When you be-leave!

Here comes the second post for today!I've made this layout for the get creative October 1st challenge.When I read about it I immediatelly got excited,because like I said in the previous post,autumn is my favorite time of the year!I love all those colours,the fallen leaves and the sound they make when you step on them etc.I feel really unlucky that I live in a part of the world where fall only lasts maybe a bit longer than a heartbeat but also doesn't have all those gorgeous colours I see in pictures/movies from around the world!

This is probably my most time consuming layout ever.I've put a lot of work and different techniques in it and I'm pretty happy with the result(even though when I see all the other layouts I get depressed...I'm such a beginner!).I started with the leaves.I didn't have leaves nor a leaf stamp so that left me with only one other option:The internet!Luckilly there were lots to chose from and I decided on a set from Creativity portal.I printed them out(and almost ruined the printer in the process) and cut them out.Then I painted over them with a medium thick layer of crackle paint.I did this as I wanted cracks that were visible but not too heavy!The really cool thing about crackle paint is that as it dries it kind of shrinks so the leaves already took a really nice,natural,curled up form.Then after they were all dry and ready(that means the next day) I painted them.I used distress ink in the mustard seed colour and also a red alcohol ink and using my ink blending tool it was done easy and mess-free.

After that I decided on the photos.None of the photos I had were really suitable for what I had in mind so I picked two of my favorite photographs from two of my favorite places:Australia and Africa.As I say in the layout itself it's a dream of mine to work and live there for a few years in the future,so it was perfect(since I already had the title in mind).After that it was just a matter of choosing the colours and deciding how to combine them.The letters were of black chipboard so I inked them in a purple colour and then heat embossed them with embossing powder (eggplant colour) and they turned out great(you don't get to see it in the pictures much but they actually have a shiny blue-ish tint over them in the light).I distressed the edges of my green paper I used for matting my photos quite a bit(the fact it was a lighter shade of green inside because it was of the core'dinations range was an added bonus).The strips of paper on the bottom right are from a paper pad my friend Melenia gave me for my birthday(thank you again so much!).

I hope you like it!