Twenty Five Photos on a Single Page

So putting 25 little pictures on a single page layout is no small feat. For anyone. However, for a girl who's specialty is single photo layouts...well let just say this is a miracle!

For years, I have been tirelessly searching for a photo print service that could meet my long list of meticulous expectations and I have been let down so many times. Finally, quite by accident, a few weeks ago I came upon an app called Social Print Studio, available in the App Store.The planets must have been aligned because the prints that arrived on my doorstep a few days later are beyond description! The quality of the paper used to print these photos is over the top sturdy--not that flimsy stuff more often used by on-line printers. The app is so very easy to navigate. The matte finish is the softest and smoothest of any printer I have ever used. Oh my. If you love matte finish photos, you must try this.

The strip photos on this layout are one of the specialty formats offered by this San Francisco-based service. What's not to love. You get *9* strips for $10. Each strip is 1.75"x7". 

I've been focused on stamping lately and it was just too easy to coordinate this stamp from the Stampin' Up! Amazing Birthday along with Watercolor Wash to create the title/journaling block. 

 The journaling is done on Project Life cards from the Becky Higgins Project Life Southern Weddings Core Kit. I have a thing for the soft cozy color palette of this kit but have no use for the wedding theme...so I chopped them up and used them anyway. 

Twenty-five pictures. 

No small accomplishment.

And some stamping too!

It's a good day to be a scrapbooker. ;)

Water coloring in Cabo

 So one of the things I have always wanted to do finally got accomplished on the trip to Cabo back in March.

For years, I have entertained this romantic notion that painting on the beach using water collected from the ocean would make for a more enchanting rich painting. It just seems like such a "live right here in this moment" kind of activity...I have no idea why I put it off for so long. 

I packed a very small box of watercolor paints, some brushes and a pad of paper and took them along on this journey. 

Just be quiet and reverent.

Right there.

On the beach.

Put water to paper.

Add paint and watch it work.

So as it turns out, the water in the Sea of Cortez doesn't make me a better painter but it does lend itself quite nicely to water coloring in general. I sat right here and painted for a couple of hours and it was just as divine as I imagined it would be.

 

 Joal snagged cups of ocean water for me as needed and I sloshed paint about happily. It made for a quiet and restful, restorative day on the beach.

Ironically enough, I was so busy painting, I totally neglected to take a picture. 

I was totally caught up.

Which was kind of the point...but I do wish I had photos of it all.

Later in the evening, we went back to our room and I sat on the balcony (fifth floor) and painted up the last of the paper with the last of the ocean water. Next time I won't bother packing all the paints--just the blues and greens and I will take a ton more paper. I could have painted every day. 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no real capturing of the true beauty of the ocean and the beach. You never do it justice. Only catch a momentary glimpse.

It's ever changing.

And enchanting above all else.

It's life.