Round Robin Challenge

Hi everyone!  Today I have a layout that I did for the Swirlydoos Round Robin this month.  

To create this layout, I used the Charlotte paper pack from Close to My Heart.  The ladies' club that I host monthly, is using this paper this month, and I wanted to do a tutorial for them... showing how to use watercolor paints and the Springtime Wishes stamp set to create embellishments for their pages and cards.

The challenge requirements for the Swirlydoos Round Robin were as follows:
1)  Use black and white plus 1 color.
2)  Have lots of layers.
3)  Create texture on the layout.
4)  Embellish with flowers, bling or metals.

So let's start with how I created the embellishments.

When I first got my set of watercolor paints, I made a swatch book out of watercolor paper and numbered the paints in the set.  This took a while, but I found it was well worth the effort, because it makes it so easy to match the paints to the papers you are working with.

Here, you can see how I lay the swatches on my paper to figure out which ones I am going to use.  In this case, I used all the greys because I wanted some variations in tone.

This is how I loaded up my acrylic block to begin stamping.

To prepare your watercolor paper for stamping, wet it with water and then touch the paint to the wet surface and let it spread.  You can see that my swatches are "streaky"... that is the way I like them to look.  The variations in color give a more realistic look to your flowers.  By the way, the pieces of watercolor paper that I used, were all scraps that I had saved... so if your scraps are a decent size... DON'T throw them out!!  :)

CTMH has a coordinating die set for the Spring Wishes stamp set, however, because I stamped everything so closely together, I chose to "fussy cut" the images with a pair of scissors.

By stamping lots of flowers in both colors, I had lots of bits and pieces to play with and create clusters on my page.

I made the butterflies from an image I found on the internet.  If you would like the file I created, to print butterflies of your own, just click here.

The gold flower centers, and chipboard pieces are all from the Charlotte Complement pack and the gold Treasured Puffies set.

This picture is from New Year's Eve in 2015.  It was such a fun evening and I love the joy and happiness that was captured in the photo.  

For me, that is what scrapbooking is all about... capturing those special moments in life to treasure forever.

Thank you for stopping by today!

Linda