The Beauty of You

One of the things I love most about scrapbooking is that it truly can be a creative outlet for many of us and also a place where we can stretch our crafting abilities and try new things! Also it’s not just limited to paper and stickers! You can incorporate so many other forms of art on your scrapbook pages — painting, sewing, embroidery, and so many more! So in that sense, it’s not only memory keeping, it’s also an art form and each scrapbook page can be seen as a blank canvas to express yourself creatively and artistically as well! What got me thinking about this is today’s project from design team member, Kathleen. She uses the art of embroidery to bring one of the flowers to a whole new level and it turned out just gorgeous! Read on for all the details and to find out how to embroider flowers on paper. She has some great tips and tricks for embroidery that you won’t want to miss!

Hey friends, it’s Kathleen back with you again and I’m excited to share this layout with you. This one is quite special to me for many reasons. The most obvious is probably the photo of my husband and me holding hands snuggled up in bed one day. It’s nothing super special, but to me it just symbolizes the bond we share and how I always have him by my side.

Besides that, this page was also created with a patterned paper background, which I don’t do all that often, but I think together with my photo, the Periwinkle paper creates the perfect contrast and really makes it stand out. Apart from that, I used two techniques that I don’t use very often either: fussy cutting (although I have been incorporating this more and more, since the Willow Lane collection has so many papers that are great for fussy cutting) and hand stitching.

To draw even more attention to my photo and frame it, I placed some fussy cut flowers and leaves (from the Blossom paper and the gold foiled vellum) around the lower half of the circle that I had cut from the Periwinkle paper. I made sure to overlap them in some places and also used dimensional adhesive to give them even more dimension and give them a more natural look. I also tucked in some small flowers from the puffy stickers, as well as the waterfall sticker sheet.Because I wanted this layout to be very special (and I had already spent what felt like an eternity fussy cutting, haha), I decided to do some hand stitching, too. First, I used some light pink thread (almost the same shade as the dots on the Periwinkle paper) to stitch a circle around my photo. I stitched it directly on the photo, right where it meets the patterned paper because I felt that this would make the transition between the photo and the paper a little bit smoother.Next I picked a coral pink shade of embroidery floss and stitched the pink flower of one of the bigger flower clusters on the Blossom paper. With some dark green embroidery floss I then also embroidered the leaves of that flower cluster. Let me tell you, halfway through the whole thing I was thinking about giving up because I’m definitely not the most patient person and it took me ages, but I’m glad I pulled through because I’m absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!Lastly, I only added a few more embellishments from the Thickers sheet and one of the gorgeous Sequin Flowers, as well as some paint splatters and called it done. I don’t think that it needs any journaling because for me, the photo says it all.

If you want to give embroidering those flowers a try, too, here are a few tips: do the hand stitching before you cut it out of the 12″x12″ sheet. This will make the flower sturdier, give you a larger space to hold onto, and you can then cut them out a lot easier. Also, make sure to use a needle that isn’t too thick and not to place your needle holes too close to each other or they will rip the paper and create a larger hole.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this layout and feel inspired by it in some way! Maybe give a large photo layout a try, or do some hand stitching, or fussy cutting, or get out of your comfort zone and use a patterned paper for your background (if that’s something you usually struggle with).Thanks so much for stopping by! xo, Kathleen

Happy Tuesday!

xoxoxo

Supplies Used >> Maggie Holmes Willow Lane / Willow Lane Periwinkle Paper / Willow Lane Blossom Paper / Willow Lane Flutter Paper / Willow Lane Glitter Foam Thickers /  Willow Lane Cardstock Stickers / Willow Lane Waterfall Cardstock Stickers / Willow Lane Alpha Cardstock Stickers /  / Willow Lane Gold Alpha Thickers / Willow Lane Puffy Stickers / Willow Lane Sequin Flowers / Willow Lane Floral Vellum with Foil Accents