"Merry & Bright" Berry 71 Bleu Challenge / Fabscraps

Welcome .........

Today I am very excited and honoured to have been asked by the lovely Denise Van Deventer from Berry71Bleu Scrapbook Layouts to Guest Design for December!!! Thank you Denise from the bottom of my heart! Denise is also my Design Team buddy from Fabscraps, so I thought it only fitting to create my layout using the new Christmas Collection from Fabscraps called

"Christmas Memories". I absolutely adore these patterned papers and chippies from this collection.

The Berry71Bleu Scrapbook Layouts page has the monthly Moodboard Challenge out. You can find it below or pop on over to Berry71Bleu Scrapbook Layouts to find out more.

And this is my interpretation of the moodboard!

Layout titled "Merry & Bright".

On my first look at the moodboard is was most obvious to me that I would be using the black and red! My favourite colour combo for Christmas I would have to say, and I also had the perfect photo!! As my son is getting older he is not as happy to be in front of the camera. These kinds of photos are a rarity! So this is one photo from not so long ago that he was happy to be a part of and I think the title sums up the photo brilliantly!

I have used a LOT of embossing powders for this one, making my own transparencies and dressing my chippies and also the metal embellishment which you can see here.

The heart wood flourish was inked and then covered with a great deal of Crackle Accents to achieve these cracks. The Fabscraps title "Merry & Bright" was embossed several times to give a desired dimension to it, then it was sprinkled with gold embossing powders to make the title pop.

Oh and how I love my lace. Well there is plenty here to lay your eyes upon. I have tucked a lace motif under the base of the photo matting. I firstly spritzed it with a charcoal spray but it didn't give me the intensity I was looking for so I then decided to paint it with my Dusty Attic acrylic paint (Soot), and it was perfect. I highlighted areas with some Dusty Attic Vintage Gold and also a dry brushing of gesso.

This fabulous Fabscraps chipboard Candle and Holly was the actual starting point to my layout. It has been dressed with embossing powders in differing sections. The holly leaves were outlined and coloured with a little distress ink and then covered with clear embossing powder.