"Forever" Layout

Hello all! This is my newest layout titled "Forever", and I completed it as a gift for some friends of the family for a post-wedding gift.

The paper I used is something called "Canva" paper by Canson - It sounded like it was similar to a canvas (pre-primed) but in paper form. Plus, it was on clearance at Michael's 75% off. :-)

Anyhow, I began by making the sort of circular shape with Golden Glass Bead Gel. When that was dry, I mixed a combination of Distress Spray Stain in "Dusty Concord" with diluted Liquitex Basics Acrylic Gesso. I put the mixture in spots around the circle and spritzed with more water for the mixture to spread.  

When that was dry, I grabbed a couple of tubes of a new medium I bought called gouache, and I mixed white with burnt sienna gauache along with vanilla satin acrylic paint and diluted the mixture with water. I did the same thing over the glass bead gel as I did with the purple mixture.

When these layers were dry, I used a Finnabair clear stamp "Read to Me" with black StazOn and Ranger Archival Ink in "Deep Purple".  I saw that I did way too much stamping and it very much overpowered the background, so I put a couple of thin layers of gesso around the stamping and onto the glass beads a little bit in spots to soften the whole thing.

To complete the background, I used a paint brush to do some splatters of the same gouache and acrylic mixture I mentioned above while blotting spots with a paper towel. When dry, I used Prima's color bloom spray in "Pressed Petal" with a paint brush to make some of the purple splatters you see.

Behind the picture, I made my own little scrap papers with paint and stamps. I must first tell you something really funny yet demented about the Fiskars' stamp I used on the paper I covered with vanilla satin acrylic paint: I never actually read what this stamp said, and because this was a wedding photo and gift, I glance through the words on the stamp. That's when I saw the stamp has the word "murder" on it... Of course I used my Prima distress tool to get rid of any mention of murder for this layout! Fair warning to anyone out there assuming that the words on some of these stamps are all family-friendly. :-)

I also used a stamp from Stampers-Anonymous on the white pieces of paper behind the photo.

The flowers are Prima Valentina - "Simona". To make the "Love", "Honor" and "Cherish" emblems, I used my Silhouette Portrait and sketch pens for the words, then I used my Distress Ink Pad in "Dusty Concord" around the edges of the hexagon shapes I made. I used Epiphany Crafts' Bubble Caps ("Hexagon") over the words to make them stand out. 

The title over the picture was cut using my Silhouette Portrait with 140 lb. watercolor paper, and I cut it out three times, painted it with diluted gesso and Prima Color Bloom Spray in "Pressed Petal". Once dry, I glued the three together with Ranger Glossy Accents so that it gives more of an appearance of chipboard with dimension. I embossed the title then glued it on the picture. Finally, I added Prima Wire Thread in "Stark White".

That's the basics of what I did. I hope this inspired you in some way to try some different mediums and just "see what happens" like I did. :-)  

Thanks for viewing my post! Hope you have a wonderful day.