The Feel of Summer

It's week three over at Dixie Pieces and we're scrapping the "feel" of summer. I went with textural after uploading the shell photos featured in the layout below. As soon as I saw them on my screen, I knew they would be perfect for a page about what summer feels like. The boys spent forever looking through this small shop in Kennebunkport, ME this past weekend, touching, holding, and feeling the shells. It was as if they were trying to hold a piece of summer in the palms of their hands.
The color scheme was pale blue, red, and grey. Since this layout was all about texture, it only made sense to include lots of texture on the page itself. The easiest way to do this is with Cuttlebug embossing folders (used on the piece of grey cardstock). I also pulled out some Grungeboard and dusted off my sea shell Sizzix dies and cut a sand dollar and starfish.
The other piece to this challenge was to doodle on the page--real doodling, like with a pen. This is a bit outside of my comfort zone. I love the look of hand-drawn doodles, but don't consider myself a very good artist. Susan posted a great tutorial which broke it down into some babysteps for me. The background of this layout was created by painting on bubble wrap (the large bubble kind) with acrylic paints. The wrinkles in the bubbles adds to the texture. I used three different shades of blue paint. The circle background created the perfect spot for more doodling--loosely outlining the circles with a white pen.
I knew I had done my job when I handed it to my six year old and he said, "Cool" and then proceeded to run his fingers over all the lumps and bumps. Texture? Yup, it's got that!