First Dance ~ Tips and Techniques ScrapThat! October Kit

I hope you are having a delightful week and have some fun times planned for this weekend. I have some scrappy projects due next week, so I get to do some creating this weekend. Today, I'll be spending the day creating with my friend, Mandy who has some craft fair projects to work on. Then Saturday and Sunday I'm heading to a crop at our local craft store, Pat Catan's, for their monthly crop.

Today, I would like to share with you the details of my First Dance Layout created with the amazing October ScrapThat! Kit featuring Prima's Tea Thyme papers. This is our son and his beautiful bride sharing their first dance on their wedding day, December 2011.

Tips and Techniques:

Transparency Butterflies ~ These sweet butterflies were created by printing butterfly images onto inkjet transparency paper. While the ink was still wet, I covered the images with clear embossing powder and heat set. To prevent the transparency paper from shrinking and warping, I kept the heat tool further from the image than I normally would, and took my time melting the embossing powder. While the embossing was still hot and wet, I added more clear embossing powder and heat set again. Once it was set and dry, pulled the wings forward from the body for some added dimension.

Hand Stitching ~ I drew a curved, looped line around the border of the page stopping at the edge of the bricks and horizontal paper strip. I used this line to pierce stitching holes for my hand stitching.

Ceramic Stucco Bricks ~ I sprayed the back of my brick stencil with some removable adhesive, allowed it to dry, then placed it on my page where I wanted a brick wall image. I used a craft spatula to spread the Ceramic Stucco Medium over the stencil. After carefully removing the stencil, I used my heat tool to dry, then moved the stencil to coordinate with the bricks already on the page and repeated this process around the page. Once all the brick work was dry, I spritzed with several colors of inks and mists to get the brick color I was looking for. I love that they are mottled and the color varied just like it would be on an actual brick wall. You can't see it in the photo, but the walls in the reception hall were exposed brick, making this a perfect background for this page.

Altered Flowers ~ I altered the Petaloo flowers with several shades of mist and gesso. For the flower on the left side, I removed the center and used the pearls from the kit to create a new one. The Prima clock was a perfect addition to this cluster.

Photo Mat Layers ~ The layers behind the photo were fussy cut from scraps of the Prima paper. Two sheets of paper had lovely frame pieces that were just the right size to cut and layer. The colors didn't go with this page, so I misted them and inked the edges. I also added a doily from my stash that I misted before tucking into the layers. The square photo mat and layout edges were distressed with my Zutter Distrezz-It-All by Donna Salazar.

Vines ~ The swirled vine tendrils were created with wires cut from the kit flowers and leaves. I simply wrapped them around a small diameter paint brush, then pulled and bent them to look more natural.

Fussy Cutting ~ I added some fussy cut flowers to this cluster. I like to get a lot of milage out of my papers, so whenever possible I cut out paper that is covered up by other papers. For instance when I have a frame around my page, I cut it about 1 inch wide, so I still have a 10 x 10 inch piece of paper to use for photo mats, cutting flowers, fussy cutting .  .  .

If there are any techniques here that you would like a step by step tutorial for, please let me know!!

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~