Celebrate! White with 1 May challenge

Here is my latest entry for May's White with 1 challenge - to use white and gold.  I didn't realise how little I have in the way of gold paper until I started searching my stash for this challenge! I found lots of embellishments though, and gold acrylic paint, so that all worked.

I started with a sketch from April 2014 Page Maps. I had been considering entering the layout in their 8th birthday grand prize challenge, but decided against it in the end (and made another layout for that instead!). 

The music paper behind the main photo is from a Kaisercraft 6x6 (Christmas themed) paper pad. The doily I die cut from white cardstock with my Cheery Lynn English Tea Party doily die (one of my favourite dies). Then I painted it with the aforementioned gold acrylic paint.

On the right hand side I cut another piece of white cardstock and put the gold stickers on it. Then I used my Big Shot to emboss it with my Close to my Heart Stripe embossing folder.

Chipboard bookplate, originally pink,
coloured gold with embossing powder

The chipboard bookplate was originally pink. I covered it with versamark ink, then gold embossing powder and heated that up. I wasn't completely happy with the coverage so simply heated it up again and pressed it into the leftover powder I hadn't put back in the container yet. Then I heated that up again to melt the new layer of powder. I haven't tried that before so I was very happy to find that it worked. I put a scrap piece of gold ribbon behind it, added the three plastic flowers and finally topped it with the gold "celebrate" sequin/sprinkle.

White doily die cut painted with gold acrylic paint, topped with organza lollipop flower with button centre and gold butterfly sequins to look like leaves

The lollipop flowers were made using another technique I hadn't tried before. The material, an organza style fabric, was actually a piece of gold wrapping "paper" that we had received a gift in when we were in Singapore. The scrapbooker (or maybe I should say hoarder) that I am, I packed it in my suitcase and said I'll use that one day, and for once I did! I cut circles out of the material and slightly melted the edges with a candle flame, then layered them on top of each other and added a white and gold button in the centre. I love how they turned out! The gold heart paper clip above the right hand flower was attached to the page with liquid glass. It makes for a kind of epoxy embellishment.

For the line of beads, I alternately strung seed beads and bugle beads onto thin gold wire. To attach it I just poked a hole in the paper at each end and pushed the wire through and bent it over on the back of the page. It didn't sit as straight as I would like, so near the centre of each line, I stabbed a small hole in the page and tied the beaded wire down with some gold metallic thread so you really can't see where I did it, especially since the knot is on the backside of the page. To finish off, I added the gold butterfly sequins, gold flower sequins to which I added rhinestone centres, as well as the gold photo corner stickers. Done!

I'm extremely happy with the result and hope you like it too. I love reading your comments, so happy for you to leave me some!

Till next time, happy days!

(High School) Friends Together

Here's my latest challenge entry for the Scrap the Girls monochromatic challenge. I really enjoy doing monochromatic layouts. Looking for papers and embellishments from my stash that are all the same colour is fun - once you decide on the colour, that its! I picked green for this challenge because that was the colour of my daughter's jewellery, and because of the trees in the background of the photos. 
In my post about my White on white layout I explained that I have recently received a number of die cuts and embossed papers from a swap on the Crop Room. So I went looking at those swap items again and found the swirl embossed paper, the owl and the leaves. All three pieces were larger A2 embossed papers, generally meant for cards. I cut them up though, and used the rest of the owl for the mat under the single photo in the top left corner. Part of the non-embossed part of the leaf piece I cut with my wonky scalloped border die for the base of the title. 

The embellishments:
buttons: Beutron
flower brads: unknown
floss: DMC

epoxy photo corner: Making Memories (from a Christmas set)
layered flower: unknown die cut, TLC Poppin Pieces flower, button and floss
large flower: unknown, but I put a Fancy Pants rub on on it
letters: Kaisercraft, Basic Grey
metal 'together' ribbon slide: unknown
rhinestones: Kaisercraft Basics

jute: coloured with Bamboo VersaColor ink. Note: I threaded the two buttons onto the jute through two diagonal holes. Then I taped down the buttons in the corners of the "frame" and taped jute on the underside of the cardstock. Then I marked where the other two holes in the buttons were and pierced two holes. I threaded a short piece of jute through these holes and tied it off on top of the button. I thought this would help to secure the jute "frame" in place. 
ribbon: unknown, but this was the ribbon my daughter wore in her hair when these photos were taken
mini bows were made with a fork, with this fabulous tutorial 

I used a Becky Fleck Page Map as the basis for this layout. It's the current sketch on the Page Maps challenge blog, but since I can't enter that challenge, I used the sketch for this one instead. I started off fairly true to the sketch but diverged a bit as I went on. All in all though, I really like the final outcome. Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!
Till next time. Happy Days!
Francine