Ali Edwards Story Kit | Gathering Spread

Good morning! Today I'm sharing another layout I made using one of Ali Edwards' Story Kits. This one I made using the Gather Story kit. I had this photo sitting on my desk for quite some time now, and I knew I wanted to document it, but I wasn't sure how or where I was going to use it. I thought about using it in my Project Life album from the year the photo was taken, but when I ordered the print, I had to get it a weird size because of the dimensions of the photo, and when I tried to cut it up (I ordered it twice) it cut into peoples faces. I thought about just sticking it into an 8.5x11 page protector, and sticking it in that way, but since I hadn't done anything with it, and I wanted to make a page using the kit, I decided I'd use it for this.

This spread is very similar to one that Ali made in her process video for this kit, but it's also very different. I used a little bit of everything to make this spread. I used the phrase stickers, the canvas pieces, the digital files, the stamps, the digital cards (if I'm going to cut it up I prefer to print it out), and the little story cards. I used my computer to type out the titles for each of the little story cards, as well as the little "titles" between the story cards.

The photo in this spread was taken on New Year's Eve in 2011. My Grandpa passed away on Christmas Day, and we had the funeral New Year's Eve. My Aunt wanted to get a picture of his Grandkids, and the three Great-Grandkids (one of the Grandkids is missing). We're such a good looking bunch. Despite it being the holidays, so so many people came. The church was overflowing, and I know it meant a lot to my Grandma to have so much support from people who knew my Grandpa. Enough about how sad this day was. I think it's important to document all the moments. Not just the ones where you're happy and your life looks so perfect. I'm so grateful that she made us all stand there for this picture, even though I for one, didn't want to. 

This is definitely my favourite close up from this layout. I love how the gather stands out against the canvas piece. I used red Colorbox ink and the gather stamp. I added the hearts with black ink, and I love how it looks. The little titles were adhered to the story boxes with double sided tape. I added the titles and the stickers to avoid having odd sized gaps between the cards. I was going for a haphazard grid look, and achieved that with different sized elements.

I used the digital file for the acrylic hearts to cut this one out of red paper. I resized it to 2". I glued and then stitched it to the canvas piece. I added the blue chipboard piece that says "better together" to the middle of the heart. You can see a tiny bit of where I stamped on the photo. I used the "ah, family", hearts and "in good times and hard times" stamps. This photo is from one of the hard times, and I wanted to document it.

Along the right hand side, I stamped "the more we get together the happier we'll be". It's true. We don't get together very often, but when we do, we usually have a good time, and it was so nice that we were all together for this. We all would have preferred different circumstances, however still enjoyed each other's company.

I want to thank you all for coming by to see this spread. If you don't yet subscribe to the Story Kits, I suggest you do so! They've definitely helped me document moments in my life, I might have otherwise overlooked. They've encouraged me to look at some moments in a new way, and I'm so grateful to Ali and her team for creating products to help us document our lives in a new way. I definitely look forward to sharing more layouts using her kits, and I look forward to getting more of her kits!

Have a great day!

-Alexandria