Imaginisce August Challenge: Elephant Fever

My Layout:
I've been back to the U.S. for a few days now, but I'm still so disoriented. The jet-lag is much more prevalent on the return trip than during the trip. Somehow, I still managed to complete my first page from my Thailand photos. I was inspired by Imaginisce's current sketch challenge, it seems I just can't stay away. Without further ado, here is Kevin with his cute lil' 400 lb. buddy that he met in Chiang Mai. The little guy kept trying to bite and wrestle with Kevin in the river when he was trying to give its mother a bath. The trainers called him naughty boy, since he wasn't officially named yet.

Patara Elephant Farm Layout

The Challenge:

Becky Fleck's challenge sketch

Imaginisce's August Challenge is to make a layout based on Becky Fleck's PageMaps sketch. She is a renowned sketch artist, and I've seen her sketches all over the internet so I really wanted to participate in this challenge. 

When deciding on a paper collection, I first thought of Imaginisce's Animal Crackers collection because it has  an elephant in the design. But the colors weren't right for what I wanted. I did cut out one of the elephants and used a frame for my title. 

Framed title

But for the majority of elements, I ended up using the Dino Roar collection because it had the earth tones, orange colors and stripes that I wanted to emphasize. Honestly, I'd bypassed both collections because of the themes, circus and dinosaurs, since they are so specific. I only have them because I won them. But the B side of the papers are so versatile, so don't discount collections based on the motifs. 

Animal Crackers circus collection

Dinoroar Collection

The Interpretation:

When I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to put a photo in the blank background section instead of using a piece of cardstock. For a photo to be so large (6 x 12"), I knew it had to be impressive to command attention, so I also immediately thought of our elephant photos. I purchased some 12 x 12 cardstock for printing photos, but never saw the need to print such a large photo, then where would you scrap? Even though it was a matte cardstock, the photo was impressively clear when printed, so I might be doing this again.

I built the center collage with a few minor adjustments, and tilted it and moved it higher on the page so it wouldn't cover up the elephant. 

Central Collage

At this point, it still looked a little plain, so I hand-stitched some grass designs. I'm still not won over by hand stitching on pages, it took longer to stitch the grass than to print the photos and journaling and make the rest of the layout. Overall, I'm pleased with how it turned out. It does look very Thai to me even though I didn't use any of the items I bought from there to use, like elephant dung paper. Yes, it does exist. 

The Background:

I would have to say spending the day with elephants was the highlight of my adventures in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Most places let you ride on a bamboo seat placed on the elephant's back for a few treks around a circle. But we went to Patara Elephant Farm where you get your own elephant for the day and you ride bareback through the jungles and swim with them in the river. I highly recommend this activity if you are traveling to northern Thailand, it is ranked the #1 activity in the area on Trip Advisor. 

This is when we first got on our elephants. Kevin had a female with a baby boy who followed us all day. 

The Family Trek

This is when we rode to the waterfall and got to swim around with the elephants. They really like the water and can just stay totally submerged with just the tip of their trunks sticking out. It did remind me of the scene from Disney's Jungle Cruise ride.

Swimming with elephants

Hope you are enjoying your summer,

Take care,