welcome to gossamer blue

good morning friends... for those of you in the U.S. i hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving celebration.

today i have the sweet pleasure of playing with the november kit from gossomer blue.
have you heard of that kit company before?
well they are a fabulous online scrapbook kit store and i am absolutely swooning over their kits for november.

november2013 main kit

november2013 add-on kit #2

today i want to walk you through what i did to create my layout for their blog.
this layout celebrates our 24th anniversary last month. it also reminds me of how few photos we had taken together this past year. with family and work and maintaining a home, we have found ourselves totally and terribly busy. and we sort of forgot to take care of each other. so this layout reminds me of some goals and plans i have for us this coming new year to make sure we do not only have a few photos of us together.

o.k...on to this little tutorial...

the base starts with the American Craft card stock in stone, with the edges distressed.

the Crate Paper Open Air is then trimmed to fit inside the card stock base, and is also distressed along the edges.

the photo, measuring about 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 inches, is matted first on a piece of the Gossamer Blue On The Dot that is slightly larger than the photo, and then on a larger piece of the Heidi Swapp Bouquet that measures about 7x5 inches.

using a scallop punch the border was created from the Crate Paper Jenna. two strips were placed under the photo and the photo mat as shown. love how this gives some depth and contrast to the page.

a Dear Lizzy Ribbon photo corner was placed on the top left of the photo as well as top left of the background paper.

stamp 'happy' from the main kit stamp set on a Dear Lizzy wood veneer heart.
layer a Flea Market Chipboard heart over the veneer piece.
place wood veneer arrow on the layout as shown. (note: since i took these photos, i moved the arrow to a different place.)
trim a tag from the Crate Paper Tag Sale, notch end, insert under heart embellishments.
add a clear file tab from the Heidi Swapp Mixed Company Ephemera to the top edge of the photo. from that mix a 'love' tag was notched and tucked under in place.

embellish upper corner with similar elements as around the photo.

as you can see i added a few more embellishments at the end, like the 'today' from the Glitz Design Giant Rhinestone found in the add-on, as well as a vellum piece of ephemera from the Heidi Swapp Mixed Company Ephemera. The arrow from Dear Lizzy Wood Veneer had to find a new home because as I was adding drips of Gold Lame Color Shine, a big o' slotch hit the paper and was not pretty. so i had to cover my mistake...

please go visit Gossamer and order this kit. it is gorgeous with some of the best products found out here right now, and you will find yourself inspired to make lots of pretty stuff.

and as a bonus, visit both Gossamer Blue AND Heidi Swapp's blog to enter and win some of these more than fabulous products.