"We bought a 4-foot square sandbox and 600 lbs of sand for the back yard, plus $10 worth of sand toys. Oz likes the toys, but not the cold, wet sand. He wipes it off his hands and doesn’t want it on his feet. But, the tray I put together with a shoe box lid, some old colored sand I’ve been saving for 30 years, a plastic spoon, a plastic pouring bottle and a little dressing cup, is a huge hit. Oz played with this on the back mud porch for at least half an hour, absorbed in the textures, the sounds, the pouring. Me, who won’t allow a speck of dust on my floors, sat and watched as he poured and scattered sand all over the floor."
As I was taking these photos, I knew they would be a challenge to work with, since my mud porch is not an attractive place, filled with trash cans, shoes and miscellany, as well as a vintage 50's colorful linoleum floor (which I love, but it didn't work with the photo colors). The key was selective desaturation and erasing some of the masks to reveal background.
To "selectively desaturate" I add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, then use brushes and erasers to reveal some color, like the blue of the sand.
I then recolored some of the elements to add blue around the page.
The "xoxo" is a transfer in which I manipulated the "x" part (via polygonal lasso tool), then duplicated and colored with a brush.
Frames on the left are from the Strom Template, with a little gray brushed onto them.
The "crown" is from the button in the Palette, extracted and warped.