Hi, Vicky blogging today with a bit of everything from Halloween to Christmas and even a Heritage layout to share. Let's start with the Heritage layout made with my November Swirlydoos kit and 3 pieces of gorgeous 2Crafty chipboard. This is a layout about my grandfather (my dad's father). He immigrated to Canada from Portugal when my dad was 7. He sent my grandma, my dad and my aunt a year before and sent money for them to live with relatives until he could join them. I adore this new Creative Imaginations IOD "Gallivant" collection for Heritage layouts!
Here is a close-up of the chippies. I used taupe ink with splattered gesso on the TITLE and the CORNER SWIRLY for an aged look. On the ROXY's FLOURISH (around the flowers), I used teal Silks paint and splattered gesso on that one too.
For my second project, a Halloween layout made with my October Swirlydoos kit leftovers as well as I used the OUAS (Once Upon a Sketch) November sketch. This is my attempt at doing a negative space layout - a bit difficult challenge for me! The journaling on the back reads: "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you'll never know dear how much I love you, so please don't keep my sunshine away". My son adored this song as a baby - so I sang it to him every night. This is a picture of his first Halloween.
Here is a close-up of the pretty flowers in the kit and my reverse faux crackle finish on the CORINE's SWIRL (chipboard from my 2Crafty DT stash). To achieve the reverse faux crackle: I first stippled with gesso and once dry stippled on white acrylic paint. This created a nice bumpy surface. Once all dry I gently dipped my finger onto my chalk ink pad and gently rubbed the raised surfaces - therefore being a reverse crackle look.
Here I simply put some diamond dust on the TITLE I had painted in white, using some Helmar acid-free glue - to give it some texture and sparkle.
Lastly for today, a Christmas layout. This is a picture of my boys a few years ago posing in front the of the Christmas tree. The funny thing is that my own tree is decorated in a similar style as the graphics on this paper - dark red, white and gold (and a touch of pink). I instantly wanted to design with this particular paper from Meg's Garden "A Musical Christmas" collection. I actually used mini papers from the older "A Vintage Christmas" line for the photo mats since the collections blend so seamlessly.
I added a beautiful title and santa sleigh chipboard and limited the flowers since it is a boy layout after all. On the chippies I dabbed texture paste to give it a snowy effect and then added some diamond dust (glitter glass would work wonders too). I actually clipped the third snowflake off the TITLE and added to the top of the tree. For this one I simply used gold glitter glue on top of the clear diamond dust to give it extra gold sparkle.
Here is a close-up of the mini SANTA SLEIGH that I primed with gesso, added texture paste and lightly inked the edges. Look at that beautiful hand stamped feel of the papers behind!
