Adding that extra wow factor, with Sandra

It's Sandra here today, sharing the same layout 2 ways. Whether you're a beginner or someone who likes to keep things simple and clean, you'll probably gravitate more towards the first layout. But if you like to add a bit of BAM to your pages, read on, because he second might suit you better.

I used only the September Penny Lane Scrapbook kit for version # 1. I started out with my usual white cardstock as the background and the full 4x6 photo of the girls, but the dark greenish looking wood in the background was irking me, so I used my circle cutter to crop in as close as I could to the girls. The colours in the Shimelle collection worked perfectly with their dresses, so I used some of the cut-aparts. I gave up on "Project Life" (the weekly deal) a long time ago, but I still collect kits... a) because I still do some pocket scrapbooking and b) because  they offer such a good variety of already-coordinating cards that I use on my 12x12 layouts.

From there, I chose to continue the circles, to give some variation and contrast between the soft curves of the circles and the hard edges of the rectangles. As you can see, with taking a few circle punches to the front and back of the remaining Shimelle cards, I could whip up a simple enough layout in very little time. So long as you place things randomly enough on the page, and stick to some basic design principles (refer to Linda's fabulous recent post), you can't really go wrong.




I could have easily left the page as it is. But only having that one bit of gold, was making my designer heart hurt. Ok that, and I had just purchased my new favourite scrapbooking product that I was just dying to tell you all about! Firstly, the watercolour background though. I chose to accent my invisible triangle with some soft watercolours, that would enhance the page, but not distract from the photo or the cute embellishments. I grabbed a few watercolouring supplies. I often don't use anything fancy for my scrapbooking pages - I think I may have even got these paints from a dollar store (gasp!), but they do the trick.


I traced gently with a pencil around the main background papers so I knew roughly where to paint. I experimented with different colours and effects, and ultimately decided on some pink, with green splatters.

And now for my favourite part. At the Brisbane Craft and Quilt Fair a few weeks back I saw a demonstration of these Sparkle Mediums, and instantly fell in love. They came in a whole bunch of colours but of course, gold was singing to me :) {I wish I could remember the name of the store selling them so I could buy more colours, so if anyone happens to know, please let me know!} I chose the Heidi Swapp stars to use as a stencil, and grabbed an art knife. Again, I put them near the invisible triangle points.


Now for those who didn't happen to see it on my Instagram feed, here's a little story. It was during the "drying time", as I was going about my Mummy duties, I noticed my toddler was awfully quiet. And about 2 seconds later my older son yelled out "Mummy, he's gotten into your glitter!". You could imagine my horror (and expletives) as I ran to my studio to find most of my brand new glitter medium ALL over my desk, chair, carpet and his torso. Oh yeah, and of course there were extra creative bits all over my layout too. Now this stuff dries fast enough (within 5-10 minutes), so for about 10 minutes there were 4 of us scrubbing my studio, and hosing off my son. My husband was not impressed that he was woken from his once-a-week sleep-in (awww...poor baby... not!).
So of course, I had to redo the background, and here is the final background, all ready for the photos, paper and embellishments.


Once I had all the extras laid out, I still wanted more bling... so I dipped my finger in what was left of my sparkle medium, and ran my finger along the edge of some of the embellishments to give a glittered edging. This was such an quick and simple effect, and not that messy either, as it comes off hands quite easily (leather chairs, not so much).


So here is the final page, all shimmery and sparkly. And yes, as well as a background change between the first page and the second, there was also a title change. My daughter "refused" to let me publish this online with such an offensive title as the original "Posers". (You gotta love 8 year old princesses.)



As you can see, the same page done in 2 different ways. A simple and clean way, that just uses the September Main kit. Then with a few extra techniques you can really add a bit more fun to the page.

 

And finally, just a little note regarding those practise runs with the watercolours and the first "ruined" layout... you'll be glad to know they were put to good use by cutting them up as some pocket life cards. Here's the coordinating page.



This was a perfect way to use the rest of the cute photos from that session, so they sit in my album side by side, a little like this.



Some scrapping mistakes lead to some fun results!

PS. In case I haven't done enough to convince you, please try and source that  Sparkle Medium for yourself - you'll be glad you did!

Love and light,
Sandra