more to learn!

The journaling is:

Two, not just one, but two hand-sized blossoms opened to greet the morning sun. “I have a peony bush!” I stared in disbelief. How could I have lived here for seven years and not realized that I have a peony bush right outside my kitchen window? But sure enough, wedged iin between the overpopulated tiger lilies, is this two foot high bush with dark green elliptical-shaped leaves holding up twin fluffy orbs of fragrant white petals. What a gift! Did someone sneak into my yard and plant this little beauty when I wasn’t looking? Did it get mowed down our first summer here and take all this time to grow big enough to blossom? It’s a mystery and I love it! {June, 2010}