December 08, 2017

Using the Northern Lights Kits with Morgan Stockton

Usually, I like to save the champagne for New Year’s Eve, but really, who can resist when you live so close to a sparkling wine and champagne bar? I had a lovely evening out this past Friday with my mom. We had done some holiday shopping and when trying to decide on a place for dinner, we opted for drinks and sharing a very good Croque Monsieur.

I hadn’t taken any photos while we were out, so for this spread, I opted for some illustrations. While both our drinks were dark red, our glasses were different shapes so it lent for some visual interest. I loosely sketched in the outlines with a 03-sized Copic marker and then really loosely filled in with watercolor. I’m by no means a professional when it comes to watercolors, so I don’t stress myself out too much; I just like it for the look and texture.

I wanted to have the names of the drinks we ordered with the illustrations, so I took the banner stickers from the Documenter Kit, cut them down a little, and put them vertically along the stems to be like little flags. They made the perfect place to write on the drink names. Adding the circle embellishments at the top made for the perfect dimensional final touch.

One thing I love about this place—Ca Va—is that an adorable postcard comes with your check. You have the option to fill it out and hand it back to the waiter and at the end of the week they’ll mail them all out, but this time around I just snagged it and took it home with me. It’s really an art piece all on its own and I wanted to give it its own page. I used two of the papers from the Scrapbook Kit (which just so happened to have the same color schemes as the card itself—could not have worked out better) and cut them down to the size of my notebook page. I then cut the pink page from corner to corner to give it a dynamic angle and adhered both in with the postcard centered right on top.

Layering embellishments on top was the best part. I was pleased to see that “The Details” half-moon sticker had the exact colors and same loose, illustrated feel as the postcard’s art so it fit perfectly. I loved the white asterisks that came with my Scrapbook Kit but I wanted them to feel a little more fun, so I placed sparkly gold washi over the fronts and then used an X-Acto knife to cut away the excess, creating fancy, dimensional embellishments. Overall, I think the effect is very close to the feeling of sitting in a champagne bar with one of my favorite people.