Knowledge Is Power Layout

I'm so very happy to be one of CSI's (Color, Stories, Inspiration...) main sponsor for February!  I'm offering a voucher to my Etsy shop to one lucky winner!

In addition to being CSI's main sponsor--I also get to be one of their guest detectives.  How fun!  I've been a fan of CSI since their very first case file was revealed.  In fact, if interested--feel free to check out my entry for their first case file here!

I fell completely in love with Case File No. 109.  First of all--I'm such a book worm myself.  Anything involving books is a good thing in my opinion.  One of  my biggest aspirations for my son is that he'll love books just as much as I do.  Which is why I started buying him books before he was even born!  Yes--by the time he came into this world he had a reasonable collection of Dr. Seuss, several fairy tales that I myself grew up with, educational books, picture books & much more in his always-growing book collection.  Also since I'm fluent in both English & Spanish--many of these books are bilingual which absolutely thrilled me to no end to find books printed like this!

So when I received this case file--I took a few of my son's books out & spread them around him & snapped these photos.

The colors for this case file are excellent for boy themed pages--they worked just right for my overall theme.  They're a combination of colors that I don't usually work with & I loved the challenge this brought.

For my evidence I have: book pages, silver accents, birds & frames

For my testimony I've created a mini book to hold my thoughts & journaling.  I have a tutorial available on how I make these mini books--you can find it here if interested.  All of my layouts include journaling.  So I'm always trying new ways to store my journaling onto my page.

Layers, layers & more layers was how I tackled this page.  I have many little bits & bobs, papers & embellishments layered one on top of the other.  I also did a bit of masking, painting & even included some mixed media & stamping onto my background.

Here's my booklet that holds my journaling.  I love creating these little booklets--they make for really cute unique embellishments for my pages as well.

Here you can see a bit of the mixed media & stamping.  The word 'Books' was done with a fine tipped Sharpie marker & the use of 1" letter stencils that I bought at my local craft store.  TIP:  Go back to your childhood & color!  With a couple of Prismacolor pencils I 'colored' in the letters for the word 'Book'.  I then took a metallic gel point pen & randomly highlighted the letters.  You can do this technique for anything...designs on paper, letters, titles etc.  Use pencils, markers & even crayons!  Color them in for a different effect or look.

The title was made with my Dymo label maker & adhered onto my page with pop dots.

The bright red organza star flower & small yellow ribbon flower are items from my own personal stash.  I have both of these in more colors available in my shop.  They make for excellent fillers to clusters & are really cute embellishments.

Here's what my journaling book looks like when opened.  The main point in my long list of thoughts is that I hope to inspire my son to find the wonders of books regardless of all this technology available in this day & age.  Cell phones, Face Book, the Internet & who knows what else will be invented in the future--I know there's no way to avoid that & that's OK but, I hope that he'll still pick up an old-fashioned book once in a while & read.

Primary Supplies: Paper - 7 Dots Studio, Stamps - Tim Holtz, Prima, Mask - Crafters Workshop, Paints/Mists - Shimmerz, Tattered Angels, Embellishments - Prima, Kay's Kreative Korner, Tim Holtz

Thanks for stopping by & enjoy the rest of the week!