It is a new month and a new beautiful kit from Felicity Jane. This month’s kit, “Bailey” is all about love, gorgeous florals, and soft colors. I’ll be using this kit as the base for my February memory keeping project. And, to change it up a bit, I have decided to use an A5 journal instead of my usual traveler’s notebook. I am really looking forward to the challenge!
Mixed media has become one of my favorite techniques to incorporate into memory keeping. Using mixed media allows me the opportunity to create truly unique layouts that have a lot of detail, texture, and depth. Plus, it is fun to play with the juxtaposition of “messy” mixed media with the crisp, clean feel of Felicity Jane products.
For the title page, I began with prepping the page with clear gesso. While not completely necessary, the gesso keeps inks from bleeding through the page and also allows colors to move easily across the layout. I layered on two colors of Distress Oxide inks (peacock feathers & tumbled glass) using a piece of plastic packaging and water. On top of the Distress Oxide Ink, I painted a mix of coral and white acrylic paint through a simple stencil. The stenciling created a feeling of movement on the page, allowing your eye to move across the layout.
Once the background was completely dry, I layered several ephemera pieces from the “Bailey” kit across the layout. An altered journal card provided the perfect spot to place alpha stickers with the February label. The last of the title page came together with some simple stamping and epoxy hearts from the “Bailey” kit. I love creating title pages for each month to set the tone for the rest of the journal!
The first full layout in my February memory-keeping journal included pictures from a Super Bowl gathering with my family. This entry highlights one of the points that I feel really strongly about when it comes to paper-crafting and scrapbooking. You should choose colors, products, and themes that bring you joy. There was not a need for my layout to be covered in footballs and jerseys just because the pictures were from a sporting event. Instead, I chose a black, white, and soft pink color scheme. There are no rules that dictate what products you have to use with what pictures! If you want your products to match the coloring in your pictures…awesome! If you prefer to keep your pictures true to color and go the opposite direction on your layout…more power to you! The point of scrapbooking is to document a story, and to have fun doing it! And the way you want to tell that story it up to you!
So, for commemorating our Super Bowl party, I used a mixture of black, white, and pink across my layout. My new blending tools from Scrapbook.com were fabulous for adding soft pink shading across the layout. I used several different stamps from the “Bailey” stamp set to add a spot for the date as well as tone-on-tone stamping for dimension in the background. The layout was all about subtle details and light layering. While simple in design, there ended up being a lot of details added that brought a cohesive feel to the layout. I am so pleased with how it turned out!
I’d love to hear from you…how do you go about choosing your scrapbook products? Do you go with what matches your photos or do you prefer to just focus on products that inspire you to tell a story?
Keep it creative,
-The Scrappy Wife
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