A twirly tutorial

Here is my latest page I've been working on and it features a beautiful photo that the official photographer took of one of my girls at the wedding we went to recently. This page has loads of techniques that I've learnt recently and so I thought I'd share my process with you to show the different layers.

I started this page by creating a background of torn tissue paper from an old sewing pattern using Claudine Hellmuth matte medium as the glue. Ths is a technique from a Live with Prima class by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. You can watch her class and her fabulous page here.

I used floral patterned tissue paper from Paperchase to finish the background.

I'm really into using stencils at the moment but I don't have many bought ones. This was a punched border from a mixed lot of border strips I bought recently from Ebay (I've found it's cheaper than buying lots of punches). I used gesso as my paint to get a bold image.

More stencilling, and this time I used a butterfly airbrush stencil (another ebay purchase). They are cut out of acetate and so are much thinner than a crafting stencil, but they do the same job for a lot less money.

Time to get out the sewing machine. I did some free-motion stitching to add movement to the butterflies.

I stuck down the photo and added a gesso border then glued down a group of Prima flowers.

I've got an old book about ballet moves and so this book page seemed the perfect addition to a page about twirling. The page was finished with some journalling and a handwritten title (I was feeling brave!)