Be Mine Colourful Valentine

This layout has probably taken me the longest of any I've every made before. Innitially I was going with this Dear Lizzy background paper, but then I started to second guess myself. A few hours later, and I decided to go back to my original plan. Then I wanted to use teal on the layout; I just so happened to look over at my muffin tin on the rolling cart next to my work table and spotted a broken necklace that I love. Perfect, I'll use that on this Valentine's layout!

On your next layout: use a jewelry item as an embellishment.

You can see that one of the flowers was broken from my necklace, but I think that adds to some of the charm of it. I'm glad I saved this, and could give it another life - re-using!

I went to use my Fiskars patterned scissors, and spotted a heart and a butterfly punch in the kit Justin bought me for our first Christmas together. (I've been using this way more in the last year than I ever did when I first got it five years ago.) It seems I've used a lot of butterflies on my layouts lately - ever since I bought those punches.

When I pulled out a chipboard heart to use on this page, I knew I had to cover it with glitter for it to match my layout; this matches the sparkly alphas perfectly (the glitter on the flourish is a little more of a finer texture, but I think it all worked well together). Unlike last time, this time I laid the glitter onto wet glue. I stuck SO much better, and once I shook and tapped the back of the chipboard, almost no glitter was falling off.

When it came time to think about my journaling (this almost always the last element I think about when creating a page), I thought it would be a neat idea to inset it into the curvature of the background paper. With some tracing the lines onto a peice of old vellum and some trial and error, I love how it seems to become part of the page. The shape makes me think of Christmas ornaments!

Journaling says: Since we'd been eating out all weekend (in Whitefish), I decided we needed to stay in for Valentine's Day. I put Justin in charge of a $20 supper (Japanese chicken with rice) and I made a $20 dessert (chocolate and butterscotch fruit fondues). $10 was spent on gifts for each other. I think this $80 night could become a new tradition!

Dig through your jewelry, and see what you can re-purpose as an embellishment for your next layout. Leave a comment with a link.