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When I read that the theme for this month would be Special Days, I knew I had some fresh ideas in mind. My husband and I just celebrated our fourteenth anniversary, his 40^th birthday was in April and, then of course Mother's Day is coming. Each of these are special days to me so I decided on three layouts this month coinciding with these times.

 The first has just a small amount of doodles. Hash marks around the hearts in the layout of my husband Kevin on his birthday and hand drawn hearts to emphasize the words "love" and "you" show that doodles take very little effort, but are effective. Sometimes a small amount adds interest and texture. There are layouts that may have a feel that something is missing. When this happens, add a doodle and it will fill in what seemed to be lacking. If you are concerned about doodling on your project, think about what you would like to do, draw on some scratch paper and place it where you plan to use it on the project You will get a feel for what it will be like.

I made another layout and it has a fair amount of doodles. When this picture was taken of my daughters Kristen and Katelyn, I thought the picture had a "dreamy" look. I wanted more than just store bought embellishments. I wanted something that would feel bigger than life. I doodled this fairy princess on white cardstock. I added several different embossing powders on her dress and wings after using a Versa Mark pad which is clear ink. Hoping to have the fairy princess tower over my children, I decided to cut her out of the paper. For completing that task I used the new Fiskars Fingertip Craft Knife. For this project this was very helpful. I left her foot free to hang over the picture then added a hand-drawn, scalloped border around the picture.

If you were feeling adventurous then perhaps you would like to take on a project where there are many doodles as I did in this one called GROOVY DEBORAH. Looking for a retro feel, I doodled shapes that remind me of the word groovy. I pulled ideas from a book I have from the sixties and seventies. I let my eyes substitute for my letter O‘s just to be different. To punch out the "V" I once again used my craft knife, which made everything move so fast. Unlike in the first lo where I used a small amount of doodles, this one is a small amount of embellishments and all the rest are doodles, cardstock and a corner rounder. A bonus to doodling on your projects is that they are one-of-a-kind, created completely by you and affordably priceless. Sometimes it is nice to get back to basics. Give it a try and have a groovy day!

♥Deborah