Jot Magazine May Mood Board Layout

Hello there! We've had a bit of a rough week with a sick girl in the hospital. 

On Tuesday, Lizzy was having a hard time breathing after just beginning to cough that morning, and by dinner time, her nebulizer treatments just weren't doing enough. As it was rush-hour and we knew it would take a while to get to our home hospital downtown, we took her to our local ER. Later that night, she was transferred to Children's Memorial Hermann, where she only spent one night and was diagnosed as having a viral pneumonia. We were lucky that she wasn't as sick as she has been in the past. She didn't even require oxygen on this trip.

She's doing much better here at home, but is still having a bit of a hard time breathing, so we're hoping that her regular nebulizer treatments and a steroid will get her back to normal in no time.

You may be asking, why are you writing about this when the subject of this blog post is "Jot Magazine May Mood Board?" Well, the gorgeous mood board this month includes a brush script file that reminds me to 'stay positive,' something I REALLY needed to be reminded of this week. 

When we came back from the hospital, I wrapped up this layout, inspired by the mood board and using the brush script file from the Polka Dot Creative site.

Supplies: Cardstock- Bazzill Basics; Patterned Paper- American Crafts, Studio Calico, KI Memories, Studio Tekturek; Embellishments: Heidi Swapp (puffy teal arrow & heart, glitter 'M' and '+'), Elle's Studio (hello sticker), My Mind's Eye (enamel bow & teal brad), American Crafts (chipboard arrow), Gossamer Blue (puffy geotag & '+'), Mark Richards (gold metal dots), Evalicious (gold 'look' arrow), Simple Stories (gold heart, black enamel dots), Basic Grey (pink ampersand, cloth brad), Other: Enamel dots, twine; Stamps: Studio Calico (ink smear), American Crafts (date stamp), Scraptastic Club ('+' groupings from the November 2014 Shake it Off stamp- ONLY $5.99!)

I was a bit nervous about printing a photo of my face in such a late size, but I knew that I wanted the circular cut file to be BIG on the layout, so I just went with it, after using a gaussian blur technique to soften the lines on my face. 

After changing the JPG brush script to a PNG in Photoshop Elements, I opened it in my Silhouette Software and traced the image to create a cut file. After cutting in black cardstock with my Silhouette Cameo, I backed the little spaces with scraps of patterned paper to match the mood board colors. The empty spaces became homes for tiny embellishment.

The stamps that I used on this layout are ones that I reach for time and time again, especially the Shake it Off stamp set (which is a BARGAIN at $5.99!) I love the texture they add to the background!

I used the 'be positive' words from the image as my title, only adding a small embellishment cluster to add emphasis to the title. I love using hoarded items like the Basic Grey chipboard ampersand and cloth brad on such a loved layout! 

You have until the end of the month to link up your creation inspired by the mood board on the Jot Magazine May Mood Board post! What will this mood board inspire you to create?