Once Upon A...Sketch July Challenge: CIRCLE OF LIFE

The July Challenge at Once Upon A...Sketch is to use a sketch and accompany the photo with some journalling.  Here is the sketch:

And here is my layout:

The photo is my beautiful daughter in her ninth month of pregnancy.  She is just blooming with health and life, don't you agree?  Here is a close-up of the journalling:

This is her first baby.  I am as excited about this upcoming birth as I was about the birth of my own first child - who is now the lovely young mother-to-be in this photo.
Thanks for stopping by.  Have a wonderful day!

Materials List:

Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants Design, Baby Mine

Lace Trim: Recollections

Yellow Cording: Michaels

Chipboard Tags: We R Memory Keepers, White Out

Butterfly: Kaiser Craft

Flower: Prima

Chipboard Letters: 7 Gypsies

"Yesterday": A Moment in Time

The theme of the June 15 challenge at Once Upon a Sketch is "A Moment in Time". 
Here is my entry:

I went Retro for this one. This a photo of myself and my friends on the last day of school.  The date is June 28, 1957.
(I am on a real Retro Roll these days, and I love working with my favourite retro-vibe papers from Crate Paper. It must be my Retro Period LOL!)


To stay true to the 50's style colours, I stayed away from inks and mists. All papers are "as is" except for distressing the edges and some faux stitching around the edge.

I cut the strips of paper from the CP Emma's Shop collection to  resemble those old-fashioned books that used to line school library shelves, and used some lovely little hand-crocheted flowers as accents.

I used flags for my title, and embellished the lettering on with black Enamel Accents by Ranger.

No Uniforms!
It was a special moment in time for us for many reasons.In those days, the last day of school was presents for the teacher,  a special assembly, and permission to wear regular clothes instead of our school uniforms.  What freedom!
We wore navy blue tunics and white blouses to school.  For the last day of school, our mothers had bought us girls all new dresses, which we are wearing proudly.  (I can still remember the cool waffle-weave fabric of my new white dress.)  The boys are wearing their regulation gray flannels and blue blazers. 
Report Cards
And soon our teachers would distribute our year-end report cards: 

 Detail-cut report cards to represent the year-end report cards that we were about to receive

If you were very lucky, you might get some much-coveted yellow and red stars on your report card!

Summer Holidays

It was a special moment in time for us for many reasons.  In the journalling I comment on how we felt invincible, and as if we were all stars.Of course, summer holidays were about to begin, so that made this day special too.  But perhaps the real reason I chose this picture is:  at this moment in time, the world was our street, our school, and our homes.

Neighbourhood

We were all neighbour kids on the same street.  We rode the school bus together every day.  We played wonderful summer games endlessly: Pirates, Hide-and -Seek, Stand-O. But what this picture really captures is the sense of togetherness that I remember from this moment in time when we all looked out for each other, and our childhood selves had no knowledge of what life might bring us in the bigger world out there.

At this moment in time, the world was perfect and we were happy with life.  I find it so important now to remember this feeling, not with nostalgia but with the intention to cultivate a sense of wonder on a daily basis.  And maybe that's why this picture said "Choose me!  Choose me"!" 


No matter what the era, children remind us of the importance of friends and wonder in our lives.



Materials List:
Papers:  Crate Paper, Emma's Shop collection; Bo Bunny
Embellishments:  Crate Paper