Revelation

Yesterday, I created this layout using a photo of my man's father(it's called a heritage layout but also has a vintage feel so I am calling it my vintage heritage - nothing better than combining terms). The photo is mounted on a piece of cardstock which is, in turn, mounted on a piece of cardboard. By the way, cardboard - that's right, regular old cardboard like you find on boxes - is all the rage right now in the scrapbooking world, so save those scraps because you never know when they will come in handy. Okay, back to my story...
Although it doesn't show up very well in the photo of my layout, I painted the cardboard and cardstock with Tim Holtz crackle paint to give my layout a more antique-y feel. As I was painting the piece of cardboard (and getting more paint than I would have thought possible on me), the proverbial lightbulb went off over my head and I had my REVELATION for the day! I said to myself, "Self, why are you painting the ENTIRE piece of cardboard and wasting time and wasting paint when most of it is going to be covered by the picture?" And my self replied, "That's a very good point! I have NO idea why I am doing that!" This may seem painfully obvious to you, and I honestly could not believe I hadn't thought of it before! Helllloooooo! There is NO NEED to paint something that is never going to be seen. So, I stopped painting the middle of the cardboard and only painted the edges that would not be covered by the picture.
My friend and fellow scrapbooking enthusiast, Jana, does something very similar with her paper. If she is layering the papers in her layout, she will often cut big chunks out of the bottom pieces that are covered by the top layers. It saves on paper, and no one will ever know those bottom pieces are missing - unless you tell them!
I'm sure there are lots of other little obvious things that I still haven't figured out. And I would love to hear any story you may have of an a-ha moment that you've had!