QKD Royal Monday!! Inspiration Challenge!!!

Welcome to a fabulous Royal Kat Monday!!!

If you came here from Penny's blog then you are on the right track!! If you just happened upon here...thanks for visiting and definitely start at the beginning of this fabu hop so that you don't miss one of the fantastic and inspirational pieces that our awesome DT has put up for you!!!

Today's challenge was INSPIRATION based on the above image. I waiting on this and would glance at the image every few days. Waiting for lightening to strike. It did the design process in my head...in bits and pieces over the last 3 weeks. And then today...lightening struck.

We recently celebrated my Daughter's 5th birthday. She's my first and it amazes me that 5 entire years have gone by. Whoosh....
I haven't scrapbooked in a LONG time so within this challenge I've challenged myself to do a 12x12 layout. It's my scrapbooking size of choice. I pulled the colors out that I wanted to work with and printed 3 of my favorite pictures from the day of my Daughter's 5th birthday party.

I pulled out QKD's Chandelier stamp as well as the Happy Birthday (in handwriting that I wish I had!!) stamp from the Happy Skullz set. A standard 'go-to' for me!!

I used the 3 different colors, turquoise, pomegranate and gold to ink up the chandelier. Each time powdering and heat embossing. Obviously cleaning the stamp in between each color. I matted them on gold cardstock and set them aside. I knew that I wanted to use the textured champagne color as my 12x12 background. I pulled out one of my FAVORITE pieces of paper (I only have one!) and I've been WAITING for the right project to use it!! It's from Creative Imaginations. It's the pink and red with the scalloping and swirling on the edges.

I knew I wanted that on the left hand side of the page but didn't want to fill up the entire page with it so on the right hand side I used my Hambly chandelier screen print acetate paper. I layered the Hambly paper under the Creative Imaginations paper and ran a subtle gold, chiffon ribbon under both layers for some added dimension.

I then used turquoise thread and zig zagged stitched it all down to the champagne paper.

I wanted something subtle at the bottom so as to not distract from the photos. I pulled out a strip of turquoise and ivory. I stamped the Happy Birthday in Archival Brilliance ink in Pearlescent Sky Blue. I heat embossed this to give it some good shimmer. I then stitched a length of sheer, turquoise ribbon to this strip and added it to the bottom of the layout. I added the chandeliers and my background was complete.

I then trimmed and matted my 3 photos. One of my 2 delicious children together, one of both of them with my darling husband and one of me and the kids. They are set on 3 mattes of gold, pomegranate and kraft paper respectively. They are adhered to the layout with foam squares.
For the final touches I used a K&Co rub on - rubbed onto Kraft paper and then coated with Crackle glaze. (top right) It says 'imagine, love, explore, create". There is nothing more appropo then those 4 words to describe my children. And I used my Journaling Sticky Notes to do a tiny bit of journaling describing the occasion.
I have yet to let this piece out of my studio as I just keep staring at it!! Love these pics SO much!!

Thanks Maria for choosing SUCH an inspiring image for us to work with!!

Now...onto Linda to see how she interpreted this image!!!

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XOXO-