Sparkle it with Best Creation and Helmar

OK so I never do flowers on a boy layout and I rarely even do sparkles, but gee did I enjoy sparking it up with the paper from Best Creation! I absolutely fell in love with this paper VERY quickly and I just LOVE the glitter on them.

My eldest boy recently turned two years old and I took this photo to mark this milestone age. When I got this range of paper by Best Creation I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it and the photo I wanted to use. I instantly fell in love with the finish on it and the beautiful design. The colours were also perfect seeing that my boys are usually wearing blue and red. Although the range which is called 'All American' was very 'Stars and stripes' themed there are a number of more generic themed sheets which are perfect for layouts of my boys, and this is what I came up with.

I started out by doing some fussy cutting from one of the feature sheets that the layout was basically centered around. If it had glitter on it - it was cut out. I wanted to team it up with a contrasting background and so I took a trusty piece of Kraft cardstock. I added some white Gesso with a pallet knive and some sprays of blue colour and then started to layer up the elements I had cut out.

When I am creating my layouts, I love when the paper is tied into the photo in more ways than one, and the sparkly finish just did this. My son truly does always have sparkle in his eyes and this photo really shows it. I also accented this with the title for the layout which was cut out with my Pazzles machine. I just couldn't leave it plain and so I needed to add some sparkle to the words as well. I couldn't believe how well the crystalline Kindy Glitz matched the sparkle on the paper, so it teamed perfectly. So when I finished playing with the awesome Best Creation paper and setting out the layout, I reached over for my Helmar adhesives to put it all together.

There is a great deal of dimension in this layout - AGAIN :) and I have done this in a number of different ways. With the large piece on the left of the photo, I cut out some thick cardboard (the type with the corrugated centre) out of a shipping box just smaller than the piece and adhered it to the layout using some Helmar 450 Quick Dry. I find it stronger to raise a large area in this way than with foam as it give it more strength and keeps it all very flat. You do need to use a good glue to ensure that it stays stuck down well though.

The fine cut pieces such as the swirl above the centre of the photo and the double star at the bottom right of the photo have been strengthened as well using some acetate. To do this there is nothing better than Helmar V2 - I simply gave it a quick spray let it go tacky then stuck a small piece of acetate to it. I then cut the excess off from around it . You can hardly see it, but it protects those fine parts when they are not stuck down onto the paper.

After I gave the title a coat of Kindy glitz and allowed it to dry, I repeated the step above with the Helmar V2 and stuck it down and cut off the excess. I really wanted the layout to have some major pop factor to match in with the range, so I then got out my trusty Helmar Scrap dots and got to work again. I layered up some major dollops of Helmar Scrap Dots underneath the letters prior to sticking it down ever so gently.

I also got to work on a number of stars in the same way allowing for them to have varying height levels. It is amazing that even with this large amount under the title, you can hardly see it in the finished layout.

I stuck down the paper underneath the photo and some of the stars using Helmar Acid free glue. For the photo I used my Helmar Premium Craft glue to adhere it to the layout.

I have really enjoyed working with this paper from Best Creation so I hope you have enjoyed my little share today. Now head on over to the Best Creation blog for some more inspiration using Helmar and Best Creations paper ranges.

Happy Creating

Beck Beattie

Helmar USA Inc. Design Team Member

8 Comments

Beck, this layout is absolutely DARLING - that picture with those papers and title works so perfectly together. i LOVE LOVE LOVE your idea with the acetate - absolutely genius! I had to gasp in awe of your tower of scrap dots! :D

Posted by: Carisa | June 19, 2011 at 05:59 PM