Smile through the tears.

Hi everyone!  

This week's layout was a labour of love.  We lost our much loved dog, Harley, a couple of weeks ago, and I have been looking at photos of him ever since.... wishing I could have him here with me again.

 

The challenge at More Than Words this month is to use this sketch and the word "Smile".  I liked this photo for the challenge because Harley is smiling and happy.

I'm also using this layout for a Round Robin challenge at Swirlydoos this month.

To embellish this layout, I did a lot of fussy cutting.  I had another page of this paper, and I cut out all the flowers and butterflies, added cardboard underneath to pop them up, and then used them to create my flower clusters.  In this cluster above, you can see a Spellbinders die cut called "Pawing Dog".  I love the image of the dog in the heart, and the paw print embellishing the flower.

Dangling down is a chipboard piece from Blue Fern Studios, which I sprayed with 

Iris Color Bloom mist and then added some beads, etc.

"Smile" was cut using my cricut.  Now I hope this doesn't creep anyone out, but if you click on the photo above and look closely, you will see that I used some of Harley's soft hair to tuck here and there in the flower cluster.  

There is also a little bottle of his hair tucked in as well.  

My 6 year old grandson gave me the idea for this when he asked me if I would collect 

some of Harley's hair for him so he could still pet him.  

(That seriously broke my heart all over again.)  

Before gluing anything on to this beautiful paper "Calling Cards" from the "Timeless" collection by Blue Fern Studios, I painted it with clear gesso, and then sprayed it with Pressed Petal and Iris Color Bloom mist.  You can see the water colour effect that was created doing this up in the right hand corner.

Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing my memories with me.  Do stop by the 

More than Words Challenge blog, as well as Swirlydoos, 

to see some fabulous work done by other paper artists.

Linda