Friday, December 20, 2013

Paxton's 5th Birthday

Hello, hello, and ho ho ho!  We're getting close to the holidays, and I am very happy about that!  I'll be posting some Christmas items soon, but before I do, I wanted to share my layout highlighting Paxton's 5th birthday.  Not sure when he grew up so much!!



Tradition in our family dictates the person with the birthday chooses the birthday restaurant.  In Paxton's case, he saw a coupon come in from Rainforest Cafe, and from that day on, he KNEW that's where we were going.

We enjoyed lunch, and we had the big volcano dessert!  I don't think we finished it...it was HUGE.  We took some photos with the animals and of Paxton wearing his froggy eye hat.  To bring out the green in the photos, I decided to use Basic Grey's Bow Ties paper collection.  The Freeze Tag plaid pattern and Four Square black banner papers worked well.  I started with two sheets of CTMH Colonial White cardstock and after deciding where my photos were going to go, I used the Hazel & Ruby stencil-mask Broadside alpha to spell out "Happy" and the "TH" by the 5 (I cut my 5 with the CTMH Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge) in the top left and bottom right of my layout, respectively.

After the black Glimmer Mist was dry, I cut black cardstock and the Freeze Tag patter at an angle for the top of the left page.  




I layed out the patterned paper strips to see were I wanted them to cross the paper, trimmed them, and adhered them, adding little bits and strips to various places.

Next I used the gold side of the Four Square paper to mat two photos.  I adhered everything down and started to embellish - the fun part, don't you agree?!  I used:

- Heidi Swapp clear-pop tags
- Freckled Fawn Black Arrow paper clips
- CTMH Black buttons, Twilight ribbon, gems, brads, and Color-ready canvas alphas
- Studio Calico Classic Calico 3 Kraft Die-cut Frames
- Miscellaneous stamps
- Maya Road chipboard banners (covered with Basic Grey paper)


After everything was complete, I looked at the layout and decided that the "5" should be added back popped up, so I spritzed it with additional contrasting Juniper reinker mixed with water and used pop dots to adhere it. It's hard to see the green mist in the photo, but it looks really cool popped up!


I hope you enjoyed my layout, and I'd love for you to share it!  Have a wonderful, chocolate-filled holiday!!

Majken