This. This page. This is why I do LOAD:

This page started with the photos. I love these glorious, hovering in mid-air pictures. They aren’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they really capture how much fun the kids were having.

The next piece I decided to work with was the die cut pocket page card from Simple Stories. I love so much of their work. Lots of happy colors in their collections. I decided I wanted to use kraft cardstock as the background, and then discovered I had run out of the 12×12 paper. So then I pulled out some white, but that looked so anemic in comparison to the colorful photos that I pulled out some black instead.

There! That worked. But then I got hung up again on patterned paper. I wanted colorful and happy to go with the happy pictures, but throwing a lot of patterns together just made everything entirely too busy. And I really wanted to use the chevron/multi-color stripe paper, but I also loved the letters and arrows on the back.

Handy dandy paper trimmer to the rescue!

Rather than layering various papers on top of each other, and matting focal photos, I decided to keep it super simple and  cut one three inch strip, which I then cut into 4 inch pieces. Flipping one piece over, so the reverse pattern would show, I put everything into a simple grid arrangement, and walked away for a bit to get a fresh eye.

When I came back, I knew what I needed. Doodles. Lots of doodles. And maybe some enamel dots as well.

Why is doodling so much fun?

It’s definitely a happy page for a happy idea. And something I noticed, after I uploaded, and got a good distance view of the page? Can you see a heart? Let me know if you see it too. Maybe I’m imagining things.

I love how totally unplanned things make everything look like it was completely intentional.

So. Are you making anything you want to share? I’d love to see it!