Inspiration: Creative Layout Page Design with Paige Evans Class
Confession time: I could never have designed a layout like that on my own. It's fun and whimsical and it totally works, but it is very far from the road my creative mind usually takes. I was watching Paige Evans' online class on scrapbook.com and when I saw her make her grid with washi tape, I thought, What a good opportunity to use washi tape that has a ton of patterns on them and so even before I had watched a third of the video, I was already raiding my stash for supplies so that I could craft along with Paige.
As I was looking at washi collections I have, I realized that I have three larger washi collections from American Crafts, one of which is Hey Santa and because I had yet to dive into this one, I thought it would be a great opportunity to do so. I've mentioned in a recent post that last fall was filed to the brink with great new products, which means that some of the collections I invested in ended up untouched when Christmas rolled around. When I invest more heavily in certain collections and purchase the embellishments and such, I usually prefer to do a few layouts or mini-albums with it first and then dive into card-making later. There are a few reasons for that. Layouts require full 12 x 12 papers, whereas cards are perfect to dive into smaller scraps. I also feel less guilty using more expensive embellishments on layouts, which will be kept in my albums for a long time, as opposed to using them on cards, which might eventually end up in the trash. (Let's be honest here - I know my friends and family enjoy my cards, but I'm also aware that they need to declutter once in a while.) My card-making gig kept me extremely busy last fall, so I barely did any scrapbooking and therefore, this beautiful collection sat untouched.
I was really happy to remedy that today and thoroughly enjoyed having a full collection to pick and choose from. This ended up coming together more easily than I expected. I was afraid that my sprinkling of embellishments everywhere could end up looking disjointed but somehow, it didn't. I followed Paige's design and tore the edge to reveal another patterned paper underneath. It was unfortunate, though, that I got the patterned paper as a pad and that those pages are single-sided. The white underside was a little boring for me, so I pulled out two shades of green Distress Oxide inks and blended ink on my rolled edges.
I found some cute tickets in the 6" x 8" paper pad, so I cut those apart and created a cluster. I stapled them together and added a twine bow over it. I found this awesome twine online, I believe it may be from May Arts, and it has this very nice golden mustard shade that goes with a lot of paper collections, so that was a good find. The roll is also huge to I can use it to my heart's content and not worry about running out.
Still following Paige's leads, I pulled elements from all of the packs I had: the Christmas tree from the chipboard pieces, the gift and swan from the cardstock stickers, the vellum postage stamp, vellum bow and vellum speech bubble from the ephemera pack, the house from the puffy stickers and stars, snowflakes, rainbow and a bow from the sticker book.
I created my title with the Thickers from the collection and added the other words using dies. I traced lines and added handwritten journaling in one of the squares. Because vellum is tricky to adhere, I added just a few drops of glue to the back of the speech bubble and then I decided to add eyelets to it. I was planning to do just the one, but it seemed a little empty, so I went for three and I like the look better. Good thing I still have my Big Bite Crop-a-Dile. I almost got rid of it when I did my garage sale before moving, but I changed my mind at the last minute. It is one of those tools that you don't pull out often, but that you appreciate having when you need it. I see eyelets slowly creeping back in (following rub-ons) so it's good that I held on to my eyelet collection and Big Bite - I'll be ready when this trend circles back in.
For embellishments, I added a few white sequins and grey pearls. When I was looking at eyelets, I found a little gold heart charm in my bow that has been there for years and I thought it could look cute. Moved it around and decided to hang it from the vellum bow. I also found a gold wax seal from when I tested my wax beads and spoon. It was a first try, I hadn't put enough beads in and was left with a partial image, but it didn't really matter here, it was a great way to include a bit more golden yellow to the layout and a different texture. I just love when I can spot little leftover bits on my desk and work them into something to add an unexpected element. Another one of those bits was a leftover strip of sparkly white tulle from my desk, that I glued underneath the "Warm Wishes" banner at the bottom of the picture. Speaking of the picture, I matted it in white to make it stand out better. Whenever I do that, I forgo white cardstock and go to my scrap drawers, where I pull out my older patterned papers, most of which used to be one-sided, and I use the back to mat. Great way to use scraps AND get mileage out of older papers we don't love as much. I used my Perfect Layers rulers to do so. Another tool that I don't use every time I craft, but that I've used consistently throughout the years.
Supplies
Cardstock: White Woodgrain (Lawn Fawn)
Patterned Papers; Puffy Stickers, Ephemera Pack, Sticker Book, Stickers,
Washi Tape, Chipboard: Hey Santa (Crate Paper)
Ink: Pine Needles, Rustic Wilderness Distress Oxide (Ranger)
Accessories: Blending Tool (Ranger); Satin White Sequin Mix (Little Things from Lucy's Cards);
Stormcloud and Bora Bora Pearls (Studio Katia); Ref. Articles Dies (Kesi'art);
Bonne fête merci joyeux Noël (Simple à souhait); Yellow Baker's Twine (May Arts);
Enchanted Gold Wax Seal Beads, With Love Wax Seal (Altenew);
Stampin' Dimensionals, Mini Stapler, Sparkly Washi Tape, Eyelets (Stampin' Up!);
Holly Jolly Thickers (American Crafts)
Comments