Hold onto Your Hat

My son, Colin, on June 23, 2006

This 12" x 12" layout is my entry for the April mood board challenge at Scrap Around the World.  I used the colours from the mood board.

Scrap Around the World - April Mood Board

I feel like I've been in a rut with my last few layouts so I wanted to do something a little less "controlled".  I'm always a bit nervous using stencils and sprays because I tend to wreck quite a few sheets of beautiful paper and get very discouraged.  This time I used a plain sheet so I wouldn't beat myself up (as much) if it ended up in the trash.



I began with a plain white piece of Ranger Specialty Stamping paper (I like the way the mists don't soak into this kind of paper and you have more time to manipulate them).  I applied some molding paste with stencils in the center of the paper, overlapping the patterns in places.  Then I dripped blotches of mist (by Lindy's Stamp Gang) in several different colours over the top.  I used some Flat Fabio sprays and Starbursts that added some shimmer to it.

Prima stencil - Stone Wall 3

Crafter's Workshop 6"x6" template - Cherry Blossom

I set it aside for quite a while after that, not sure what to do next.  Finally I tried doing some random punching around the edges of the paper which looked awful.  To cover that up, I scrunched up small strips of white tissue paper and a few bits of cheesecloth and glued them all around the edges and dripped more of the mists overtop.  It probably would have looked better if I had remembered the exact coloured mists I had used on the center portion but I had set it aside for so long and cleaned up all my supplies in between so I had to guess.  I was also a bit more heavy-handed with the mists this time and the colour looked too dark and distracting so I brushed white paint over top to soften the look and highlight the texture.  I also distressed the edges of the paper.

At this point I was thinking "Oh well, it's this far gone, might as well just go nuts with texture".  I added bits of drywall tape and corrugated cardboard brushed with white paint and did some more stencilling with molding paste over the drywall tape.

Then I just added the embellishments:  some white roses sprayed with the same dark mist used on the background, chipboard gears, coconut buttons. a small piece of lace, a berry stem, some prima metal and resin pieces, wood veneer asterisks,  and a bunch of Petaloo flowers.

I painted the chipboard gears with a metallic black paint and then sprayed them with black, copper and turquoise coloured mists by Lindy's Stamp Gang.

Here are some more close-ups:

Thanks for looking!