Cricut Challenge 25: Simply Charmed....Best Friends Layout

This is a layout I did of my very, very close friend, Ronni.  We met in 1979...well over 30 years ago.  Although she lives in south Florida we do try to see each other a few times each year.  She really is a treasure to me.
And no...she doesn't read my blog! LOL! But she does a lot of other great stuff so I don't hold that against her!

So....here is the layout...a 2 page spread...do you do 2 page spreads?  I do... but I'm not so particular about it anymore.  I used to not be able to stand if my layouts that adjoined in the albums I had did not MATCH! LOL!!!  I have freed myself of that requirement, though...and if they don't match up now....well, TUFF!
But for today's posting...they do match up perfectly to make a quite nice (in my own very biased opinion) 2 page layout.

I did get the inspiration for this layout from an issue of the Cricut Magazine.  I spotted that tree and thought it was so cute and knew I really wanted to use it on a layout.  And proceeding with my personal challenge of using each Cricut cartridge I own on some type of project...I used Simply Charmed on this layout for the tree, sun, and clouds.  And, I'm pretty happy with this happy result!  I cut the tree at a little over 7 1/2 inches and since it didn't have a shadow feature I just slapped it on some white and using my surgically steady hands cut out the shadow freehand.

Now that I look at the photographic images here I think..."Hmmmm...looks a little busy to me."  But trust me it's not...it's just danged cute.  (oh...dang is a word we use in the south to put emphasis on things. "It's danged cute."...which means..."mama is happy with her effort here" or  "That was a danged good slab o'  ribs.", "or "Did you see the hair on that danged Walmart customer?" or more customary usage in my region.... "Where is my danged paper trimmer?")  Anyway, I'm happy with it.  If I hated it I wouldn't be showing it to you!

For this layout I used papers from the Sophia Collection from Close to My Heart. This paper pack is wonderful...pretty pinks, greens and white with a touch of yellow.  I also used some Color Core'dinations by Tim Holtz.  The word art was cut out with the A Child's Year Cartridge.  The buttons are from CTMH as is the Friends 4 Ever sentiment which was stamped with Coffee Archival Ink on a small tag bought at an office supply store.  I also used the fringe scissors by Martha Stewart to make a little grass for under the tree.  I used a Chocolate Zig Writer to pen stitch and journal.  And I used some twine for the buttons and wrapped around the tree as well as the Fiskars scallop punch for the white strip of paper and an EK Success punch to make the notebook paper edging on my journaling block.  And lastly there was a liberal use of pop dots and foam tape to raise everything up so that my scrapbooks can only hold 4 layouts because they are so thick!

I should have set my timer....but I think it took me about 4 hours...maybe longer!  Time flies...as they say!

I also entered this in the Fantabulous Cricut challenge which was to use a splash of yellow...I did use a tad of yellow for the sun!

Happy Crafting!