Oh the dilemma

I love, love, love all the papers in this months main kit.
But this paper - had my heart.

Oh those imperfect black and white stripes. But the swirly shell like pattern on the other side is simply beautiful and wouldn't be quite as lovely if it was any smaller.
What should I do?
In the end I decided to be a big brave girl and sacrifice for my art (!)
Here is my page.

Yes it was goodbye stripes. Although I might have a go at making some myself with paint and cardstock. I am glad I managed to make this decision (even if I get a pang when I see the back of the layout) because this is a perfect background paper.

My next dilemma was how to add colour and texture without overwhelming the background. I decided to add a little something with a stencil. Now as I was at a crop when I made this and didn't have everything to hand - I made do. So the stencil (Microbial by Julie FeiFan Balzer) was untilised with a gold Delicata ink pad and cut and dry foam. It made for an imperfect look. I'd like to say that is my homage to the other side of the paper but I only just thought of it.

I cut small pieces of the patterned papers. I love the fact that the text paper has just a hint of pink on it. I edged the papers with the ink pad which was quite subtle. I used a small die to make the scalloped edge (as I didn't have my punch with me) and another cut a rounded edge onto the "loved" cut apart sheet. Another die was used to make the delicate circles. If I had any gold thread with me I would have used that instead. But I didn't. These circles are lovely but quite hard to stick down.

As I seem to need to add a top right cluster to one in every three layouts I do, I duly obeyed myself. I chose to cut one of the lovely chalkboard tags in half and wrote in gold krylon pen rather than white this time. Although that would have worked too, in order to echo the "loved" piece.

The black and cream strip is a sticker from the "I am" sheet, along with the globe and other small pieces. At the end I added in some of those fab puffy stickers from Dear Lizzy.

Oh and the title. The black side of the Love notes paper came into play again along with a Docrafts alphabet die. I then smothered krylon pen onto the Printshop Thickers