Playing with Black & Grey and a bit of Gesso

I have so looked forward to scrapping with black and the May challenge over at Black with 2 was just what I needed to get out some black cardstock and get into the black zone.  And just for fun I decided to have play with Gesso to jazz up the black background.  So here is my take on the challenge.  It is always a challenge to get the colours come out correctly on a photogragh, but the brads are actually a soft grey colour and 3 left hand side buttons are shades of grey.

The May Challenge mood board was to use black with soft grey and dark slate grey with an inspiration image of splatter.  The other requirement was to use the sketch provide and the word "life" in your journalling.

So just to describe the detail I used on my page entitled "colour your life", I decided to go for a bright photo of a closeup shot of a brilliant pink geranium bud from my garden.  I first splattered Gesso with toothbrush over the black card to give the background some interesting splatter detail and by chance found the cut-out of 2 flourishes I did for another layout gave a really wonderful effect over some soft grey patterned paper.  I stamped up a doiley and flowers using Tim Holtz Black Soot Distress Ink, combined these with some ric-rac and buttons for the embellishments.

I really love the finished page!  The overall effect of the pink flower gives the layout a wonderful pop effect.
Just a few closeups of the detail: