Scrap Around The World - Beach Mood Board Challenge

Uncharacteristically, I have been doing quite a bit of traditional scrapbooking lately (as opposed to my mostly digital Layouts}. The inspiration for my latest traditional page came from a mood board challenge at Scrap Around The World http://scraparoundtheworld.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/january-2014-challenge-9-soft-beachy.html. I was drawn to the soft, beachy feel of the mood board.

This mood board immediately evoked images of washed up seaweed and debris, sea creatures, glistening sand and water, footprints in the sand and shrubby bushes with white flowers on the foreshore. I knew I would have fun collecting my supplies together to attempt this challenge. And, this is what I came up with.

I wanted to include a lot of elements on the page but I still wanted the photo to be the main focus. The photo was taken at Half Moon Bay, Black Rock, on a cool day. You can see it's not a hot day because the beach is almost deserted.

Here are some close ups of my layout and some explanations of how I tried to achieve the beachy look.

Surrounding the seahorse in this image are flowers, scattered with glitter to look like sand; torn, inked gauze to represent abandoned netting, spots of Gesso to look like foam bubbles; and seed beads that shimmer like water.

Another sea creature, the crab, is caught up in fishing tackle (gauze and rope) and netting (silver mesh).

I used gauze in the centre of some flowers and interspersed them with seed beads and twine to give a more rugged look.

And, of course, what would an Aussie beach be without a pair of thongs? Cheers and thanks for looking.