xoxo with Cocoa Vanilla's Wild at Heart

Hey everyone, it's Raquel here with you today sharing a new layout with you all featuring the new and amazing Wild at Heart collection. Since February is the month of Love I decided to create another page on that theme, why not right?

On this page I am documenting a photo of roses that hubby brought me for valentines day this year. Hubby is not a romantic at all really, so this gesture was a lovely and unexpected and I just had to record it in my scrapbook. Here is the layout I created below. For the layout design I was inspired by the xo cut files available in the Cocoa Vanilla Store. I decided to mimic a tic tac toe board for this layout as a feature on the page. I couldn't go past the 'Grow Wild' marble design paper to cut them out on. I really wanted to be able to showcase that paper design on a page. It is too beautiful not too!



To achieve balance on the page I created three main clusters which form a visual triangle. The cluster in the image below is made up of the gorgeous die cut ephemera pieces, some accessory stickers, a wood veneer heart and finished off with the smaller embellishments, enamel dots. I always love to finish my clusters off with tiny details like smaller embellishments. To add further detail to these pieces I machine stitched through them and bent the upwards to add further dimension.



I added the journaling to one of the 'o' in the grid. I kept it short and simple but clear enough to convey the message that I wanted to record. I added a few small embellishments to the left of this including a fussy cut butterfly from the 'Mariposa' patterned paper.



The top left corner also contained a small cluster of embellishments, as I mentioned earlier, for the purpose of balance. I included one of the chipboard hearts in this cluster also.



For my photo layers, I added a layer of the 'Patchwork' patterned paper behind the photo. As you can see on my photo I printed my photo with a white border. I do this with most of my photos - I find that it separates my photo with the next layer of paper behind it. For example, if I didn't add the white border and my photo was really busy, I would probably not add a busy patterned paper behind it. However when I have the white border I can add a busy pattern and it still looks pleasing to the eye. My title is 'bloom' from the wood veneer pack. I also added more ephemera pieces, chipboard, one of the beautiful rubber charms and finished with some enamel dots. I love how the red in the flowers really pops and is complimented by the red in the patterned paper behind it.



To create dimension and to help the xo pieces really pop off the page I machine stitched them to the page and bent them inwards. This creates a nice shadow behind them also. To add further detail I added some hand stitching to some of them too. Just a simple cross stitch or single stitches. For the board lines I used the woodgrain design from the 'Artisan' paper and cut them a little thinner than 1cm. Again these were machine stitched to the page and folded inwards for dimension.



I hope this page has inspired you today. If you want to get your hands on the beautiful Wild at Heart collection check out the Stockists page to see where you may be able to find it in your area.



Raquel xxx

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