What A Beautiful Mess: 49 and Market "The Spice Of Life" 12x12 layout featuring ARToptions Plum Grove

Hello lovelies. I am coming to you today with another layout created with the brand new ARToptions Plum Grove. This beautiful collection has the glorious colors of a full blown autumn day. From the gorgeous falling leaves, to the purple tinged sunsets, it has it all! I had hexagons on my mind all month long. I wanted to use a nesting die set that I have, to create the hexagon design on my layout. I did some machine sewing around the layout, and then decided to machine sew around each individual hexagon. The sewing didn't have to be perfect. In fact, the little imperfections remind me that its OK to be a little messy. Autumn is all about the falling leaves. They leave what I call a beautiful mess in the yard, and on the streets!! I used Plum Grove Colored Foundations 3 for my background. I die cut the hexagons from Plum Grove Blossom paper, machine stitched them, and arranged them on the layout in a pleasing design. I played around with placement until I found one that I liked. I popped them out from the background by placing pieces of cardboard under each one. I wanted the feeling of falling leaves, so I cut apart the Plum Grove Rub Ons, and arranged the smaller leaves and florals around the outside of the hexagon design. I spattered some ink and acrylic paint around the design as well.

For the matted photo, I used a larger hexagon die cut from Blossom paper, and nested it with a smaller die. Then I die cut the photo with an even smaller die. I love nesting dies! Once the matted photo was placed, I adorned it using floral clusters. I used 4 different flower packs, with colors I chose form the papers. 1 pack goes a long way when you choose multiple packs for your floral designs. I chose the colors that you would find while leave peeping at the peak of fall! Something I miss in Florida.

For the title, I layered and stacked some of the Plum Grove Ephemera Bits. I cut down the spice of life word strip to fit inside of the purple strip, then layered it over the ticket strip, placing a thin strip of chipboard under each layer. I scattered some butterflies over the layout.

With eth scraps of paper I had left, I die cut some tiny berry looking foliage and used it as filler in my floral clusters. I waste NO paper. This is also a closeup of the rub-ons. They actually look like they were part of the paper design. These are the finest quality rub-ons I ever used. They glide on like butter, and you cant even tell they have a birder. It blends right into he paper. If you haven't tried 49 and Market Rub-Ons, I suggest you do. It is quite addicting. And quite beautiful too. Once the layout was finished. I used a little gold mica powder mixed with water to kiss the edges of everything around the layout. It added a bit of rich shimmer.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope that you are inspired by the gorgeous colors of Autumn. Grab some Plum Grove and create something glorious!! xo