Gorge-ous!

My mother and I had stopped at my cousin's house to visit with family. After we left, I managed to get my mom to agree to some more sight seeing and we drove up to the Columbia River Gorge. This is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Trail and we had a great time seeing some of the waterfalls. We didn't see them all because some of the trails were a little too wet or steep and we didn't bring sufficient gear for that.

The left page of the layout actually goes along with the single page below (which ends the album). Periodically Creative Memories distributes incentives for people to join as advisors. As a current advisor I'm allowed to purchase one for my own use or to show to people so that they understand what is available. For this period, it was a special project recipe with papers unavailable in the regular line. I put the kit together and thought that these scenes from nature would be a good fit.

The right page is a new technique I bought. The company is called Photo Dies and they make metal cutting guides that can be arranged into decorative patterns on the page. What excited me about this is that the dies make the cuts for you and so you are ensured of having straight edges. If you've seen some of the trendy templates that make something similar you know that you need to use an exacto knife or fussy cut to get the pieces. I am not really good at that and so when I've tried it I've always been upset with my jagged pieces that don't look neat. This takes care of it for me and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I made this at the retreat house where the machine is so that I could test it out and I'll be looking for my own machine now and more dies!

The composition of the pages was a little different for me. The Multnomah Falls are actually in the middle of the drive, but as the most elegant and photo-generating, they got their own page. I like that this ends the album as it highlights the visit with my mom.

As I mentioned above, this is the right side of the layout. I did actually turn it 90-degrees though because I had more vertical photos. I think having this as a stand-alone page allowed my brain to think about how to utilize the background. I also could have just used the mats in a different direction as I completed the layout very close to the time that I mounted it in the album, but I like this technique better. It helped that the chevrons now look a little like a waterfall next to the title picture.