Scrap Matrix Blog: Living life .. with Alz

Morning peeps!

I'm here to share another "You've been framed" layout with you ..

Living life

I had a ton of fun creating the background for this layout. It was a bit of an experiment with a new product (new for me that is) for adding colour and I wasn't at all sure how the colours would turn out. With a bit of blind faith, and a lot of Prima Metallic Accents Semi Watercolour Paints I made this ..

(I used a sheet of 12x12 heavy weight watercolour paper)

I love the way the colour has seeped into the watercolour paper whilst the mica powder has stayed on top, giving a kind of blended but opaque finish at the same time. Super cool!

Whilst this was drying, I played with the idea of leaving the background as it was to show off the beautiful colour, shimmer and shine, or to add more layers. In the end, more is always more, lol, so I grabbed some stencils (many stencils!) and my Tim Holtz Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Scattered Straw, Tumbled Glass, Pumice Stone, Tea Dye and Broken China) and using (mostly) like colour on colour, went to town.

(I've used TCW 12x12 Tiny Circles, TCW 6x6 Mini Well Rounded,

13@rts Rain of Dots and Aall and Create Stencil #13)

So I'm digging this, but it needed more because, well, more is always more! It needed texture. Something organic and beach-y. Because this was my photo ..

(I love, love, love the new Tim Holtz Mixed Media Mat!)

The Finnabair Texture Paste in White Sand with the Joggles 9x12 Wander stencil would be perfect, or so I thought.

But, once dry, now you see it ..

and now you don't ..

.. which was a bit of a nuisance cos I wasn't going for 'subtle' lol!

(Oh and this depended on the angle from which you were looking at the background.)

What to do la? It'd been a while since I played with my Faber Castell Gelatos so figured 'why not?'. Using Gold Champagne and Silver Ice from the Metallics pack, I placed the Joggles stencil back over the White Sand Texture Paste and smeared the Gelatos on top of the texture paste with my finger and once dry ..

now you see it ..

and ~~now you don't~~ now you still see it ..

magic! (lol)

That was my background done and dusted.

I knew I wanted to use polaroid style frames and chipboard circles to create a layer of frames behind my photo. Because I couldn't cut in a straight line if my life depended on it, I decided to die cut some frames using both 13@rts Colour Basics patterned paper from the 6x6 pad and Tim Holtz Idea-ology tissue paper which I adhered to white cardstock to give it some substance. Although the tissue paper I used is currently not in store, you could just as easily use the Botanical Collage Paper.

For my chipboard circles I used Blue Fern Studios Graduated Circles, the largest of which measures 11" across. The smallest, which I've used on this layout, measures 3" across. In all, you receive five funky circles in the one pack. Oh and I also used the 6" circle on my layout.

(cool huh?!)

I inked both circles with the Pumice Stone Distress Ink, coated them with Ranger Glossy Accents and, whilst wet, sprinkled on some Prima Art Sugar Glitter in Antique Silver. I stapled my paper frames to my background, glued down my chipboard circles, added White French Lace Embossed Paper Lace, and that was my layers done.

ps: if you check out my yellow polaroid frame you can see

that I can't even die-cut in a straight line lol!!

As you probably know by now, I love using flowers on my layouts. This one would be no different and, luckily for me, Petaloo had the perfect flowers for my page .. Ivory Burlap Blossoms and Ivory Mini Paintables. I tucked a teal bloom Um Wow Flair in with a couple of my flowers and added my title "living life" using individual words from Tim Holtz Idea-ology Chit Chat Stickers on top. I printed my journaling using a free font 1942 report and I was done. Here's a few close ups of my finished page ..

Oh and by the way I forgot to add that when it was all stuck down and finished, or so I thought, I decided to flick around a small amount of Turquoise 13@rts Splash Glitter Ink!

Have you thought of playing along with our "You've been framed" challenge this month? You have until midnight on the 30th to upload a pic of your project to the Scrap Matrix Facebook Shares Page. Oh and heh don't forget to let us know which products available from Scrap Matrix you've used.

That's it for me today. I hope you're having an awesome start to your weekend.

'Til next time.

Cheers .. Alz :)