Always

I have had this picture of my hubby's grandparents for a while and wanted to create something special for it.  When I saw the Design Team call for Sin City Stamps  I decided to try and combine the two. I have wanted to try out for this team for over a year.

I love the designs on their stamps and am anxious to get my first order!  TO create this layout i tried to pick stamps that were similar to some of Sin City's stamps. I have included a step by step creation process below.  

The first thing I always start with is just simply laying out the design to get a feel for what I want to do.  Sometimes the finished product turns out exactly like the "starter" one and sometimes it doesn't. 

Next I used a Crafters Workshop stencil and Momento Ink on both sides of where I wanted the photo to go.  Hint ... I used just a bit of Washi Tape to hold the stencil in place for easy removal!

I added a bit of color using this Heidi Swapp Stencil and some Tim Holtz ink.  The paint splatter on the paper was part of the paper design so I had to do was match the color. I added a little bit of the stencil to the left of the photo, and then on the top right  and the bottom right of page.

For the large photo matte, I used the back of a package from a Prima Stencil.  I thought it looked very Vintage, but too  "white".   So I masked off some of the design using post-it notes and stamped over the top using 2 different background stamps.

Before adhering the stamped photo background, I tied a sheer ribbon around the background.

I love that large butterfly stamp, but didn't want it to be just white in the background, so I stamped the image onto some text patterned paper that had just a hint of pink in it.  I then fussy cut out the butterfly and added a tad more pink to the butterfly using my Tim Holtz ink and a dauber.  You can see that little bit of color really pops. 

I matted the photo on a multicolored paper and used pop dots to raised the photo off the stamped background.  To finish off the layout I added some matching die cut roses, banners, tags and title.  I thought the roses kind of blended into each other so I added some punched leaves in with the roses. I love how the layout turned out and it was a blast playing with all the stamps and the inks!!  BE sure to check out Sin City Stamps  and the Sin City Blog for lots more inspiration.