Snowy Secrets

Hi all,

Wow! What a wild week we've had weather-wise. Our local town was in chaos yesterday as power lines came down, buildings were damaged and traffic lights were out due to wild winds lashing the area. There weren't enough police to man all the intersections so motorists and pedestrians were taking their lives into their own hands just trying to cross the road.

The winter weather was on my mind when I put together my Workshop Secretes article for Scrapbooking Memories Magazine, Vol 15, No 11. I wrote about how to use snowflakes on a page. Snowflakes are so versatile - if you regularly use flowers on layouts then you'll have no problem with snowflakes as they work in a very similar way.

My first layout was completely inspired by the whole snowflake/crystal theme and I went with a transparent background onto which I stitched rows of falling snowflakes. I love the effect but it proved very difficult to photograph! To be honest though, I reckon I did a better job than the magazine photographers as they placed it on a white background which ruined the effect completely.

Here's my photo of the layout:

I made a giant snowflake from paper, painted it and decorated it with anything that gave an icy impression. I then added some smaller flakes and attached the lot to my stitched transparency background.

Here's a close-up - this time taken on a flat timbered surface.

My second layout featured my gorgeous niece rugged up against the wild winter in Europe a few years ago. The pic was only a small one sent from her phone but I think that sometimes the impression a photo gives can be more important than it being perfect quality.

Although the layout looks like there are snowflakes falling all over it, only a few of those embellies are actually snowflakes. The rest just give the impression of snowflakes. There are various flowers, liquid pearl dots and swirls, knotted rafia, rhinestones, hearts, fibres and clear pebbles.

Here are some close ups so you can see what I mean:

I tore the page in the top right corner so it looks like the snowflakes are pouring out if there.

I hope you're keeping warm inside and finding some scrapping time!

Cheers,
Heather