"I Woke Up Like This" with Kira

Hello friends!  It's Kira and I am back with another 12x12 layout.  I decided to use one of the cut files a little differently this time around.  So instead of cutting around it, I used it as a template for some hand stitching.  And I think you'll agree that it turned out pretty awesome!

I used the Half Hearted cut file from The Cut Shoppe.  I loved the simple heart shapes (easy to stitch) and the fact that it was a background (which made it a great statement piece for this layout).  I am sure there is an easier way to accomplish this, but the way I completed this layout was but using the draw feature in Cricut design space to draw the background.  I had originally thought I would just pierce my holes and then erase the lines, but that seemed time consuming.  So instead, I placed my drawn cut file over a blank piece of white cardstock and pierced my holes through both pieces of paper. 

After piercing all of my holes, I decided on my thread.  I was planning to make this more of a Valentines Day layout, with pinks and reds as my thread, but thought I might run out of those colors if I went that route.  Instead, I chose a variety of colors that I felt would work well with the AC Paige Evans sticker book. 

I picked out seven colors because I thought there were seven hearts in each row.  There were not seven hearts in each row.  I can't count.  I didn't realize this until I had used five colors.  Oh well, the last colors I used got split between the final hearts.  It worked out in the end. 

The final result was almost to pretty to create a layout on.  Almost.  I printed out this photo of my youngest son in his pajamas that I took the other day.  We always get a little bit of alone time in the morning before my oldest son wakes up and I love that half hour or so we get to spend together.  I mean, look at that face!  Who wouldn't love snuggles on the couch with him?!

I printed the photo in black and white so his colorful jammies wouldn't clash with all of the colors on this layout.  I grabbed a chipboard pom pom frame from the Good Vibes collection, and framed his photo with that.  I wanted to make sure the photo really stood out from that busy background.  But I also didn't want to take away from the background with my embellishing.  I thought the best way to do that was to color block my embellishments.  I added a few clusters around my page, adding foam in places to create a little dimension.

I considered a title, but didn't want to add anything too large to the layout.  I found a sticker in the sticker book that said "I woke up like this" and thought it worked perfectly for this layout.  I finished everything off with a little bit of gold Heidi Swapp color shine and called it done!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Until next time,