Backyard Guest & SFH Feature

I have a bit of catch-up blogging to do.  A couple weeks ago I played along with the October Afternoon blog challenge.  The challenge was to create a layout using a not-so-great photo.  It's unfortunate, but we all have photos that fall into that category.  But sometimes it's worth it to use not-so-great photos on layouts anyway, especially if they are the only documentation you have of an important memory.

Supplies: all papers, die-cuts, buttons, and stickers are from October Afternoon.  The twine is vintage.

I combined the OA challenge with a pretty, springtime Color Room palette to create the layout that you see above.  The journaling reads: "A pair of robins built a nest in our back yard.  We loved seeing them every day.  Spring 2011."  The birds were camera-shy, but I did manage to get one blurry shot of the father robin, which you see on my layout.  I'm not satisfied with the quality of the snapshot, but a few Color Room members who commented on my layout said it was a good photo, so maybe it's better than I think.  Anyway, I'm just happy to have this layout.  The robins moved in around the same time that our last cat, Shadow, passed away, and it was nice to have new animals around--it softened the blow of losing Shadow.

The robins abandoned the nest after their last baby learned to fly, but the nest is still intact in our yard.  I wonder, will new birds take over the nest this spring?  If they do, I'll be sure to let you know!

In other exciting news...when I logged on to Blogger this morning, I was delighted to discover that I'm once again being featured at Scrap for Help!  This is a challenge site that is near and dear to my heart, since it's all about international friendships and creating with recycled materials.  I just want to say thanks so much to the people who voted for my layout, "Road Trip."  You can see a photo of the layout below.  For more information, please see the original post.