Happy Memorial Day! I hope that each of you has a wonderful day of remembrance with family and friends planned. We are looking forward to a busy but nice Memorial Day, or rather a nice continuation of our Memorial Day weekend. So far this weekend we have enjoyed warm (hot!) weather, work in our yard, dinner with friends, and far too much food (especially given that I am dieting). Monday we plan to attend a neighbor's afternoon party and enjoy the company of our older son, who is coming to town for a job interview. Oh, did I forget to mention Monday evening's grilled steaks, Italian potato salad, balsamic green beans and Eton Mess shared with 2/3 of our children? (If I do a nice table there will be a post tomorrow!).
So even with all of the Memorial Day/weekend celebrating going on today is still Monday and that means it is also a Bitten by the Bug 2 Monday! Our challenge cut of the week was selected by my very talented design team sister, Julia Moss. Julia suggested that instead of a specific Cricut cut that we once again go with a weekly theme. This week's theme is GARDEN. We had to create a project that included cuts we might see in our gardens.
I am not a vegetable gardener, unlike many of my family members before me, so I did not go with a vegetable garden theme. I think God put that Farmer's Market downtown for a reason and I have no problem visiting it (and the local super markets) for my fruit and veggie needs. That being said, I do LOVE flowers! When we purchased our house it was still being completed by the builder and this gave us a lot of freedom with our landscaping. My goal was to have something in the yard in bloom year around. Between shrubs, trees, and flowers we have managed to meet my goal! The plants with the longest blooming season are my Knockout roses. I have three colors of knockouts and I love them. So for my layout I chose roses!
I used only two cartridges to create this layout, Close to My Heart's Art Philosophy and Martha Stewart's Seasonal Cake Art. I cut the word Beautiful using MS Seasonal Cake Art, and every other cut on this layout page was cut using the Art Philosophy cartridge. It really is the Renaissance cartridge in that it does it all!
I started the layout with a vague idea of roses on a flourish. I found this great flourish on Art Philosophy and then I used the AP roses on the flourish. In the lower right corner of the layout I added a little button banner, also cut with AP, and the word You - which completes the phrase "Beautiful You". The photo mats were two shaped cuts from AP. And do I even need to tell you where those beautiful butterflies come from? Art Philosophy, of course.
I enhanced the layout with fibers by adding strips of lace and ribbon across the page along with some twine around the photo mats and on the buttons. I used white rub-ons on the top of the page and Prima gem swirls over the flourish cut. I finished the layout with liquid pearl accents and the offset matted photo of my beautiful daughter, Bethany!
I hope that you will be stopping by later in the week - I have something special for you to announce on Friday!!!
Once again I wish you a wonderful Memorial Day!!!