I absolutely love the start of February! There is nothing better than a month that celebrates love and hearts are seen everywhere! This sweet photo is actually from Easter (when we were on Covid lockdown), but when I look at it, all I feel is love, so I thought it was perfect for a love layout!!
For this layout, I focused on the Hearts & Ombré Bella Besties and To the Moon patterned papers. I also threw in a couple of pieces of Graph & Dot Bella Besties to achieve the mix of colors and patterns I wanted. I started with a large heart (9.5 in. by 8.5 in.) cut out of Hearts & Ombré Black. I cut a slightly smaller heart (9 x 8 in.) out of white card stock where I adhered all the hearts. I eyeballed how I would divide the sections of colored hearts and drew lines in pencil on the white heart to act as my guide.
I used my Cricut to cut out bunches of hearts! I wanted varied sizes and patterns, and I was able to use mostly scraps to cut out the hearts. I actually created the layout in the Cricut software and placed everything where I thought it might go to make sure I had enough hearts but didn’t waste a bunch of paper by cutting too many. That worked out well!
Once I had all the hearts, I distressed the edges of each one. Generally, I love how distressed paper looks, but on this layout it was important because it helps you see the outlines of each heart. Bella Blvd papers have a white core, which makes them thick and sturdy, but it also adds so much texture and beauty to a layout when you distress, or rough up, the edges! I layered the hearts in blocks of color and varied the levels of the hearts by adhering some of them flat and others with different thicknesses of craft foam. I LOVE how all the different layers and patterns look on a page!
Behind the large heart, I added distress oxides in coordinating colors with an ink blending tool to give a soft glow and then went back over that with splatters and drops of distress inks in the same colors. Once that dried, I added a few more distressed hearts on the top and bottom of the layout and dots of glitter for some shine. I created a mat for my photo using distressed strips of the Hearts & Ombré papers and lining them up with the sections of color they would be next to on the big heart.
I finished by adding my title to the layout. I used the new XOXO Bella Blvd cut file, cut it in two layers (same papers as the large hearts), and inked the bottom half of it with Distress Oxide (Peacock Feathers) to make it look like it was dipped in that section of the heart!
I hope this layout feels like love to you and inspires you in some way!!
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