A Recipe for Cousins

These photos are from my cousin Tara's (she's the only blonde in the picture, not my only blonde cousin but the only one to be at the dinner) college graduation. Originally I was going to do a graduation themed layout but when I started trying to incorporate all of the photos from the day it got a bit overwhelming and started looking extremely busy. Since "busy" is one of the areas I'm trying to improve on I decided I didn't want to go there and these two photos were calling out to me.

I went back and forth between "sugar and spice" and "naughty or nice" for this. Ultimately "sugar and spice" won out because "naughty or nice" seemed more of an opportunity for a Christmas themed layout, an idea I am definitely considering using for some of my holiday photos, so don't be surprised if a "naughty or nice" layout shows up some time soon on this blog. With the decision to do sugar and spice my mind immediately went to the poem:

Sugar and spiceand everything nicethat's what little girls are made of
Sunshine and rainbowsand ribbons for hair bowsthat's what little girls are made of
Tea parties, lacesand baby doll facesthat's what little girls are made of 

From there I decided to make it into a recipe. I found some free downloadable recipe cards which I put in photoshop to alter slightly to go with my aesthetic and use a handwriting font to write up my cousin recipe.  

 I really like the color scheme for this layout, I actually started with just the solid pink and green but found it looked very plain and unappealing so I brought in the patterned papers but still found it lacking due to the matchy matchyness of it all and that's when I decided to bring in the periwinkle background which I fell in love with. The "sugar" and "spice" letters I used came in my "the Summer of '69" August kit from Studio Calico. Every month I'm excited to receive my new kit even if I stockpile everything in it and rarely create a layout that includes only things from it. LOL

These cupcakes were cut out using an exacto knife from a cardstock filled with cupcakes and candy. It was a time consuming endeavor but one that I think paid off as I really like the way they came out. I originally tried using scissors but the flexibility and maneuverability just wasn't there and I butchered a cupcake and a little pink frosted cake before I would admit it. The baked goods fit in with my recipe idea as well as the whole "sweet" thing so I was happy with them.

 I used star and heart shaped punches on the same patterned papers that I used in the rest of the layout to add sprinkles throughout the page. I chose and  cut several different words (friendship, kindness, lovely, happiness, sweet, etc.) from a cardstock that was just many different words on an off-white background to highlight the best things about me and my beautiful cousins' relationship.  It's hard to see here but the pink striped tab on top of the recipe card is from a Studio Calico kit, I hand wrote the recipe title onto the tab so it would seem more authentic.

 Here you can see more of the hearts and stars as well as one of the little pink cakes I cut out as well as a closeup of some of the recipe card  I created. The "happy" button is also from a Studio Calico kit, I'm not sure if it was the Summer of '69 kit or a different one but it did come in a kit.

This photo and the previous one both also show some of the paper layering I incorporated in this layout. I am becoming partial to the layering effect because it lets me use so many different papers in one layout without wasting all the paper. It also lets me save what wasn't used to incorporate into other layouts as well.

These butterflies are from some pre-punched paper punches I purchased off ebay. There are quite a bunch of different ones but some of the paper choices were strange or don't match anything I actually own, so with these butterflies I just flipped them over and used the white side rather than the orange and brown paper they were punched from. The little movements are stickers from different gem butterflies. The sticker butterflies didn't really look right on the page but I liked the movement dots so there they are.

This is the part of my layout that I'm not to happy with. I really need to do some work on my lettering placement. The way I've placed it you can't really tell if it's supposed to say "What are beautiful cousins made of?" or "What are cousins beautiful made of?" The problem was that I had glued down the first three words before I noticed how bad the rest of it looked. Well there is always room for improvement and that is a goal for the future.


I hope you liked this page as much as I do. I had a lot of fun creating it. Thanks for reading, drop me a line if you have any pointers or comments, I would love to hear from you.