Love Lines (Hybrid tutorial)

My layout marking Chris' first 18 years of life is published in this month's Scrapbooking.com.  I loved when the editor wrote "A lot of love went into this layout".

To mark Chris' birthday, I gathered pictures of him from each of his first 18 years. Since I've always kept photo albums, this was a time-consuming but enjoyable process. I was going to name this page "Line Up," but knowing that Chris has made so many friends in his life and his birthday is close to Valentine's Day, I decided to name it "Love Lines" instead.

I started twice to make this as a digital layout, but just didn't like it. So 80 square knots, 76 pop dots and 12 eyelets later, I finished this hybrid layout! The journaling reads:

"Each year of your life you've made friends who love you and the love lines surrounding you are many. No one will ever love you more than your Mom and Dad."  

Step !:  I made the black top and bottom borders with a digital cutter mask, copying and pasting the row evenly along the top and bottom of a 12 X 12 inch canvas. I printed two of these on white cardstock for the left and right pages.

Step 2:  I planned the placement of each picture, sized and printed on paper to which I added a black fill. I cut each picture slightly bigger to add the black "frame." 

Step 3: Once the position of each photo was planned, I machine sewed a wide zigzag stitch in red thread from the black border square to the spot the where picture would be placed. As in sewing, I pulled the thread on each end of the row of stitches to the underside and tied the threads in a knot. 

Step 4: To give the layout dimension, I used pop dots to adhere the pictures.

Step 5:  After adding the alphas, tabs and plates, heart stickers and journaling, I dabbed a bit of black paint onto the background. 

Chris will be 20 tomorrow.  Tonight I'm picking him up to shopping for a dress shirt he'll wear to the party his friends are giving!