Scrap the Boys - October Challenge

October gave us another great mood board from Scrap the Boys. Straight away I loved the colours. My concept came soon after & wasn't reliant on a certain picture this month, although I knew I would most likely choose a black & white photo.

Initially I didn't think I've have the time this month to create the layout I wanted to, as we're busy busy creating our class kits over at The Scrapbook House, and September onward is a really busy time in the school year, especially if you have children completing their final year. But when I remembered Retreat was coming up it made sense to devote the bulk of my time to creating my challenge submission

I had on hand the card stock discard from cutting the flowers for my Class Kit & I had this idea to create a highly textured background, using the card stock cuttings, channelling both the jellyfish on the mood board & the foliage on the mountain in the last little pic.

 I imagined a wavy 3D background with glitter, flowers & other embellishments weaving through the gaps like seaweed at the bottom of the ocean or reeds in a pond.

First night of the retreat though I went to bed a bit miserable as my vision was not progressing that well. I had managed to achieve the texture I wanted but the card stock took up more of the overall page than I had imagined. I decided the paint it first though before making a decision.  

A friend seated near me suggested I tear the ends off to bring it to a more visually pleasing size without losing the wildness of the piece. I didn't know at that stage if I could make it work, would have to start over, or abandon the idea altogether.

Then I thought of stencilling some texture paste using my gum leaf stencil that my daughter had previously used to create reeds on a mixed media canvas.  My patterned paper is Kaisercraft from the Havana Nights/Tropics Collection.

I got an early start the next morning. I had my coffee & thought about the ideas that had come to mind overnight. Then I started flicking my white Dylusions spray & the rest just fell into place pretty much as planned.  

The white Dylusions spray really softened the Vintage Rose Prima Metallique paint.  Adding some extra bits of the unpainted card stock off cuts also helped tie the patterned paper background of the page to the foreground textured card stock.

I added flicks of Blush Prima Metallique paint for a pop of colour.  After applying all the paint that I felt was needed I stuck my matted photo down. 

Using gel medium I applied white holographic glitter to sections of the stencilling & 3D card stock section but let's be honest - I had glitter everywhere for a day; hair, face, desk, the next layout I worked on....

When I originally planned my layout I knew that I had Thicker Words in the right shade of pink so the title was easy enough; the picture I used is from the portrait session I did for my Brother & Sister-In-Law upon the birth of their first child together, a son.

Last but not least was choosing flowers & I happened to have Prima Crystals in a complementary shade.