12x12 Layout --- "When they were only weeks old"

So I used the sketch from Scrappingclearly facebook page, that I have added down below, as my base/guide.

To begin with I freehand drew a heart on the white cardstock and used scissors to cut it out. Then on the back I added million different shaped fun foam to lift the heart.

Once I decided what patterned paper I was using to backfill the heart I stuck the lifted by fun foam heart cutout on the paper. This was from Ubud dreams by Kaisercraft - you can check it out here....Sekar paper

I was looking at the sketch regularly to guide my layout in a positive manner. I noticed that the sketch looked like was patterned paper or like had crackled background, and I was thinking the white was looking bare. I tried to add stitching (hard after adding so much fun foam) and I didn't like it. I remembered I had gotten Heidi Swapp Teal modelling paste and used heart stencil from Kaisercraft to add some randomly placed hearts, both on white and inside the cutout heart. I also used my finger to smudge some of the paste to add different texture. 

It was looking plain, so I used gold acrylic paint through the same stencil and smudged it as well. 

It is becoming clear to me that I need to take better photos for the blog, hope it is not too distracting for you all. I got this gold paint from Bunnings (hardware store in Australia) - it's colour is true gold. 

I cut out a smaller heart from gold glitter paper from kaisercraft, and attached it to the layout to the right (I added fun foam to right side of heart so is the same height of the cutout white background).

I matted my two photos (a photo of both my boys at the same age in the same bouncer at my parents house). It was thin frame of blue cardstock then another peice of ubud dreams by kaisercraft which I ripped down bottom to add some texture.

Then using the sketch as a guide - I found some lace. Light blue, dark blue and light blue pom pom ribbon/lace to layer underneath the photo.

Whilst I was doing my layout I was becoming hardpressed to think of suitable title. I didn't just want their names, I knew I was going use light blue glimmery puffy thickers I got in Hipkit club kit, but that was all I knew.
All of a sudden - as it usually happens - I thought of the title. So I got a large peice of plastic to place title on, this is to ensure I can easily decide on the placement of the letters before I commit to it.
Here is the placement of the words, I also added some light blue cotton/thread to give another texture. Only small amount of embellishments were needed for the layout, tab on the top of photos and two tags of either side with "gold" tiny alphas to spell out boys name (so can ensure we always know which child was which - even though they very different hehe). The puffy thicker sheets even had the perfect puffy tiny hearts that I scattered around the layout for added texture.

                       (sorry shocking photo that included scrap container ready for project life)

Lastly I added some journaling strips, using blue and gold uniball signo pens. I also used blue pen to outline layout and heart cutout, as well as adding gold hearts around the layout.

Here is the finished layout - hope it inspires you.

Check out Scrapping Clearly's online shop, facebook and blog - for all the greatness.

Thanks for hanging in there for my first blog post. Onwards and Upwards :)