Happy new Kit!

It is wonderful to be able to kick back and have some crafting time after a very busy but enjoyable Christmas. I will be showcasing the Firework kit rather than the Christmas one - just as well as there are no Christmas photos to be scrapped. Well one of a set of figures my husband made for my church and some of the annual Boxing day walk (but that could be a walk on any old day)
However I do have oodles of photos from a trip to Madeira that my husband and I took in early November and the Firework kit is just perfect. In the shop blurb Leo described it as "full of bright zingy colours with a sherbet twist" which is just what I need to showcase a holiday full of warm summer sun.

So here we go....

This first layout makes me smile so much. We were very lucky to leave the Uk that morning as most airports were fogbound. By lunchtime we were on the hotel balcony - and look at me with no cardi on (extremely rare in the UK).
I thought the fabulous colours of the kit would help me to celebrate this great memory.

To start with I laid down a wash of turquoise glimmer glaze. When that was dry I added gesso with a mask. When that was dry, I sprinkled yellow and blue mists

I added layers of the Fancy Pants Happy Place, Maggie Holmes Shine - Twinkle and Cheer together and then snipped a few of the KaiserCraft sticker phrases. You may note that one of the papers was also given the gesso/mask treatment.

I used one of the Kaisercraft blocks for my title and added to it a Fancy Pants Happy Place Words & Shapes Puffy Sticker. The photos were mounted on foam pads

the final touches were more of the puffy stickers - love them!

My second layout is more graphic in style

as it was about counting I thought the Maggie Holmes Shine - Memento paper would be perfect. It was mostly that along with a photo mat made from the Twinkle paper. 
I knew I would be using the fantastic Crate Paper Hello Love gold/white Thickers and wanting to inject another spot of gold into the layout so took my Tim Holtz ruler to make nice neat holes and some gold thread to create a gold line. I sewed the paper before sticking it to the cardstock which made it easier going.

I initially layered up 3 journalling spots and was half way through the first when I realised that I had spelt Madeira wrong. I don't think it will be the last time. Fortunately there was another spot in the same colour and I tucked the mis-spelled one down the bottom of the layout (I'm not wasting a thing!)

It became an anchor for another spot, a cute sticker tag and one of my flair embellishments.

As well as puffy stickers and asterisks from the kit I did add in a few sequins just for a tad more gold.

I'm finding this kit really inspirational - hope you do too :)