2011 and New Beginnings

This is a transition year for me... I will be 49 in May... I NEVER thought I would live this long - Really!  My Dad died when he was 43, his sister a year later when she turned 43, do you see a pattern?  At some point I decided that I too would probably never make it passed 43... and then I did?!  But really, 44 was still too close, and 45 was just practicing ... and I kept telling myself that each year after 43 was the probably the last one, until now... 49 this year!  I guess I'm going to make it after all (LOL), and 50 is just around the corner, so now I have decided that I am probably going to live a long, long time and that I'd better get my personal "house" in order.  So I am spending the first part of 2011 working on ME; reflecting on the past and just celebrating the process that got me to this point in my life.  I have found a couple of quirks that I am working on changing so I can be a really interesting and entertaining "Old Woman" but otherwise I have discovered that I kinda like who am right now.  I am attaching this layout as a little challenge to you:

This is a  VERY different style for me and I allowed my "inner voice" to direct the entire process while I was creating it.  I don't usually cut out my photos or have this much dimension on my layouts, but my rule of thumb for scrapbooking is "There are NO rules, do what YOU like, do what YOU think looks good no matter how weird or different that may be."  And now I am adding a second line.... "Listen to your inner voice!"   I love the whimsical effect of everything on this layout and I especially love the richness of the Stampendous velvet leaf sticker next to the BoBunny's ruffled, satin ribbon, in contrast with the shiny Dewdrop pearls, glossy accents and stickles.  I used foam tape to raise the center 6x6 page off the main layout and and I used stacked pop dots on the frogs and photos to raised these elements off the page at higher and lower levels for even more dimension.  The frogs are from Copic Marker Scrapbooking's new Fantasy line of digital stamps which I colored using my copic markers and the center 6x6 paper is from DCWV's "Once Upon a Time" stack.

I LOVE the ribbon detail on my wedding dress.  To get this effect, after cutting out the image, I actually cut through the middle of the photo skirt and pop-dotted the photo with a split between the two pieces, then I used glue dots to add the already ruffled ribbon and tucked the pearls in to hide any edges. 

So I my challenge to you this year  is to create one layout where you listen to your inner voice  (you know, the one we usually suppress or ignore)  and try something totally new to your style, you might just surprise yourself!