Hello Everyone! My name is Erica Thompson and I am so very excited to be posting for the very first time here on The Craft Warehouse blog! I had some great products to create with from The Craft Warehouse store and was able to scrap some recent photos of one of our boys using Echo Park's Reflections Fall line.
I had four photos that I planned on using but then decided after going through the collection that I wanted to only use the two photos of my son and his acorns. We had recently gone to the park and the boys had a blast finding acorns! We had to keep a close eye on my youngest because he kept trying to eat them. I knew this collection would be a perfect match for these photos and had so much creating my layout!
After I decided what photos I was going to use it was time to chose a background paper for my layout. I normally take my photos and put them against each paper I have out and decide what I like best. I ended up choosing one that matched the acorns my son had found and it also matched the football helmet on his sweatshirt.
Now that I have my background I like to start choosing pieces to layer my photos on. I do tend to use a ton of layers but for some reason I was not feeling it with this layout. I knew I had to use the patterned paper with the acorns on it so I went ahead and cut that down to a good size. I am not one to measure so I just eyeball just about everything! Once I had that paper cut down and placed it against a few of the other patterned papers and ended up picking out a great chevron paper that I thought went well with the other two papers.
When I scrap I do not follow any certain design rules I just have fun and do what I think looks good to me. I have fun with it and just enjoy being creative. Since my photos are going to have a light patterned paper behind them I decided to mat them with a dark brown paper from the collection to help them stand out.
Now that I have my layers and my photos are matted I went ahead and adhered these pieced down to my background paper. I only add adhesive to the centers of everything so that if I want to tuck in more layers and embellishments I can do it easily. Once my layout is complete I will go back and add more adhesive to hold it all together or my favorite thing to use is staples! Now that I have these temporary adhered to my layout it is start to add embellishments and bring this layout to life! I start with a border strip from one of the collections sticker sheets. I always take the stickers and stick them to the back of my hand a few times to remove some of their stick so they are easy to remove in case I change my mind after placing them on my layout.
This just happen to be the case with this border sticker and even though I liked the boarder strip I ended up removing it from my layout. I continued to embellish my layout and I did alter a couple of the embellishments from the layered stickers. I found a great layered sticker with some leaves and acorns on it but only wanted to use one of the acorn so I removed it and kept the dimensional with it and added it to this fabulous Bo Bunny flower.
Next I added a few embellishment clusters to my layout. I tend to have at least one cluster somewhere on my layout. I did keep this layout pretty clean but still had to add some clusters!
And that's it my layout is complete and I did it all while keeping my 3 year old busy with scrapbook paper, punches and markers and my 1 year old in his high chair eating his cereal! Busy moms have to fit creative time in our schedules whenever we get the chance! Here is a look at my completed layout!
I hope you enjoyed my layout and if you love this collection from Echo Park as much as I do make sure you visit Craft Warehouse where you will find everything you need to get your creative juices going! Have a fabulous day!!
