So Grateful

Hello Friends! Today I would like to share this layout with you that I made using an older Kaisercraft collection called Rose Avenue. It is such a beautiful, soft and feminine collection. The two little photos are of me when I was a baby, I'm not sure how old I was, sadly none of the photos I have of my childhood are dated. I thought it would be fun to make a grid layout. So I took different elements out of the collection and cut them to the desired shape and size and made a grid. If you look closely you will see that I added some tissue paper to the backs of my photos, it adds a softness to the photo and I just plain like the way it looks! I love dimension and so I popped most of the elements up on adhesive foam. I also added stitching the to squares and rectangles to further make them pop. I love me some stitchin'!! And that is all for this layout. Short and sweet. It came together quite quickly (except for the stitching of course).

Happy Smiles

Hi! Today I'm sharing this layout with you that I made a few months ago. I wanted to do something different and break away from any of the collections I had at that time. So I went online and found these amazing printable florals. I printed them out on my Canon printer and just cut them out with my scissors. The flowers and leaves are very basic and easy to fussy cut. Let me tell you a little about the photo. It was taken when Emma was about 5 months old. On Sundays the family gathers after church and we have a massive Sunday roast. On that particular day Emma and her cousin were both all dolled up in their pretty dresses. Her Auntie was also dolled up, and I thought the three of them together would make such a lovely photo.

 I used 12x12 textured white card stock and I applied Gesso as I knew I wanted to do some mixed media. I used the packaging method, I just rubbed some blue Gelato's onto the plastic packaging, added water and made sure the Gelato's and water mixed well. I turned the packaging over and just smudged the blue paint onto the white card stock. I just wanted to add some interest in the background to counter the stark white of the card stock. I layered some pink pattern paper from my stash behind the photo and added a little green doodle sticker from an old Doodlebug collection. As you can see I layered the flowers behind the photo to create a sort of bouquet. I also added some stitching in the shape of the flowers and I tried to match up the colours of the thread and the flowers as best I could. I felt that the layout was very busy on the left hand side of the paper and needed to be balanced out a bit, so I added a little cluster of the fussy cut flowers and some more stitching over on the top right corner. All in all I feel happy with how this layout came out. It is a very happy, simple and bright layout. See you soon!!

A girl and her Cat

Hello Friends! Today I want to share this layout I created. Let me first talk about the photo. I took this photo of my oldest daughter a few months ago. She was sitting on my bed with her very messy and tangled hair clutching our cat ( poor cat). She was reading out aloud to our Kitty, and I thought it was the sweetest thing. So I got the phone out and snapped this cutie! I got one of the cut apart sheets from Carta Bella's very beautiful collection called 'Flora no. 1' a few months ago, and I thought the colours in the collection would go perfectly with the colours in the photo. Her dress is a 'dirty' pink, and the same pink is present in this collection. I unfortunately only had the one cut apart sheet, so I had to work with a plan. I fussy cut some of the florals from the sheet and placed them on the photo on adjacent corners. I also cut out some of the journaling cards and used them for layering. I had to go digging in my stash for a co-ordination paper with florals. You will see those florals behind the photo, I fussy cut them out. I have no idea what collection that floral paper is from, its a very old paper, so I can't even tell you for referencing. However, I can tell you loads about the background. I absolutely love working with Gelato's.

 I was first introduced to Gelato's while watching one of Missy Whidden's many fabulous process videos on Youtube. Please do yourself a favour and go ahead and watch her videos, they are amazing. Okay, back to the background! I used a plain white piece of 12x12 cardstock and primed it with Gesso. After the Gesso dried I went ahead and rubbed the Gelato's directly onto the paper in the shades that I wanted. I applied it liberally! To blend the Gelato's and get that beautiful gradient effect I blended the colours with my fingers and I also used a hard bristle paint brush, (I applied very little water to the brush). The alpha's and accent stickers I used to embellish the page are all from my stash. 

While creating this page I was reminded that you don't always have to work with a complete collection kit, you can pick out one paper and build an entire page theme around the colours in that one paper. Just as I did with this layout, I had one cut apart sheet of the ' Flora no.1' collection and I made a layout. See, you can do it! Go dig in your stash for coordinating colours and themes and slap them all together, you will be amazed! Get creative with your background, don't be afraid to get messy, you can always clean it up after wards!