Family is a patchwork

This week's Scrapbook Steals sketch challenge came down to the wire!  With only hours before the deadline, I finally had a chance to get my scrap on.  Luckily, I had the day off work and I bribed my kids with redbox rentals to ensure I would have a little time to myself.  This sketch was a big challenge for me, considering that I couldn't see using any of my photos with the inspiration sketch.  I was thumbing thru photos and papers and saw this element from Simple Stories Harvest Lane collection:

The heart on the bottom of the page inspired my entire layout. I borrowed the title phrase and re-created a large heart pieced from scraps:

I love this photo I took of my boys and their cousins on Thanksgiving.  We don't get to spend much time with them, but when the kids are together they have such a great time!  The photo was taken at my grandparent's barn, which worked perfectly with the woodgrain patterns in this collection.  I had to print the photo in a sepia tone because their outfits clashed horribly. For the title, I took the phrase from the original inspiration piece and recreated my own version.  I started with the wood house and worked backwards, adding the title words from last to first.  I stitched on the "stitched" portion of the title and machine stitched around "family" to frame my feature word.   I think I love the end result.