Sweet Farm Memories - FarmQuest Challenge Blog Theme #8

Hello, hello! Happy Thursday to you! I am so happy that you have stopped by today.

I am so excited to be a guest designer again for FarmQuest Challenge Blog. Becca has two fun-themed challenges a month and your project can be a card, tag, traveler's notebook layout, scrapbook layout, journal, bookmark, or ATC. Theme #8 is to use a wagon and/or an animal on your project. 

This is what I came up with:

I am starting another new traveler's notebook project called "The Five Senses Through the Seasons," and this is the first layout. I'll get more into my thoughts and plans on this project at the end of the post, but first, let's get into the nitty-gritty of the FarmQuest challenge. 

When I saw the theme was a wagon and/or animal I knew I wanted to make a layout of how when summer rolls around and I can smell the freshly cut hay that it takes me right back to my childhood and those long, hot, lazy summer days growing up on the farm. Since we are in the middle of hay season right now, it was easy to snap a few pictures of the freshly cut hay fields and the bales of hay out in the fields. 

To satisfy the challenge, I used a strip of patterned paper that had tractors pulling wagons of hay. Since we were dairy farmers when I was a kid, I could have added a cow to my layout and it would have been fine, but for starters, I  couldn't find one that was the right size for my layout and I really wanted to concentrate on the hay story.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I stamped the word 'sweet' above the farm memories die-cut so my title reads "Sweet Farm Memories." I had a little extra space under my journaling so I stamped "I love the country' and added a punched heart.

I thought the #farmlife and the 'Hay!' die-cuts were perfect for this layout.

Now, more about this notebook. While I was tossing around ideas of what I wanted to do for this challenge, I came across a Youtube video from Create With Alison titled "Sense of Smell" and it got me thinking of how the smell of hay really takes me back to my childhood. While I was trying to figure out which TN I was going to add this story to, I came up with the idea to start a whole new TN and call it 'The Five Senses Through the Seasons.' In this layout, I talk about seeing and smelling the hay in the fields. More ideas for summer could be the taste of fresh garden veggies or those tasty BBQs that happen regularly, the touch of the soft green grass, or the cool pool water on our skin. The sound of the cicadas and how when I was a kid I dreaded hearing them because I knew that my summer vacation was about over and school was about to start. 

I am excited to work on this traveler's notebook and get it filled up - whether it be with memories of my childhood or whatever is going on in the here and now. It will be fun to document the seasons in a new/different way.

Be sure to check out the FarmQuest Challenge Blog. I would love it if you played along, too!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! I hope you have a great day!