You Are Beautiful / Paige Evans DT

Hey friends!  I'm here again with a new layout featuring Paige’s Bloom Street collection. I can’t resist making bright summer layouts with it! I started by cutting Paige’s Heart Sunburst Cut File from Paper 20. All those colorful circles just called out to me, so I made that the focal point paper. I also cut it a bit larger from Paper 05 to create a pink shadow. 

I went with thick, smooth white cardstock for the base and I coated it with clear gesso to prep it for lots of watercolors. I wanted to mimic the colors in the photo (which I punched out with a 2.5” circle punch), so I added green and blue Shimmerz sprays behind the cut file. Yellow wasn’t even on my radar, but as the layout went on, I added it in as well. I placed the photo in the center of the sun and embellished around it with lots of flowers and leaves from the Floral Die Cuts.

After the background dried, I splattered lots of white acrylic paint, Shimmerz, and Gold Glitter Spray. I machine stitched with metallic gold thread along each sun ray and then popped the whole piece up with adhesive foam. The effect of that dimension is so worth it! I also used a few stickers for small titles from the Cardstock Stickers and the 8-Page Sticker Book. I distressed the edges of the sun to add even more texture.  

To add a nice big pop of yellow to the page, I tore off a chunk of the background and glued some of Paper 14 behind it. I feel like this really brightened up the page and made this flower cluster shine. I brought in all the colors from the sun over to this side, added adhesive foam behind some of the flowers, and tucked in thread. All of these colors, layers, and textures are just what this side of the layout needed. I clustered my journaling in this area as well using a metallic gold pen.

I love what a little bit of stitching can do for a layout.  Something so small yet creates such wonderful detail :)  Here you can see the benefits of adding adhesive foam as well--lots of dimension and shadowing.

I like to make sure my photo always stands out against busy patterns and colors, so I backed it with some white cardstock and bit of yellow paper.  This creates a bit of a barrier between the photo and the background.  It helps to separate everything in the photo from everything around it.  It's something small that makes a big difference without you really even realizing it :)

I love how this fun background turned out.

I went light on the thread and used only a bit of yellow here.

And some blue here :)

I didn’t plan this, but I love how the edge of the pool in the photo almost lines up perfectly with the diagonal direction of the sun rays behind it. Sometimes the photos just work like that and I couldn’t have planned it if I had tried! Gotta love scrappy surprises!

I hope this inspires you in some way today.  I loved how it all turned out, and it was so much fun playing with an older collection.  Be sure to check out my process video to see how this page came together:

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a great day!