Been doing some stuff

You know what's depressing about making cards? After you've put all that hard work into making something beautiful, you just give it away! *laugh*

Yesterday and today I was scrambling to put together a 2-page scrapbook spread to use as a secret Santa gift for my daughter's dance school Christmas sleepover party. I had no idea what to get an 11 year old girl, but the 12x12 frames were on sale (plus an extra 25% off) last week at Michael's, so I picked some up. I thought it would be nice for the recipient to mount her competition photos onto the framed pages.

Here's the page I came up with:

I think it turned out so pretty! I hated to give it away. Depressing. Truly. I had a brief moment of panic thinking to myself "What if she hates purple?", "What if it doesn't go with her bedroom decor?", "What if they already have a pre-existing dance photo display and this doesn't fit the pattern?" because I think the worst thing would be to find out that the frames sat in a corner gathering dust.

I talked to the school's photographer so I knew that Katie always orders an 8x10 of the competitive team, plus 5x7's of each group and 3x5 individuals for each routine. Some digging through old emails provided me a list of the routines she was in, so that number and sizes of photos really dictated the layout. The team colours are green and purple with a dash of pink (truly, truly garish). I toned it down by opting for celery and plum and omitted the pink entirely. The rest just fell into place. I couldn't have done it without my amazing Silhouette though. That wee machine is magic.

What's nice is that, for under $15, I have a secret Santa gift to give that looks like I spent a lot more than the $20 price limit.