TROPICAL BEAUTY

First off, I have to apologize for being late with this layout! I had it finished, but just didn't get time to download it to Journella!

The theme of this month's 2nd challenge was Flowers (kind of obvious, huh?!). As I live in Minnesota, and we had another winter from "you-know-where", our flowers are barely starting to bloom now. In fact, for my husband's 60th birthday party last weekend, he went and bought many new perennials just to have a little bit of color in our backyard! So, I used tropical flowers from one of my vacations.

I used mostly photos of hibiscus so that I could incorporate the fun corner tiles! I exchanged the white background with a pink so that it would blend more.

As the challenge included using metal, ink, and/or crinkled paper, I was excited to use my new filigree flowers with brads in the center (from Oriental Trading Company). I used a couple of the brads included, and one from another set I had as I wanted that color. The fun thing about these is that you can use whatever color works for your layout! I also used a fabric flower on the second page with a brad in the center of that one as well.

I used Emerald Grid paper, one of my favorites! All of the other paper, the title paper, striped glitter paper, green mounting paper and the pink that I used for the title and behind the cornerstones, are all from the same collection. Unfortunately, I don't remember which one! But I love the bright colors and a little "bling" with the flowers!

Here are close ups of each page: I especially love the rain drops on the petals and the reflection of the pistil and stamen of the hibiscus!