Loving Life || Kathy McElfresh

I'm showing this upper left corner of my page first because I LOVE how the stenciling turned out! The idea for the page came from the colors in my filtered photo, leading to the Kraft paper background and my selection of tone-on-tone cork alphas. But the page itself started with a light brushing of Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide ink through the fab Circle Spoke stencil....and I just love how the chalky blue looks on the Kraft and how well it matches the cool aquas of the Perspextives! And somehow that seagull from the Flock of Seagulls set just looks great flying into the scene through the stenciled circle!

The challenge this month was an opportunity to dig into my stash of alphas and I picked a really old cardstock alpha from a Fancy Pants collection in a cork print. I decided to frame my photo with the alphas, highlighting some words and symbols by loosely outlining them with a white pen. I love the subtlety of the frame and how it shows even in embellished areas.

It's a fun photo showing two of my grandkids in a net-less volleyball game in the front lawn and the Loving Life title from my March Fox Box + was just perfect for a fun, whimsical page. I picked up on the aqua color for the stenciling and in other elements, providing accents to the tone-on-tone elements close to the photo.

I chose the fussycut airplane & clouds embellishments to echo the "flight" of the ball AND because those clouds were just the perfect color! I used a sunshine Perspextive from the Summer Accessories set, an XoXo Perspextive from the XoXo Hearts set and a cut from an older Paper Snips sheet. And since I really love the "view" captured in the photo I chose one of the Travel Clippies to add to this corner cluster. The ladybug flair from The Flair Hut is there because my granddaughter has been called KatieBug her whole life! And you might see a glimpse of one of the Cool Stars sets in this cluster, along with a random avocado for Calvinball.... I just HAD to sneak that in!

I balanced the airplane cluster with a large stamped flower, watercolored to match the color scheme, added a couple random embellies for Calvinball points, another from the Cool Stars set and the adorable yellow sunglasses from the Summer Accessories pack, sitting just under one of the amazing Fabric Stars. The epoxy flair tucked into this cluster is punched from the Spring-themed Paper Snips 21 sheet that came in the March Fox Box + but which is available separately in the shop.

This title corner shows the extra texture the alphas add -- the slightly different sheen shows at this angle -- which highlights the framing. And you can see up close the overlapping hearts from the XoXo Hearts set add the perfect finishing touch to the Fox Box title.

______________________________________________________________________________________

I hope you'll join us on the Facebook group and play along with this fun challenge! I may do a few more challenge pages with different styles of alphas just to use up some of my stash! Have fun!