Finally Catching a Break

This past weekend I finally had a chance to settle in with my Scraps of Darkness and Scraps of Elegance December and January kits.  I was so excited before I left work Friday about getting home to work with these kits.  My awesome friend, Kara, had asked me what the colors in the kits were like, so I showed her via the above linked blog.  She then sent me a picture of the two of us that fit right in!  I have so far edited one to be more "cool" and the other "warm.  Here is what happened with the "cool" one and the SOD December Kit "Northern Lights":

 

I remembered the amazing swirl stencil that came with the October SOD kit...and given the inspiration board that the wonderfully talented ladies at SOD came up with I was inspired to do some "swirling" with this layout.  I laid the stencil (check this link out and click on the "mosaic swirl" stencil) down on my page and went to town with modeling paste.   While I waited for the paste to dry, I started mixing various colors of paint.  My original plan was going to include some gelatos color in this swirls, but ended up just using paint.  (You can see some of the gelatos "mess" to the far left side of the swirls).  I went with several shades of purple and blue with my paint so that I could slowly "swirl" them all in together.  Prior to receiving the kit from SOD, I already had a 6 x 6 paper pack that matched several of the papers included, so I picked out a couple of 6 x 6 papers that matched the background paper and my picture, distressed them, and inked the edges with some blue, purple, and grey ink.  I love getting to ink the edges of my papers with what I consider "different" hues since I'm usually inking to get a vintage look!  :)  Here is a close up of the edges of the papers:

 

 

Once the modeling paste had dried, I started painting my mosaic swirls in randomly.  I kept the colors in the same family so that there were no issues with mixing and matching as I went.  When I was done I used the rest of my mixed paint, along with some regular white paint, and splattered them across my background paper, and the smaller squares of paper from my 6 x 6 pack.  (*Disclaimer:  Safety first...I totally splattered paint right into my eye...*)  After I finished splattering with my paint, I took the stencil from the kit along with the awesome textured "snow" paste and made a few snowflakes on my background paper.  This is a little wishful thinking because even though the day Kara and I took this picture was super cold, we have had only a few (1 1/2) "dustings" of white stuff that we are pretty sure was snow, but couldn't verify before it disappeared here in Arkansas this year!  :(

 

 

For finishing touches, I applied some flowers from the kit, a few from my stash (including the sparkly blue butterfly up top), some ribbon (also from the kit), and the "smile" lettering at the bottom of the page.  A few random buttons and color coordinated brads later and I was completely done!  

Thanks for looking!  My apologies for this blog post taking so long to get here.  I'm having issues with uploading pictures directly to my work computer so I'm bouncing back and forth between my phone, my iPad, and my computer.  I'm sure I'll get things worked out fairly quickly!!  Till next time, friends!

Love,
Mel