My Heart is Captured by You

     This layout is another Art Journaling challenge.  The challenge was to do a layout about heart.  I saw the background paper with the birdcage and instantly thought about a heart being captured.  The paper was 8 1/2 x 11 and I needed to make it be 12x12 but I didn't want the birdcage to be larger than it originally was.  I enlarged the paper just enough to get it up to 12 inches tall; then I duplicated the layer and filled the width to 12 inches.  The pattern in the paper made it too obvious that I had done just that so I did some selections and layered them on top of the obvious sections.  A little work with an eraser brush helped erase the straight edges and blended the textures a little.  I think it worked out pretty well.  I had to do the same to add some stitching to the blank areas.
   The birdcage presented another challenge.  I wanted to add the heart behind the bars so I made another selection around the birdcage and erased all the paper between the bars so when I layered it over the background and the heart the heart would show through.  I realize now I probably could have done a selection of the cage itself to save some time and effort.
     I had to do some erasing on the font, so I needed to simplify the font layer which was new for me.  I learned once you do that you can't find out the font name again later.  It might be a good idea to add the name of the font to the layer next time. 
     The journaling strips presented another challenge because they were too long and I couldn't shrink them down small enough to be as short as I needed.  I made selections and deleted part of the labels.  Once I did that the cut edge was just too sharp, so I made selections of the ends of the originals and added them to the cut off edges.  I had to do some blending with the eraser tool again for a seamless look.
     The dates on the tags are special dates:  my wedding day and the birthdays of Alexis, Rachel, Ewan and Vivian.  Each is important to me as all these special people in my life have captured my heart.
    This is the most complicated layout I have made to date.

Background paper: Journal Your Art Out 5 by Nancie Rowe Janitz;

Locket: Warmth of Family by Amber Shaw;

Translucent hearts: Finding My Way by Rosey Posey;

Heart: Sweet & Simple by Gina Marie Huff

Journal strips: Something Pretty by Zoe Pearn

Fonts: Meander, Angelic Peace, Always in my Heart, Diesel, KG Eyes Wide Open