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Symphony of Life

Today's layout celebrates my daughter's spring orchestra concert and combines several of my favorite things - die cutting and stenciling.  


To prepare the background page for the watercolor, I covered a piece of 12x12 white cardstock in clear gesso.  Next, I smooshed Evergreen Bough Distress Oxide Ink onto a piece of plastic packaging and used my Distress Sprayer to add water to the ink.  Using the "kissing technique", I "kissed" the packaging to the white background starting from the top left moving down to the bottom right of the background page.  I dried the background using a heat gun and repeated the process a few more times to darken the color.  I repeated this same process with Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide Ink.


After the ink dried, I placed the Vicki Boutin heart stencil diagonally across the top right of the page.  I used blending brushes to diagonally stencil hearts using Abandoned Coral, Antique Linen, and Evergreen Bough Distress Oxide Inks.  I repeated this process to the lower left corner of the page.  To soften the inked hearts, I sprayed the stenciled hearts with water using my Distress Sprayer and dabbed up the excess water using paper towels.


To add a musical touch to the background page, I inked up a music sheet rubber stamp with Black Soot Archival Ink and stamped it in several locations on the page.  I let the background dry completely and ran it through my Minc machine on a low setting to flatten out the page.  I used pieces of the teal and yellow sections of the 49 and Market Spectrum Sherbet washi tape and added it along the center edges and bottom right edge of the background page. 


I selected the Bo Bunny Beautiful Things collection because of the piece of paper in the 12x12 paper pad that had the rose gold hearts with the music notes inside.  I thought this would be perfect to show that this picture was taken after my daughter's orchestra concert.  I used the orange paper and rainbow striped paper from the 6x8 paper pad and the 12x12 black with white dots paper to matte the 4x6 photo.  I used a tag die to cut 4 tags using the 6x8 papers, keeping the coordinating branding strips at the top.  I staggered 2 of the tags to the left of the photo.  I glued two of the tags together and adhered a photo to each side of the tag and tucked this tag behind the main photo.  The tag can be pulled out from behind the photo to see the additional orchestra photos.  I cut small pieces of black and white cotton twine and attached them to the tags.


I cut a piece of the heart paper and tucked it behind the right side of the photo.  I fussy cut 3 more of the hearts.  Using foam tape, I popped up two of the hearts onto each tag and added the "lovely" and "memories" cardstock stickers near the hearts.  I used the Tim Holtz Brushstroke Flowers #2 dies to cut flowers and leaves from the 6x8 coordinating papers.  I cut the center embellishments of the flowers using rose gold cardstock.  I assembled the flowers and created embellishment clusters in the upper right and lower left corners of the page.  I used two of the smaller flowers and a fussy cut heart to make an embellishment cluster in the lower right corner of the page. 



I cut the title using my Cricut and adhered it across the top.  I added 3 rose gold heart stickers from the collection to add a touch more rose gold to the layout.

It is always difficult to get good orchestra pictures while my daughter is performing on stage, so I love how I was able to make a beautiful layout and still remember the event by tucking those not so good pictures on a tag behind the central photo.  

Symphony of Life
Supplies:
  • 12x12 White Cardstock
  • Recollections Black and Rose Gold Cardstock
  • Liquitex Clear Gesso
  • Vicki Boutin Sweet Rush Heart Stencil
  • Distress Oxide Inks - Evergreen Bough, Fossilized Amber, Antique Linen, and Abandoned Coral
  • Heat Gun
  • Blending Brushes
  • Distress Archival Ink - Black Soot
  • Distress Sprayer
  • Stampendous Music Sheet Rubber Stamp
  • Bo Bunny - Beautiful Things Collection
  • 49 and Market - Spectrum Sherbet Washi Tape
  • Tim Holtz Sizzix Thinlits - Brushstroke Flowers #2
  • Hero Arts Infinity Nesting Tag Dies
  • Foam Tape
  • Crafter's Square Black and White Cotton Twine
  • Cricut - Annie Leu Font


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