Prima Debutante

An attempt at a Romantic Gothic layout

Last night I spent my time with some scrapbooking friends at The Old Mount Gambier Jail. Pam from Kaszazz put on one of her come and relax and scrap days. This was a special one though because it was Pam's 10th Anniversary with Kaszazz. Follow the link and you'll see her photo under "customer". She's the one on the left. Any way I had wanted to scrap this photo from my daughters Deb for some time now (um two years actually).

I picked out the main colours from her red lipstick and the red in her Kerr tartan sash. 

Then I went hunting for all things red in my craft room! I found the Prima wooden doors first. I'd purchased them a little while ago and was waiting for the right project to come along to be able to use them. Then I found a Prima red flower in amongst by bow of flowers. The colour was perfect, problem was I only had one of them. So I picked out any dark pink, light pink, orange and cream flowers I thought would work on the layout and began to change their colour. 

I removed the lid from my "Picked Raspberry" Distress Stain poured some into a mini mister and sprayed the flowers. I know why it's called picked Raspberry, my fingers are still all covered in dark pink dye even today! It reminds me of when we went out as kids on the farm picking blackberries.

I left them to dry over night. The colour wasn't exactly right so I then sponged them with "Festive Berries" Distress Ink. The pink from the first spray made an excellent base coat so that when I sponged the red over the top it took really well.

Putting it together was the easy bit. I stamped some "Moroccan Butterflies" from my Kaszazz stamp collection (these are my favourites at the moment) and edged some leaves with a little bit of "Black Soot" Distress Ink. Some of the leaves are material ones that either come with flower packs or are purchased in packs themselves or cut from the Kaszazz flower and leaf die. I coloured the butterflies using my Kaszazz Alcohol Ink Markers. I used "Crimson", "Scarlett" and "Ash". A beautiful and bright combination. The little cut out leaves are coloured with "Bundled Sage" and importantly edged ever so slightly with "Black Soot" to assist in separating each little piece. In other words, to make them pop. In fact everything on the page is edged with the black right down to the little shrinky dink bird cage. It helps to create a single style amongst pieces that aren't necessarily meant to fit together. It ties them together, gives them something in common. In this case makes them all appear "Romantic Gothic" in style.

I began by thinking the doors would be a feature in the page but when I stood back and took it all in at the end that wasn't the case. They do however do a great job of framing the photo which is really all they need to do.

 

The garden and the beautiful butterflies are the feature for me now but still don't deter from the photo, which I believe is important. We were discussing last night during the making of this piece, how many pages now are all about the embellishments. Pages that weigh a tonne because of the tin, resin or glass embellishments and so on that adorn them. Not only would they cost a sweet fortune but they also seem to be more significant than the photo itself. 

To keep the costs down, I often make my own embellishments. This black flower is made from different sized circles roughly cut out of satin material. I just picked up roll ends cheap and then sat down one day and cut out thousands of circles. They don't have to be perfect circles, in fact the more off they are the better the flower comes out. Then I used a gas stove lighter also know as a "clicky clicky" in our house, to singe ever so carefully, the edges of each circle. They'll curl slightly with the heat. Be careful they can melt very quickly and drip on your skin and that hurts! They only need a little heat so lay them flat on a fire proof surface and wave the heat over them until they begin to curl. Layer the pieces from big to little, pierce a hole through the middle and pop a pretty brad in and there you have it a poppy style flower that you haven't paid $4.00 for. 

Another cost saving tip is to keep the wire stems from your paper flowers. You can wind them a little around a thin pipe like something (I use my Kaiser craft file tool handle) to create a vine to place leaves or flowers on. They add some dimension to your pages and are much cheaper than buying vines from Prima.

I really enjoyed designing this page. Once I'd finished and I stood back from it I was really pleased with the result. Romantic Gothic isn't a style I've ever really dabbled in before but I think it could grow on me.

Cheers

Fiona