Flourished Hearts

I have all these photos of Nathalie and thought I would just put a bunch of the really early ones together on a layout. I figured I didn't need a lot of journaling (and I had just finished her birth page and wrote enough on that to get me out of journaling for a few pages). I was originally going to copy this one layout in a book, but in the end, it didn't turn out anything like that layout which was fun. Sometimes, I just need to look at something and then I can turn it into something totally different. It doesn't need to look like a picture.

I had a friend years ago who knew a group of guys who lived together. They used to cook for each other and the only rule was that if you made something from a package, you needed to make it look exactly like the picture on the package. I know a lot of people who try to do the same thing with stamping and scrapbooking; they see a picture but don't know where to start because they don't have the same paper or embellishments. I try explaining that it really is just a guideline. Get some inspiration from it and then make it into whatever you want.

I got the pictures arranged and needed to figure out what I wanted to fill in the empty spots. I often find that the hardest part. I get sick of the same embellishments and so I get stuck. This time, I cut some hearts out of chipboard (I love my Cricut; I can cut whatever embellishments I want and I can make them any size I want). I inked them with Victorian Velvet Distress Ink using my Ink Blending Tool and then stamped my favorite flourish (Magenta) in black. I loved them and they looked great on my pages. But there was still empty spots and I was going to cut out a bunch of flourishes, but instead, I just stamped them in the empty spots and I loved it. It's so simple, which I love.