Happy Monday, friends!  Missy here, and I really love the layout I’m sharing today using the 2017 May Hip Kits.  My theme for today is to “Build a Scene.”  When I thought of this, flowers came to mind.  I decided to go with a garden of flowers type of scene 🙂  I went for the gorgeous flower cut file available for download for free HERE, and I used all the colors of cardstock from the Cardstock Kit to cut them on my Cameo.  Before peeling them off my cutting mat, I used my fingers to smudge some white gesso over portions of the flowers.  I gave them variations in color by painting them with the Prima Watercolor Confections in the Color Kit.  I love how bright they turned out!  The only patterned paper I used is the background, which is from Crate Paper and can be found in the Main Kit and Paper Kit.

To jazz up the background a bit more, I covered most of it with white gesso.  I smudged on a thin layer so I didn’t cover up a lot of that pretty mint color.  I used more of the Prima Watercolors and some plastic packaging to smudge it down.  I also used a brush to create some splatters.  I filled in the centers of the flowers with some of the Crate Paper Buttons and Echo Park Enamel Dots.  For part of my title, I tucked in one of the exclusive Puffy Stickers from the Embellishment Kit.

I finished the title with one of the black foam Thicker words.  I used black letters and the black buttons to pull some of the black from the photos.  Plus it really pops against all the bright colors.   One of the awesome things about these flower die cuts are the inside pieces are totally usable as well.  I did bring in a few small flower punches from my stash to create a few smaller flowers.

For once, I didn’t add any foam behind my photo. I felt like the flowers were dimensional enough and the photo stood out just fine.  I’m truly in love with these colors!

Here’s another shot just because they turned out so pretty 🙂  I tried to add watercolor to the background to contrast the flower that would be on top of it.  The yellow really stands out against the corals and pinks, for example.

To add even more color, I tangled up some thread in various colors and added it in as a layer and texture piece.

I did add a little bit of journaling in and around the flowers.

I had a blast putting this together!  Definitely don’t discount the cardstock each month…as you can see, you can really dress it up and make something awesome with it 🙂  Check out my process video if you’d like to see how I created this from start to finish.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a wonderful week, friends!