Happy Times | Happiness Collection + Monthly Challenge | Raquel Bowman

Here is the layout that I created inspired by the mood board – 

 

I chose to draw inspiration from the colours, the nature and plant elements, adding butterflies to my page and also from the painted striped image at the bottom of the inspiration board. 

 

Here is the process video for this layout:

The subject of my layout is my home town of Geelong. This photo was taken pre-covid when the waterfront was very much hustle bustle even on a weekday. I think this pandemic has brought me to reflect on the good times and things that I have in my life, our little town is one of those things. 

 

The Happiness collection has soo many gorgeous floral elements and embellishments. As you can see from my process video the embellishing of this page came together so nicely and just worked. The cut file I have used on this page is another one from the Cut to You store, however this one was one of the Newsletter freebie files. I backed the file with vellum as I really wanted to showcase the beautiful florals on this layout. 

 

Can you see something different for me on this page? Yep I had a little play with some distress inks and water to create that rainbow wash background. I fully committed to the design, though I must admit, I thought I would not like the result and would end up putting the background in the bin. Much to my surprise, that wasn’t the case and I like how it turned out. 

 

The title Happy Times was found in the ephemera pack. I had played with the die cut titles pack in the collection, and really love the way the one titled ‘beautiful’ looked on the page, however, I ended up choosing the less bold and smaller in size ‘Happy Times’. 

 

To frame my photo I used the light pink cross paper from the 6×8 paper pad. This pink shade has to be one of my favourite papers in the collection.I have used it multiple times and I was surprised that I had some left to mat my photo. 

I created embellishment clusters to the left and right of the photo and also a small cluster to the bottom left of the page to balance out the heaviness on that top right side, this small cluster also served as a good place to pop my journaling. I have used mainly the florals in the ephemera pack to embellish this layout, though I did also use some of the Accessory stickers (words, hearts) and some fussy cut butterflies.

The journaling on this page, as always is typewritten and reflects my love of our town. 

I love the opportunities that layering various elements gives, allowing me to add dimension, detail and depth by using foam adhesives to varying parts of the clusters. This image below gives you the chance to see some of the layering and detail that is on this page. 

 

I hope that you have been inspired by my layout today. If you are not a member of our Facebook community be sure to join and take part in this challenge. I would love to see what you create.