Conservation Center with photo stacks double layout

I have a confession.
I have been scrapbooking for more than 10 years and I've never used photo stacks on my pages.
Whew. There.
I know?!?!?! How could I have gone so long without using them?
But this week, I had some photos from the autumn field trip Hannah's class went on and I didn't really want to make more than a double-page layout. So I decided it was time to bite the bullet and just do it!

First I decided which photos I wanted to feature and see when I opened to the page, then I decided which photos went better beneath the photo stacks. Finally, I used washi tape to make sure they stayed put!

Since most of the kids wore red that day and it was fall (not to leave out my red hair!), many of the photos had red and orange undertones. I don't have many papers in oranges and reds since I don't use them that often. My friend Keri (see? shout out again this week) had a couple beautiful orange flowery background from a Colorbok paper pack. I paired those with a printed orange and a watercolor orange from my Basic Grey Fiction paper pack I used for the photo mats.

I used my Bugs and Hugs stamps from Close To My Heart and stamped three dragonflies and two butterflies for some embellishments.

Using my new CTMH watercolor pencils and watercolor pen, I colored the dragon flies and butterflies for some pretty designs.

I also used my CTMH pearls to give dimension to the bugs and highlighted them with my CTMH Liquid Glass for a little glimmer.

I had some "paper bag" color scrap paper I used to make a couple banners with a mushroom stamp from my Bugs and Hugs stamps. I highlighted the banners with two orange flowers (borrowed from Keri) and used an orange flower brad for the middle of the flowers. I then used my Liquid Glass on the brads.

I used the second side of my printed orange paper for the title banner. It was a cool grid patter that I felt went very well with the page.

After all was said and done, I used my new CTMH distress inks and inked the pages and the title banner with the chocolate distress ink. You can see the distressed look on the main page in one of the above photos.

I then went back and journaled a little on each photo with my new CTMH gold metallic marker. It dries super fast so I didn't even have to wait.