We hadn’t been married two years when we volunteered to serve as leaders for a group of college students on a summer long trip to promote a singing group from our church, Van Nuys Baptist. We spent most of our time in the Philippines. I kept a journal in summer, 1970, handwritten pages tied together with yarn, filled with details about the Philippines: waking up to the sound of jeepneys, shopping for meat in open air markets, cooking in a pressure cooker, listening to the daily rain on a tin roof collected for cold showers, riding a bus out of the city, walking to a small village into a corn field to find a bathroom, laughing at our caribou ride, hearing Bill preach on David and Goliath in a little dirt floor church.The words tell a story not seen in these photos, my thoughts and feelings. Now that I think about it, summers before we had children, a detail about which Philippinos questioned us, are some of our best memories.
I continue to work on my heritage project, deciding which photos to include, what to write and simply remembering what it was like 50 years ago. It’s not as easy as I thought to create a page that conveys the essence of an experience in our early marriage. I took some time to think and plan before beginning this two page spread.
I began by reducing the size of templates 7 and 8 from Hipster Plume Album Template No. 2 to about 85% and placing them above solid paper 3 from ArtPlay Palette Sage on the template provided in Heritage Live.
Note: I deleted the masks included with the template for the small photos. To each matte, I added a stroke style to keep the framing consistent through my project.
Next, I clipped a photo to each of the fotoblendz masks and some of the stains. I also extracted us from the photos and created a custom shadow.
Note: The photos on these pages are from old slides and required some work in Lightroom as well as adjustments in Photoshop.
On the left, I placed the layers from transfer 5 of Artsy Transfers Sage between the extraction and the photo copy clipped to the fotoblendz mask. I placed layers from transfer 1 below the cluster of frames on the far left. On the right, layers from transfer 4 of Artsy Transfers Sage are below both the extraction and the fotoblendz mask.
To accommodate one additional photo, I duplicated the square matte and shadow on the right and moved it to the place where the text box was originally. I gave the matte the same stroke style and clipped my photo to it.
Finally, I photographed the handwritten journal I kept that summer, reduced the size and gave it a shadow. I tucked it next to one of the small photos. I gave the gold yarn, a popular color then, it’s own custom shadow.
After rereading my journal, I decided that if my family wants more details about the summer of 1970, they can read my journal too.
Thanksgiving will be a little different for us this year, but I am so thankful for the constancy of fifty years with this man no matter what happens in life. This is one of the simplest layouts I’ve done and it came together so quickly. I love when that happens.
Second, I placed overlay 2, copper paint and transfer 3 below the framed photo.
Third, I added a word art from Gratitude WordART Mix No 1 and journaling.
Life gets hectic as the holidays approach. I’m very grateful for a few minutes to enjoy a little simple art play.