Simple Pleasures: Mar-yee-yo!

I've done this page for two different Australian Challenges. I figure I spend SO much time on each of my layouts that I should double up ;) So given that both these sites allow combined challenges, I decided to try that this time, which is a first for me. My page is based on the theme "Simple Pleasures" for the Berry 71 Bleu challenge. The mood board images for the challenge are gorgeous and the inspiration layouts shared over several posts are amazing! So so pretty. There are some stunningly beautiful projects shared on this blog. Lots of fabric flowers, crafty techniques and textural goodness. I love recreating a bulky look in digital... so I can actually fit the page in my album! I'm definitely going to try the over the top flowers look soon, just have to find a suitable photo.

I scrolled through my recent photos for a picture to scrap for the theme 'Simple Pleasures' and found these cute ones of my son with his Yoshi soft toy.

Edward's simple pleasure is watching Daddy play Mario Bros on the Wii. I went with a positive take on this for my title, "Easy to Please", because he is so happy just watching his Dad play, even when he doesn't have a go himself. There are times though when this current obsession is NOT convenient; requests for "Mar-yee-yo Running" at 2am are not appreciated. Perhaps I'll mention that on a journal card on the opposite side of the spread (which will be a divided page protector with some photos of Edward and Daddy on the couch, playing Mario). I want to keep my album mainly about the cute and funny, the milestones and happy memories. I don't complain very much in there, though occasionally I will throw in a real life downside or sad moment, so long as it's not something that could be embarrassing or hurtful. I want my album to be about real life, but it doesn't have to contain every single part of life. It's the things we want to remember and celebrate. Tantrums and night wakings might be frequent occurances right now, but they don't get much coverage in my scrapbook!

For the design, I worked with the Sketch N Scrap Birthday Bash: Scraplift Challenge. The layout by Jennifer Haggerty is just so perfect, that I actually copied it quite literally. I don't usually scraplift so closely, I tend to really adapt the inspiration image a lot. But this time I loved the original so much, and it went with my pictures so well that I made my layout very similar to Jennifer's, and I love it.

This is her sweet layout (love those chubby baby arms!):

And here are the supplies I used in my layout (several of these are quite old and the stores have now closed):

Two Peas-Erica Hernandez-November 2010 freebie tape
Two Peas-Michelle Underwood-That Was Yesterday-Banner
Design House Digital-Daydream Believer-Collab
Design House Digital-Tayler Mitchell-Wishy Washi Tape
Pixels & Co-An Innocent Heart-Charity Collab
Pixels & Co-Collab-Love Actually
Pixels & Co-Deena Rutter-Scenic Route
Pixels & Co-Gennifer Bursett-Elemental Snippy Alphas (Graph)
Shabby Miss Jenn-Grandma’s Scrapbooks-Stitching

OTHER CREDITS:
CVW_SupplyTracker
Font: Underwood 1913
Sketch N Scrap Scraplift Challenge layout by Jennifer Haggerty
Camera: Olympus PEN E-PL5