This is what happens when you have "too much stuff"...

So...several years ago during a reorganization of the my craft space, I hung a bulletin board over my work table to use for hanging pictures, embellishments, inspiration, etc.  I even bought funky and pretty push pins to hang these items up with.  Around the same time my beautiful friend Rae's son was about to get married.  She brought over some water margaritas and some digital pictures from the wedding/engagement photo shoot.  Somehow we managed to print these gorgeous pictures out using matte photo paper as opposed to glossy.  I didn't really want to do much with the matte photos at the time so I hung them on the bulletin board...

Fast forward a few years...The bulletin board is now slightly less accessible due to some more recent reorganization of the craft space.  However, when I got stuck last week I decided to "clear off" the bulletin board and came across the matte pictures.  Using the Blue Fern Studios December sketch and the Scraps of Darkness and Scraps of Elegance kits "Serenade" kit I was able to create this layout:

 

 

I loved the beautiful papers included in this kit.  Between the romantic feeling of the picture and the wonderful elements of flowers in the papers I was overwhelmed with the possibilities.  After trimming the green paper down for one of my layers, I fussy cut some of the yellow roses from the leftover trimmings.  I took those flowers and put them in random places around my layout.  

 

Below you can see the BFS sketch that inspired this.  I turned the rotated the sketch to the side and made my focal point slightly more off centered to the left.

 

Below you can see some of the chipboard work.  As I was covering the chipboard in gesso the bottom part (butterfly) was a little loose, so I tore it off to make two separate pieces of chipboard.  I coated both pieces in gesso and used some pain included in the SOD creativity kit to color most of the chipboard with a rust-bronze color.  I then used some Tim Holtz Distress Embossing powder and Distress Glitter in Vintage Photo and Antique Linen.  The sequins included in this kit were a nice touch in keeping with the bronze color scheme I was going for. 

 

For the other piece of the chipboard I decided to lighten things up a bit with some pink colored inks and distressing powder (again, Tim Holtz).  The finishing touches were some pearl accents and a little gold glitter.

 

Finally, here is a closeup of some of the flowers (and sequins) used in this layout.  I loved the overall soft feel that this layout has even though it uses more "rough" colors than "soft" colors.  

 I loved everything about this kit, and this is one of my all time favorite layouts.  I cannot wait to surprise Rae with it!  Cheers to cleaning your craft space and finding something old to make something new with!!!  Thanks for looking!

Love,
Mel