The Paper Mixing Bowl: Recipe #1

Here is the layout I did for the Paper Mixing Bowl Recipe #1 Challenge. The first recipe was for Devil's Chocolate Cake:

When I first looked at the recipe, I had no idea which pictures I was going to scrapbook on this page. However, this was quickIy determined once I read through the directions and saw that I was supposed to journal about “a special moment in which something I hoped for happened.” 

When I was pregnant for my daughter Arabella, I had bought a little knit hat on Etsy in the anticipation of her arrival.  When I was about 8 months pregnant, my sister took a few pictures of this hat which she had loving placed in the shape of a heart over my baby bump. Three days after Arabella was born, my sister photographed it again, only this time she had propped it gently on Arabella’s tiny head while she was fast asleep on my tummy.   These four pictures that my sister had taken of Arabella were very special to me. They encompassed the gratefulness and love that I was feeling at that moment in time…a moment that I had prayed for and dreamed of for so long. I had been blessed with this tiny precious gift of life, Arabella Grace. 

SOURCES: Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper. Patterned paper:  Cosmo Cricket –Gretel (red paper), SEI- Alpine Frost (background paper). Twine: Jillibean Soup. Fonts: Title Artistamp, Stamp Act, Stampede & Freebooter Script. Flowers: Handmade

I had a very frustrating time trying to find the perfect letters for my title.  Originally I was going to use my sister-in-law’s Silhouette to cut out the title but due to technical difficulties I had to find another option.  I couldn’t find anything I liked at the local scrapbook stores, so I decided to get adventurous and design something in Photoshop.  For “Arabella,” I started with a block of colour and then added a wood grain pattern. Next I added my stamped style letter in a dark brown and then texturized the entire thing. The last step was to add some “ink” to the edges using a brown paintbrush, print them all off and cut them out.  I’m quite happy with the results! For “Grace” I simply found a script font I liked and then added a thicker stroke to it in dark brown so that it was easier to cut out and also blended a bit into the background of my page. 

For the flowers, I made a few using coffee filters which I had stained either with a tea/coffee mixture or for my one flower, a coffee/hot chocolate mixture (I was inspired by the main ingredient of this recipe!).  The other flowers I made out of remnants of the various papers used in this layout.  I finished the flowers off with coordinating buttons in a variety of sizes and colours.  A bit of chocolate twine and a few more buttons completed the page.  

For the journaling aspect, I used a leftover coffee filter that I had stained using a mixture of coffee and tea. 

Thanks for stopping by!