{Happy Birthday} Layout with the "Weekend in Paris" Classic Kit

Hello friends!!!  Hope you are having a great Monday.  It's Meridy here and I want to share the first layout I made with the "Weekend in Paris" Classic Kit.  This kit is PACKED with beautiful things.  The soft color scheme caught my eye and I decided I wanted to scrap a photo of my daughter from her 11th birthday last month.

When I saw the black and white floral paper in the kit I knew right away I wanted to fussy cut it and watercolor the flowers.  I love water coloring elements on my page, because I can make them match any color scheme I want.  Here are a few detail shots of my (very) beginner watercoloring skills. 

I use one of the water brushes to do the watercoloring, so I can quickly control the amount of water in my painting.  I try to do a combination of darker shading using very little water and lighter shading of the same color using lots of water.  I love the mottled look of the different shades of the same color.  

I try not to fuss too much with the watercolors on the paper, if I do, the paper gets too wet and the colors get muddy and blend into one flat color.  I know that my watercoloring isn't perfect, but I like that imperfect look, so it works for this technique.  

In case you are curious, I use a water color set from Michael's, it's $5, and looks like this...

I do a lot of mixing of colors to try to match the exact shades of color that are in the papers.

Ok, back to my layout.  I adore the Maggie Holmes puffy stickers that came in this month's kit, so I used the word "happy" and a few puffy hearts on this layout.  I added a banner sticker and spelled the word "birthday" with the mini alpha stickers from the kit.  The balloon sticker from the Maggie Holmes sticker sheet was the perfect addition to a birthday layout! 

Last, but not least, I added a few phrase stickers and stamped the date onto another Maggie Homes cardstock sticker.   And that wrapped up my layout.  

I can't wait to work with the kit some more this month.  I would love to see what you've created with it on Instagram #NoelMignon.

Have a great week!!!