XOXO Story: A Belated Valentine's Day - Jill Sprott

"Remember the year you didn't get me anything for Valentine's Day?"

This line begins a story that no wife should ever have to tell or retell, a story that husbands across the Valentine's Day-celebrating world fight to avoid becoming the antagonist in as they clamor at the last minute for chocolate, for flowers, for cheesy cards, for shiny baubles, and for impossible-to-attain reservations.

Alas – my Valentine's story this year starts just this way, though luckily, it all works out in the end. This layout tells the harrowing tale.

Yes, after an exhausting week, my husband did, in fact, overlook Valentine's Day this year, but he made up for it one day later, gifting me with the usual Valentine's tokens of affection, plus a few more that let me know that he not only loves me, he also gets me.

I may be a girl who likes getting pampered, but I'm also a scrapbooker, so after expressing my surprise and my delight, I couldn't deny my scrapper's instincts – I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots of my post-Valentine's Day haul. Together, they help to tell the story of February 15th Valentine's Day. Rather than just pick one or two that I liked for the layout, I decided to use them all, sizing each one down to 1.5" x 2.25". They are all part of the story, after all.

To create the layout, I layered strips of patterned paper from the Crate Paper Love Notes collection across the page, and added several Love Notes photo overlays to the mix. The two red lines across the block of photos (from a red transparency frame) actually help to guide the eye across the photos, simultaneously unifying all three columns while also creating a distinct center column. I also trimmed a few more frames and backed several of the photos with them, creating photo mats with a subtle colors that blend well with the existing colors on the layout.

Among the photos, I tucked in accents, including assorted Love Notes cardstock and chipboard stickers, a foam heart from a sheet of Love Notes Thickers, metal flair, and a painted-hearts clothespin. Interspersing these accents across the photo block creates visual continuity among the individual photos. Adding them to different layers – over and under photos and paper – results in a dimensional "boost" in a few areas but also makes clear that everything on this page is linked by love.

Usually I come up with my own layout titles, but a sticker from the Love Notes collection sparked an idea. Initially, the sticker read, "a love story", and when I set eyes on it while selecting the supplies for the layout, my first reaction was to laugh, thinking, "Sure, yeah…a love story – but one day late!" Just like that, there it was, the idea for the title. I used the (free) font Typenoksidi at size 18 and typed the words "one day late", and after printing out the phrase, I drew lines around the printed words so that I could determine where to place the sticker to ensure that the text would align with the lines on the sticker.

After placing the sticker over the printed text, I ran the sheet through the printer once more, and after a short bit of drying time to prevent smearing, my title was ready to go. I added it to the mix of accents and layers so that it joined in the overall "flow" of the page.

After assembling the photo block and it's layers, I printed the journaling on a sheet of "Sparked" patterned paper, a paper that works not only because the colors complement the existing colors on the layout, but because the horizontal stripes mimic those created by the horizontal rows in the photo block. The subtle background does not upstage the journaling, and allows ample room so that the whole story can be told.

The final touch was the addition of the word "love" at the bottom of the page, accompanied by a few more hearts, and the adjustment of the "February 14" date to February 15. Even the tiniest of additions can help to tell a story – and make clear that I've definitely found the humor in the Valentine's Day that almost wasn't.