Celebrating William and Kate

Was it really only a little over three weeks ago the royal nuptials took place?  It feels almost like a lifetime ago!!  I confess to getting caught up in the hype LOL!  I'm not a royalist by any means but I do love a good wedding.  I was laid up at the time so took advantage of the opportunity to curl up on the couch and watch the entire coverage.  It was magical.  LOL like I said, I love a good wedding!

As we all know I also love a good challenge and my friend Anthea (hi Anthea!) decided to throw out a random challenge in honour of William and Kate's special day and challenged us to create an all white wedding themed layout.  Fabulous!  I love a random challenge.  But all white?  I don't think so.  Not so long ago I created an all white layout and I have to say I was less than impressed.  I mean I love the photos and the story but the white on white?  It did not do it for me.  My other problem with the white on white is I have no idea where all my photo albums are just now (everything was whisked away to safety when 'the rains came' and flooded our home) and the only wedding photos I have on my Mac are scanned ones of mine and GB's wedding which I have probably scrapped a million times (yes I confess I've been known to scrap the odd photo more than once LOL).  Soooo I wanted to scrap a photo of GB's parents' wedding from 1946 ... a beautiful old, sepia toned photo for which white on white would just not do.  What to do?  What to do?  Tweak the challenge a little is what I did, and this is what I came up with ...

For ever love

this is a long list of products so please bear with me (or just skip it altogether LOL!) ...

kraft cardstock; patterned paper - Basic Grey Basics Ledger, My Mind's Eye Meadowlark Dawn cards, Collage Press Dollop Dreamy die-cut, Kaisercraft Timeless sheet music, Collage Press Sweet Shoppe Collage Cuts die-cut rings; Prima flowers, Calcutta Minis Seashell; guipure lace flowers; American Crafts White Rose ribbon; Melissa Frances Vintage Trim, ric rac; vintage lace; Websters Pages vintage netting; Maya Road Trinket Pins, Vintage Pearls; Scenic Route chipboard alphas, Plain Berkeley; Making Memories Gameboard alphas, White; Jillibean Soup Corrugated Kraft alphas; Carolees Creations AdornIt Tiny Black alphas; vintage shipping tags; Imaginisce Love Knots, Antique Silver; Queen & Co brads; Daisy D's Standard Cream Index Tabs; Stampin' Up! punches, Extra Large Oval and Heart to Heart; Making Memories metallic staples; Stampin' Up! Embosslits die, Beautiful Wings; Stampin' Up! stamp set, Friends 24-7; Kaiser acrylic paint, White and Antique White; StazOn Opaque Cotton White ink pad; Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake ink pad; Pure Black Zig Writer; buttons, embroidery cotton and recycled cotton string

phew ... are you still with me LOL?!

Okay so its not exactly white on white, more like an ivory on ivory on kraft.  But in honour of the challenge (LOL) I did pretty much paint everything white.  Well with a white-wash anyways.  Plus I inked a lot of things white.  Actually painting my patterned papers with a white-wash gave me a lovely soft, vintage finish which was just perfect for the photo.  It took away that crisp, new paper look.  Inking other items (chipboard and kraft cardstock) white again gave me a lovely soft, vintage finish.  I was really happy with the end result.  As was GB.  He was really moved to see his parents' wedding photo scrapped.  Gotta love that man.  He never fails to surprise me.  Sigh.

Moving away from the soppy love stuff LOL, have you noticed in the top right hand corner the stamped damask image?  Isn't it divine?  That's from the Stampin' Up! stamp set "Friends 24-7".  I actually stamped that damask image several times on the background cardstock but in the end after all the layering you can only see the top portion of one.  I'm so relieved we can see it though because I had set myself a new challenge to incorporate stamping on the next 10 layouts I create.  Why?  Because I have about five million stamps (or so it seems) which sit in their drawers rarely (if ever) used.  Space is of a premium in my studio and its now become a case of use it or lose it.  Because you could only see the portion of one stamped damask image though, I decided to also stamp the damask image on a few of the chipboard alphas I had already inked white.  I used the Crumb Cake Stampin' Up! ink pad to tone in with the plain chipboard and kraft colours and was really pleased with the result.  Plus now I could 'really' claim to having used stamping on this layout LOL!!

So stay tuned.  I plan to use stamping on my next nine layouts (one down!) and if I don't, then I'll be offloading them and you know how the saying goes ... one scrapper's trash is another scrapper's treasure!