Mother of...!!!!!!

I decided to do a challenge this week to really get back into the swing of things blogging wise...and I almost lost it.  I almost lost the will to craft.  I almost lost my breezy attitude.  I almost lost my mind.  I started with a really beautiful sketch by Shimelle.

Source Image

I watched the video.  Looked at both variations of the sketch and decided my nephew was a prime candidate for this layout.  His perfect little face seemed destined to be part of a super cute, totally out of my comfort zone, banner-inspired layout.  It seemed fortuitous - meant to be.  I even sat thinking about how it was okay if it didn't turn out okay - I could always start over.  Digital photos could be reprinted.  It was not the end of the world.  It was okay - as my mentor Ali Edwards has so eloquently said.  Famous last words...

This was my first go at the layout.  I had to think long and hard about how to make this layout without eyelets.  I settled on brads and was really happy with how things worked out - until I did the journaling.  The layout is okay.  The journaling is relatively straight thanks to a straight edge and pencil line.  It's very close to the sketch...and I hate it.  The journaling is awful and honestly - looking at it now - I hate the title too.  It looked so great when Shimelle did it.  My first attempt at making this better was adding a journaling block...

I temporarily adhered the journaling block and immediately knew this was some form of scrapbooking hell.  No way was this going to be okay.  So I trimmed the paper to include the top 1/3 excluding the banner and put it on a white piece of paper.  Thank God I didn't take a picture of that...I ended up cutting out the banner - which was quite the bitch, frankly - and starting over on a new piece of patterned paper.  My favorite pattern in fact...ledger.  Fortunately, I came up with this...

I tried journaling on the final layout above and ended up making my very small journaling cluster (see previous monstrosities) into a large cluster.  It's out of balance.  It's a hot mess but I love the banner and the title so I'm calling it a day.  I find this boy is just too cute for words.  Journaling seems unnecessary.  Quite strange, I think.

So that's it for this Saturday evening.  I'm done.  This is the best it's going to get.  I would give a list of products - but I just don't want to at this point.  Maybe I'll update it later.  It's been a hard crafty day and I want to leave it happy.  I hope this day has been a happy one for you filled with smiles and leg kicks and overall general goodness.  Until then...