Heart Of Mine - Aussie Scrappers "A girl's first love" 12x12 layout

Greetings everyone and what a whirlwind it has been. I finally got around to doing some scrapping as I needed some me time.  When I created this layout we were all confined to the house. It had been rainy for days and finally, our rivers, dams and creeks broke and we were flooded in.  Nowhere to go and some great family times were had. Now let's get to this layout I created:

I started like I usually do by choosing my photo and I must admit I did struggle.  These beautiful papers from the Graphic 45 "Love Notes" collection are very lovey-dovey and I am not a lovey-dovey sort of girl but always rising to the challenge I do love the layout I created.

I chose this gorgeous paper named "Standing Ovation" as my background paper.

After staring at the paper for a very long time, inspiration hits and I take a piece of white cardstock, I cut a circle in the centre and I will use this paper as a mask.

I used some white gesso so that I had a nice toned down area for my photo to stand out, and then I took some Heidi Swapp spray in the colour Pink and I did some splatters and here is what it looks like so far:

Since the photo is of my precious girl lying on her daddy's tummy, I wanted to soften things up a bit.  I found a stencil in my stash that had some lovely small flowers and I did some stencilling using my chosen product for the month of Feb. I love Inka Gold for stencilling and this month the colour I chose is called "Rosenquartz".

I decided, I wanted a nice love heart for this layout but unfortunately, I  could not find exactly what I was looking for, so I made my own.  Using an old heart die I cut out three love hearts.  One heart from a piece of acetate paper, one heart from a scrap piece of cardstock which I later inked with some distress oxide in the colour "white Linen" and my 3rd heart I cut from my leftover paper from Graphic 45 called "Musical Masterpiece"

I glued the acetate heart to the back of the red heart and then I used some thin mounting tape all along the perimeter of the acetate.  I sprinkled some Nuvo Confetti "Red Carpet Circle" another of my chosen products.

Time to finish this shaker.  I took my other heart that I made from the white cardstock and stuck it down making sure there were no gaps for the sequins to escape.  

I was not liking my bold white circle so much and after some consideration, I decided that some girly pink lace was needed.  I roughly worked out where my photo and heart were going to go and then I glued down some pretty lace from my stash.

I have a tendency to matt my layouts and my photos in the same paper,  I believe it adds a sense of cohesiveness. In the end I chose the paper named "Melodic Missives and I gutted the centre so that I could matt my photo.

 Once I matted my photo, I found a piece of chipboard from my stash with the word "love", I added some embossing powder and my final step was to adhere everything down.  I hope you like the final layout as much as I do.

The products used on this layout can be purchased at Aunty Vera Scrap and Craft and for the month of February, they are on special, so spoil yourself and do some shopping...

Silvia xx