Friday 15 May 2009

Journaling Junkies May Layout.


Our spec involved being inspired by a magazine layout. No adverts in my scrapbooking magazines were really appropriate to convert into a layout so I looked through my teenage daughter's "Seventeen" & this immediately caught my eye as it gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with the Polaroid Picture Pile Collage function in Picasa 3.

I chose a batch of photos of our kitten Daisy, taken a few months ago at that "Oh! So Cute" stage & edited them in different colours - Black & White, Sepia & colour, as the photos are all pretty similar & this would give the layout a bit more variety & interest.

With this function the photos you select are automatically converted to old Polaroid style with the white borders & wider base border. I made 2 collages - one for each page, and printed them myself on A4 photo paper. I used a sheet of Tres Jolie border stickers, (Je T'aime "Love" French borders) cut to different lengths, to soften some of the edges & printed my journalling onto photo paper, which I then cut into strips & inked. I printed my journalling for half of the strips in olive green & inked with chestnut brown & the other half in light tan & inked with lime-green for added interest.

I also printed the Title - DAISY - LITTLE - MISS- PERFECT in both ink colours & added a border strip to the top AND bottom of the title - to draw attention to it - and stuck a self-adhesive rhinestone strip beneath it to highlight it.

It went through quite a few prints to find the perfect one for this layout as plains as a backing paper just looked too dull with these photos. I settled on this K & Co. print - Urban Rhapsody Mosaic Mirage - that ended up suiting perfectly - matching Daisy's ginger coat & bringing in some contrasting teal shades aswell. When I lay the collages down against it everything matched so beautifully that the layout lacked punch - so I added a Making Memories Flower Patch Scalloped print to behind the collage & that brought it finally to life! I measured how much I needed off the circle & cut the sides off the printed scalloped circle paper so that I still retained a significant portion of the paper from the centre to use on another layout.

I used every scrappit of the sticker sheet INCLUDING the section BETWEEN each border strip (for example I created page corners with them for each corner of my layout). Instead of brads - which are definitely a lot less popular at the moment than they once were - I "attached" my journalling strips with a pretty little floral button (bought at my local Haberdashery store) & inserted a rhinestone into the centre of each, using a glue-dot. I actually adhered the journalling strips down with double-sided tape & just added the blinged-up button to the front of each strip to ground them on the layout & keep the viewer's eye moving around the page from one strip to the other. The rhinestones I used are actually tiny hearts but are difficult to see in the photos. I used Making Memories Sparkle stickers in black for the date on the bottom right-hand corner.

This is a collage of some close-up shots of the various elements used on my page.

The journalling reads:-


DAISY - LITTLE MISS PERFECT.


How did we ever live without you?

You kitties have made our house a home!

Always ready for a cuddle -

You know how to impress the boss.

We can always find you passed out somewhere -

What a perfect life!

You love "adventuring" outside in the mornings & come back filthy dirty

We've given you 3 baths so far & you are so laid-back you don't really mind!

In just a few months you have captured all our hearts & are now part of our family!


The advantage of this type of layout is that you can use a number of photos - I used 12 - if you are finding it difficult to edit a particular photo-shoot & want to keep all your shots!


7 comments:

topkatnz said...

Well done ... great inspiration there ... and I am really liking the new blog look!!

Michelle Ramsay said...

Lovely layout and thanks for sharing all the instructions too!

Penny said...

Glad you had a good shopping trip! Love the new look here, especially your header!!

Jacqui said...

YOUR BLOG LOOKS BEAUTIFUL !!!!

Jenny in Durbs said...

Your blog looks great. Super l/o & lovely photos.

Jenny said...

That's a cool l/o!

Lynette Jacobs said...

I love this layout...it has so much on it without looking busy!