You Are My Happiness layout

For this weeks blog I have chosen to make a picture/layout depending on what you choose to use for the focal image. I have worked with the 12 x 12, 8 x 8 and extras Sea Stories papers and combined them with lots of chipboards, and natural elements along side some hand made foamiran flowers that I made during a live for 14 Craft Bar in June. The live can be found HERE.

 I started with a 30cm square frame and took the panel out of the back to work on - I then chose one of the 12 x 12 papers and adhered it to the frame panel before adding some details by applying chipped saphire distress oxide through a leaves stencil. To decide where I was going to place the stencilled details I roughly positioned the starfish mdf shape in place. Next I covered the starfish with paper from the 8 x 8 paper pad chossing a sandy toned paper.

 Before carrying on I fussy cut out all of the images in the extras paper pack and roughly placed them to create my composition - I took a photograph as a reminder but you will notice I did not keep to it completely as my project evolved over time. I also trialed where I was going to put some chipboard pieces - choosing seaweed treasures, layered borders and a large shell which is no longer in stock but shell 2 or starfish could be used instead.

Having decided roughly how I was going to place the elements I took everything off! hence the photo and built my composition in layers - I used gel medium and glue gel to place the elments in place as this gave me lots of wriggle room for building dimension and also slipping elements under each other.

 Having placed some paper images and seawood chipboards I then decided to change up my focal image and create a shaker element. To do this I worked with sea treasures shaker box cutting the couple image from the 8 x 8 papers and adhering it on to a piece of backbround paper cut to fit the square part of the shaker box. Once the glue had dried I added some tiny beads and sequins taken from several packs from shaker set category of the website before gluing on the plastic box and then adding the two layers of chipboard. I also made up the two layers of the sea treasures borders.

With these elements in place I continued to build my composition adding more seaweed and image elements until I was happy with the over all effect. The title of the composition is a chipboard sticker taken from wedding collection just proving you can mix and match across different themes. 

For the frame itself I painted it with a mid blue shade of paint and then rubbed a candle over the surface before painting with a contrasting very soft green paint. The candle wax stops the second layer of paint adhering meaning that once the paints have dried you can then rub back the surface with sand paper to create a distressed effect. I then put the layout into the frame but felt it still lacked something - I chose to add my foamiran flowers choosing complimentary colours from the foamiran section of the website. Finally I added some clear ice gravel from a floristry wholesales along side a sprinkling of tiny shells.

I hope you like the finished piece and if you make something inspired by it please tag me so I see it.