Hi, I'm Julie and I'm here on the blog today to share a layout I created with the Grateful
collection from Authentique Paper. When I first saw this collection,
I loved it for its color palette and its variety of patterns. From
traditional brocade to whimsical acorns, I know you'll love it for your
fall projects as much as I do. As I considered
my layout, I wanted to use as many of the patterns as possible.
When I think about fall, I think about color and all those leaves. My family's favorite fall tradition is jumping in the leaves. So, each year on a relatively dry day, my husband rakes all the leaves into a huge pile and the kids run across the yard and jump into them. I am the photographer for this annual tradition. Some of our most memorable fall photos come from our "jumping in the leaves" days. After a few jumps, the leaves spread out and my husband rakes them all up and the jumping begins again. Sometimes there's a leaf fight, sometimes Dad tosses a rake-ful on the kids, and sometimes the kids drag Dad into the fun, like they did here.
In order to showcase as many of the
beautiful patterns as possible, I designed my layout in the Silhouette
Studio software using leaves downloaded from their online store. I
flipped, arranged and resized the leaves until they
looked like they were being blown across the page. After cutting the
leaves into the subtly patterned Gracious paper, I applied the offset
feature in the program. These outlines create slightly larger leaves
around each original leaf. Next, I moved the outlines
to a blank page and cut them, one at a time onto different sheets of
patterned paper. I mounted each offset piece with foam mounting squares,
to the back side of my layout, matching each piece to its coordinating
leaf. You can copy this look without a electronic
die cut machine. Just search free clip art leaves on the internet. Print
your favorite leaves, trace them onto the back side of your background
paper and cut them out with a craft knife.
After cutting the background, I added a
strip of the Plentiful paper across the layout and placed my photo on
top, between the leaves. I printed the photo in sepia tone, to
coordinate with the muted, autumn tones of my layout.
(The kids are wearing bright red in the original photo.) Using sepia
tone is one of my favorite scrapbooking tricks. Black and white works
too! If the colors of your photo don't match your supplies, try
printing your photo in sepia tone or black and white.
This will create a cohesive look between all the elements of your
project.
For the title of my page, I created my own chipboard word and used some sticker letters from the collection (from the Details and Petite Type sticker sheets). I like mixing fonts and alphabet stickers in my titles. I have a step by step photo tutorial over on my blog, JulieChats, to show you how I used my Silhouette to create the script, chipboard word "leaves" that I used in this title.
At this point, my layout needed just a
couple more details. I like to add embellishments to my photos. For this
layout, I cut a quick banner and added a paper die cut from the
Components sheet to it.
And, since the upper right was looking a
little bare, I used one of the cardstock stickers from the Details
sheet, backed with a little thin garden twine, from the home decor
section at Craft Warehouse, and a placed a punched
leaf to the side.
Thanks for following along with me as I
created this layout with such a beautiful paper collection. I enjoy
creating one photo layouts like this, when I find papers that I just
fall in love with. But, if you take tons of photos,
like I do, you may want to know what I do with my other photos. Well, I
will be putting this layout into my pocket page album, so a pocket page
protector will be on the right side, complete with a few more photos
and a journal card to tell the story of this
year's leaf jumping extravaganza. For more paper craft projects, check
out the Learning Center on the Craft
Warehouse website. Stop by my blog this month for the chipboard
letter tutorial and also to see the 30 Days of Thankful album I made
with the scraps from this project.
Another amazing post, Julie! I love those leaves and how you did that! In the sewing world I believe that technique is called "reverse applique" (I think) It's a favorite of mine both on paper and fabric! The paper choices are beautiful as well!
ReplyDeleteAnd I must say, that how you explained everything . . . it was almost as good as sitting across my craft table from you! You did a seriously awesome job of teaching without even seeming too, must be in your blood! Again, super job, Jules!
xoxoxo
Nancy
Fall is my favorite season. And the leaf idea is great. So creative. With the weather changing it gets me inspired to get moving on a couple fall projects that have been waiting for me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the gentle nudge!