Behind the Scenes with Melissa

Hi everyone!

I'm here to share a little bit more about this layout:

What prompted me to do this take on Escape was simply thinking about those things I like to do to escape reality. Reality isn't always a bad place to be but, every once in awhile, it's nice to just be able to do what I LOVE and not what I HAVE to do. In order for me to continue enjoying most of my reality, I need to remember to take care of self. 

I chose this photo because it was of me and I'm smiling. Literally, I begin to smile when I'm retreating off to any of those three escapes. Can you relate? When you are doing exactly what you love to do and the smile is impossible to hide on your face. I love that feeling and definitely wanted a photo to emote that same feeling.

There is also lots of symbolism and repetition in this layout. To go with the THREE theme: my three escapes, I included other "threes".  The three doors, for example, give off the symbolism of opening one and escaping to being creative, or my imagination, etc. I decided to matte the photos with patterned paper because it added some pizzazz. I'd rather go into the pretty patterns the boring old plain colors. ;)
To keep with the "three" element, I used three chevron shapes, three pearls and three triangle shapes at the top. This is more a design element as opposed to symbolism but, I suppose, it could go either way.

Some might wonder why one would want to record their way to escape on a scrapbook layout. It's a good question! Especially in this industry that is mostly documenting events and milestones. For me, scrapbooking is combining my creativity and journaling. Surprisingly, I forget to escape. I notice that mostly when my fuse is short, I'm grumpy, frustrated with the world and think everyone is out to get me. My hope is that by recording this, I will come across the page from time to time and be reminded to actively pursue my escapes on a regular basis. Maybe I'll stay sane more often. One can hope, right? 

So how do you escape? Why not record it on a layout "inside out" style? Not sure where to begin? We've got some wonderful challenges on our forum to help get you started. Come join us!