Welcome to Napa Valley

Hi there! It's the first day of school here, which for my older two (in grades 2 and 5) means one whole hour of school, while for the youngest, who is starting kindergarten, he has a 15 minute meet the teacher meeting today, then nothing until next week.

The start of school marks the official end of summer, and return to the real world for our household, so what better to share with you today than a layout celebrating the wonderful summer we had? (As a matter of fact, I think most of my work this month commemorates the memories we made this summer). I love this month's Limited Edition kit from My Creative Scrapbook; it lends itself perfectly to so many different kinds of layouts.

On our recent trip to Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, Evan and I couldn't resist stopping by the iconic Welcome to Napa Valley sign and snapping a picture.

I started with a lot of background work. First, as I often do, I coated the background paper with clear gesso; this enables the media applied later to be manipulated easier, and means that you don't need to use as much media as it sits on top of the page instead of sinking in. I then added stencilling through two different stencils using white crackle paste. Once dry, I brushed Prima Artisan Powder in clay with a soft paintbrush around the stencilled images to accentuate the crackling and give the images some definition.

I then added some painting in rusty colours using the Heidi Swapp Gold Lame spray from the kit as well as the new Prima Dragonfly Blue Color Bloom spray and a couple Lindy's Stamp Gang sprays from my stash.

This kit is perfect for fussy cutting, and I added fussy cut leaves and flowers behind my photo, and a fussy cut clip on top of it, and chipboard bits and flowers from the kit to finish everything off.

Thank you for stopping by today! Be sure to visit My Creative Scrapbook to check out their Limited Edition kit, and the other wonderful kits they offer, and consider becoming a subscriber so you never have to worry about missing a kit again.