Tia Made

Jackson has LOVED watermelon since his first taste of it as an infant!!!
I took this set of pictures of him on our front porch, thoroughly enjoying a LARGE mixing bowl full of juicy, organic h2omelon...basically letting him "Have at it!" :) I had bought this "good thumpin' " watermelon, brought it home and thought I seize the gorgeous June afternoon on our front porch to cut it while keeping an ever vigilant eye on JackJack's "run amok" freedom in the front yard with our beloved neighbor's son (six years older than Jackson )& his treasured playmate, Jake. Knowing he would be safe under Jake's ever-watchful eye, for a quick moment, I bopped inside to grab some wet wipes, anticipating the "dirty deed of delving" into the now cut up melon... as an after thought, I grabbed my camera thinking it might be a wonderful opportunity to get the two of them enjoying some summertime decadence... just as I came out, Jake was "hollered home," making a quick getaway with apologies flying over his shoulder, saying he tried to stop him but...
My little man couldn't wait for my split second return, his belly demanded instant gratification... thus, these images were caught quite literally, "red-handed (face, outfit, shoes, concrete... oh well, you only live once...)" on film forever (God willing)... :)
Once he decided he had enjoyed every last morsel of the sweet, juice-laden morsel, he was saturated in h20melon juice and as happy as a clam in sand!!!
TECHNIQUES UTILIZED:
* I took a picture of a watermelon's flesh and rind & cut them into 1 3/4" squares, inking the edges with black ink
* Before I Glue-Dotted the melon squares to the background Provo Craft "Watermelon Rind" textured paper (I didn't realize that this was the ACTUAL name of this textured paper's color until I was compiling the supply list), I put 4 black mini brads on 4 of the rinds, framed 3 flesh squares w/ black grosgrain ribbon w/ white stitching, & finally, I used both the shimmering rose handmade textered paper & the red handmade textured paper as "diamond" mats to 3 of the rind squares
* I cut 3 more of the shimmering rose handmade texture paper, a square of dark green handmade textured paper & 2 squares of corrugated forrest green paper... I inked the edges of ALL of these
* Using the large foam letter stamps and several types of small letter stamps, I stamped " H 2 O" and "water" "melon" while the squares were in the "diamond" position
* I cut 2 of the pictures of JackJack leaving them unmatted and edges uninked (In hindsight, I would probably ink the edges of ALL the pictures to give them a more "finished" appearance)
* The picture of him standing I left as a rectangle, matting it twice with the dark green handmade textured paper and the red handmade textured paper, inking the edges of BOTH mats with balck ink
* As a last minute amusement, I cut little "bites" out of the photo mats with decorative scissors for a little
* I cut out Jackson from one of the pictures & w/ my FAVORITE adhesive, Glue Dots, I put him in the bottom right corrner
* As with PAGE 1, I edged the perimeter (except the left edge so as to keep uninterrupted fluid movement between the pages) with black grosgrain ribbon with white dots...adhering the ribbon was an exercise in futility... after NUMEROUS trial and errors, I met success with FABRIC TAC (Walmart or Michaels), my sanity preserver, SERIOUSLY, as it is easy to manage, holds tight, dries clear& relatively quickly. :)
The most difficult aspect of this entire layout, for me, was determinig what element should be what size, placement, & spacing. I quickly found out, as the Greeks did when building their amazing temples, that you sometimes have to "fool the eye"... when I was creating the diamond mats, I thought I could just cut the mat the exact size of the picture...not so, as it didn't look quite right to me... so, I went back and cut an infintismal amount off of each side, making the picture a tad smaller than its corresponding mat...voila! :) A happy scrapper :)
Thanks for looking and enduring my obcessive compulsive attention to minute detail...
Please take care and God bless!!!
tia :)