121120 Stick It Down December Guest Designer!

 

What a thrill to be the December Double Page Guest Designer at Stick It Down! Earned with my October submission seen HERE.

The December sketch looks like this:

I absolutely L-O-V-E to use a sketch as inspiration, although I have not done a double page spread in a long time until their October one. I wasn't in the mood to do Christmas pages yet, but I did have some wonderful snowy photos taken recently when my daughter & grand daughter were visiting Michigan from down South. It was a real treat for them to get an unexpected snowfall!

I rarely use a sketch in its original form. I tend to flip & flop it, rotate & resize - you get the idea. This one was no exception. I'm calling this my up-ended version!

I really wanted to use a large photo inside of the circle shape. I paired a familiar Robert Frost poem with the snowy woods photo, purposefully cropped to show the tiny scale of the people compared to the majestic forest. Here's my spread:

 

The polka dots in the background appealed to me so I decided to emboss them directly onto the page using WOW! Clear Ultra Slow Drying Embossing Pad with their clear embossing powder to act as a resist, using a 2009 Stampabilities OR1044 polka dot background stamp. My other pattern was made with a 2008 Stampabilities PR1019 snowflake background stamp using cobalt Ranger Archival Ink. 

A wash of Heidi Swapp Ocean Color Shine gave a subtle arctic blue quality to the background. I added a single strip of grey star washi tape between the two patterns to ground the photos, and later overlaid the waste vellum from some of my punched snowflake shapes.

Next I began to create the left side's wreath elements with Close To My Heart's D1171 New Fallen Snow stamp set snowflakes using Ranger Cobalt Archival Ink. The swirls are from 2007 Inkadinkado 97618 Brenda Walton clear stamp set with Color Box Petal Point light blue ink. I then settled in for a long evening of fussy-cutting made vastly easier with Tonic micro-serrated scissors!

Now I could spend my next session playing with all the pretties. The large blue snowflakes were arranged with the swirls for the basic circular shape & each got a smaller companion blue flake. I grabbed the vellum snowflakes I had made with Martha Stewart's Snowflake & McGill's Starburst punches & filled in the gaps. I love all the dimension created by only gluing in strategic spots.

 

I raided my bling drawer & sequins & dressed everyone up with a little sparkle. In the process I ran across that perfect pearl swirl on the right that carries your eye to the final vellum flakes wafting up.

My title was stamped with the WOW! embossing pad & Judi Kins EP206 Opaque White Embossing powder which really popped on navy cardstock.

I took a shot of most of the products that I used.

Have a little fun & visit the Stick It Down blog for monthly inspiration! There is a single page & a card sketch each month, too, plus loads of inspiration from their Design Team as well as others who have uploaded to the Linky. One lucky random winner receives a prize & a future Guest Designer is chosen from each sketch's submissions!

Thanks for stopping by!