Regular followers of my blog will know that recently we attended our daughter’s beach wedding in Lanzarote.  It’s a beautiful volcanic island off the west coast of Morocco, and a place that’s very dear to them.  Since then I’ve been working on creating special pieces to commemorate the occasion, and today I wanted to show you this simple scrapbook page.

THE STORY

For me, creating a scrapbook page is all about the story.  What do I want the ‘reader’ to get from this?

This particular 12″ x 12″ page is all about the two photos shot by Danielle Stack of Danielle Stack Photography.  One is of my daughter and son-in-law on the beach in Lanzarote looking really happy and relaxed after the wedding.  The other photograph is of their custom-made cake topper.

Have you noticed that nowadays bald is seen as much more preferable than the comb-over?  As my new son-in-law is rather ‘thin on top’ he chooses to have his hair cut really short, and it was with this in mind that my daughter went looking for a topper for their wedding cake.

Having had no success in local stores she then turned to the internet.  She typed in ‘personalised bald groom cake toppers’ and found Artifice Producciones who make custom figurines and cake toppers.  The fact that they were in Merida, Venezuela was just a minor detail.  She chose a basic design and then sent photos of the two of them, along with some of ‘the dress’ and hair trial.  Eventually after various test runs the design was exactly what my daughter was looking for and production went ahead.  Only the Maid of Honour and I were in on the secret.  It was going to be a great surprise for everyone, including the groom.

BEACH WEDDING COORDINATION

Looking at my chosen photos I thought about the colours I should use on the scrapbook page.  The groom’s tie is a pale blue and the trousers and waistcoat navy.  So out came Balmy Blue and Night of Navy Card.

The cake topper also had the blues, but the colour of the ‘beach’ was pure Mango Melody.  There were also shells and a starfish and they were cream, so Very Vanilla was added to the pile.

Finally I went looking for a suitable background to bring the whole thing together and turned to the Tranquil Textures Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack.  I found exactly what I needed with a Crumb Cake piece featuring a subtle bubble design.

Image coordination came next as I went looking for shells and starfish.  I had no shell images but I knew where to find a starfish shape.  It was right there in the centre of the sand dollar die from the Under the Sea Framelits.

One last thing was needed to tie everything together.  Little circles.  My chosen background had little circles so I decided to add some more using strips from the Delightfully Detailed Laser-Cut Specialty Paper.

At last I was ready to start putting everything together.

ASSEMBLING THE SCRAPBOOK PAGE

I began by using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to mount the two photos onto Balmy Blue Card.  Then two laser-cut strips were added to the back of each photo.  Finally the assembled photos were mounted onto pieces of Night of Navy Card and attached to the page with more liquid glue.  The long laser-cut strips help to keep the photos ‘grounded’ rather than simply floating loose on the page.

Now I needed my die-cut pieces and the Under the Sea Framelits.  Using the Big Shot and multipurpose platform I cut the large sand dollar from Very Vanilla Card and the small coral piece from Mango Melody Card.  Then the die-cut pieces were fixed to the bottom corner of the beach photo with liquid glue.  I’ll use the sand dollar itself another time.

THE PAGE TITLE

I decided to keep things simple for the title, using just the place and date.

Having cut a wide strip of Whisper White Card I drew a couple of very faint lines using a pencil and ruler.  This would ensure that the words were straight.

Then I pulled out the Make A Difference Stamp Set.  This wonderful alphabet (and more) stamp set from Stampin’ Up! includes upper case and lower case letters, pairs of letters, numbers, small sentiments and a couple of tiny images.  It’s a lovely script that has been designed to be stamped letter by letter to create joined up words.

I stamped the title using Night of Navy ink and set it aside to dry for a couple of minutes.  Going back to the sentiment a little while later I carefully erased the pencil lines.  Now I knew exactly how big the title needed to be and I cut it to size on my Stampin’ Trimmer.

Using liquid glue the title piece was fixed to a layer of Balmy Blue Card followed by Night of Navy Card.  Then with the layered sentiment added to the scrapbook page I was done.

THE REACTION

There’s not a whole lot of stamping or die cutting on this project but I love how it turned out.  The little details of the colours and shapes pull it all together exactly how I’d planned.

I sent a photo of the page to my daughter this morning to see what she thought.  Her immediate reaction?  “That’s hilarious, the two poses” followed by a tears of laughter emoji.  So without any comment from me, she immediately saw it too, life imitating art.  A very successful crafting session I think.

There’s a great photo of me showing the cake topper to my granddaughter Alyssa.  I’ve posted it on my PapercraftWithMe Facebook Page if you want to see it.

For more projects using the Under the Sea Framelits check out these earlier blog posts:

A dollar for your time

One of a kind

Birthdays by the sea

All at sea

DESIGN CHALLENGE

This week the Global Design Team has decided that their challenge should be GDP151 – Take me to the sea.

I can’t think of a more fitting entry than this scrapbook page.

BUNDLE BONUS – The Under the Sea Framelits I use on today’s project can be purchased by themselves, or in a bundle with the coordinating Sea of Textures Stamp Set.  If you want both you’ll save 10% by using the special bundle code when you order.  I’ve included links to the bundles at the end of my product list so you can look at these in more detail if you’re interested.

Product List