layout a week :: double-page design

As I work myself into getting used to my new blog goals and schedules, I realized that I hadn't shared a layout with you {each week} of January as part of my layout a week goal. Until I get my layouts photographed and posts written, I'll share with you a layout created for my gig at Ella Publishing which was featured this past week on the Ella blog. You see, I'm an Ella Friend, which means I am on their design team along with some amazingly creative and inspiring ladies.

Our assignment was to create double-page layouts using the sketch {created by Donna Jannuzzi} on page 28 of the newest Ella e-Book, Double-Page Design. I altered my layout just a bit, as it was originally designed to be a 12x12 double-page spread. Instead, I went for an 8.50x11 double-page layout.

This is only my second ever 2-page layout. The first was made for this very same book and is featured on page 5 with a 5 photo 2-page spread.

Back to the layout:

For a sub-title, I used the craft beads I had from art projects with my two girls to spell out Hilton Head. I strung them on some floral wire, but made it appear that I had strung them on baker's twine from The Twinery. I made the envelope closures by punching a 3/4" circle and used my Crop-o-Dile to add a brad. I used baker's twine again to string the shell we had found {in Aruba} so that it would hang from my chipboard frame...it already had a hole in it when we found it!

The title {at} comes from our middle child, Isabella, always saying we were going "at" the beach, not "to" the beach. The arrow is pointing to the word "at" and the } is pointing toward the daughter that coined the phrase. Little things we might forget. And since we generally go on vacation the week of our wedding anniversary, and this layout is going in the "we" album, I added a heart to the collage of photos on the right side of the layout using pop dots for some dimension. 

I used the white space at the bottom of the photo of us walking on the beach to place my title, using an arrow attached to the frame to draw attention into the page. The grid paper might be an unusual choice for a beach layout, but the subtle coloring of the graph lines in the colors sand and sea fit my theme without being too obvious.

Edited to Add: Zach is not in the photo of us walking the beach because he decided that he did not really want to be in any photos during our vacation. Zachy-downer.

So, I finally have a link for the layout a week category in my PARTICIPATE section in the sidebar. Hopefully, by this time next year, there will be at least 52 posts for you to browse! So, do you guys do a layout a week, too?