So Very Beautiful Together / Cocoa Vanilla Studio

It's Friday....yessss!  I've been waiting all week for this day to come...haha!  Today I'm sharing my newest layout for Cocoa Vanilla Studio.  Our theme this week is Mother's Day, so I scrapped a picture of me, my sister and my mom.  I used the beautiful Wild at Heart collection, and I decided to start with this pretty polka dotted patterned paper called Double Dot.  When I used a busy patterned paper as a background, I like to create some "white space" behind the main parts of my page.  I used some white acrylic paint and coated a lot of the paper with it.  It faded out some of the dots and made them more of a subtle background element.  This allowed me to really make the photo and embellishments pop off the page without getting lots in the dots.

I used some pink, blue and golden yellow Shimmerz Paints on top of the white paint.  I used some plastic packaging to smoosh the paint around, and I also sprayed it directly onto the paper.  I smudged on some periwinkle blue paste with a palette knife as well, and I also added in a red gelato to get that deep pinkish-red color.  I was trying to pull all the colors from the dots and those butterflies onto the background.  That big butterfly is from a cut file from Just Nick, and I kept it white as a subtle background element.  Even though I left it white, the background work makes it quite visible.

I love layering, so I did a lot of that on this page.  I fussy cut all the butterflies from the Mariposa paper and scattered them around the page.  For my title here, I layered in a Rubber Charm and a fussy cut piece from the Fussy Cuts paper.  Under all that I added some tangled thread and a sticker from the Accessory Sheet.  I fussy cut the "love" piece from patterned paper and then added in some of the most gorgeous glittery Enamel Dots.

I love these pretty colors together!  I fussy cut the scalloped border piece under my photo from paper.  Always look at your patterned papers for fussy cutting opportunities...you can create your own embellishments so easily just by cutting something out.

I love how you can see the paint and paste on the background showing through the butterfly here.  It turned out exactly like I was thinking in my head!  I did add some foam under my photo to raise it up, and what a difference that makes :)

This deep red-pink color is so rich and pretty!  I sprayed a lighter pink color first and then smudged a tiny bit of a red gelato and smeared it in with my finger.  Mixing and matching colors & products can really give you some gorgeous colors.  I added in more Enamel Dots here and a few more Accessory Stickers.

Here's one more close-up of more butterflies and stickers :)

I do have a process video for you if you'd like to check that out:

I hope this gives you some inspiration and/or ideas to try!  Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a wonderful Mother's Day Weekend!