Friday’s Feelings – It’s Back to School

When I saw I had the journaling post for the month of September, I was glad to have an opportunity to put on paper some feelings I have about my eldest daughter entering Kindergarten.  I don’t know about other mother’s, but I have mixed emotions about the coming weeks, and the anxiety outweighs the excitement for me, to be honest.  I’m so worried!  I want this to be a wonderful experience for her, and since I can’t control *everything* I have to hope and pray, and cross my fingers, and hope and pray some more.

This spring when I registered Morgan for school, I hung my camera out the window and snapped a quick shot of the school and the bulletin board out front, announcing the Kindergarten roundup.  At the time, I had my 50mm fixed lens on my camera, so I wasn’t able to get a photo of the entire school, so it isn’t the best shot, but I thought it was the perfect photo to use for a layout about MY hopes and fears for Morgan and her first experiences in public school.

I kept the design simple on this layout, and let the journaling take up a large space.  And because it was a personal layout, I really wanted to use my handwriting.

I love the Amber Road collection and thought it had a great color palette for school photos.  My favorite piece from this collection is the Autumn Blossom pattern, and I thought it would make a great apple tree, so I trimmed out one of the large trees, and then made a few apples using the B side of the Postcards paper.

I trimmed the stripes horizonally from the Harvest Hayride pattern to help give the eye a line so that my journaling would be straight.  Of course, I trimmed the edges with my scallop sentiment punch from Fiskars ( I LOVE this punch).

Then I added my title using the Cherry colored Expressions chipboard alphas.

Lastly, I used some clear buttons and some Karen Foster floss to add some detail and dimension to this layout and my apples.

I challenge you to journal more on your layouts.  Maybe someday Morgan will look back on this layout, maybe when she’s a mom (although at this pont she keeps telling me she isn’t going to have children because she doesn’t want to change dirty diapers), and if she has the same fears or even if she doesn’t, she’ll see my perspective on this new phase in her life.