Layout of the Week

For this week's layout, I chose a variety of items from around the store, some brand new and some older. For my background, I used Class President from American Craft's Teen collection. This paper has a big, bold, colorful diamond pattern. I know many people shy away from this type of paper in their layouts. This is exactly why I wanted to use it. I think boldly patterned papers can bring a great pizazz to your layouts. I look at the bold pattern and choose my favorite colors to highlight in my layout. In this one, I chose the pink, black & white.

After making that decision, I walked around the store looking for papers & embellishments that were pink, black or white. I didn't make it far. In the same paper collection, I chose the white background, pink dot pattern of Pop Quiz, another of the papers from American Craft's Teen collection. I was in need of some black & white accents, so I chose the floral pattern Chick Flick from LUXE's Classic Black Collection. I used both sides of this double sided paper as accents behind the matting of my photo. One side is predominantly black and the other is white.

In addition to showing you how to showcase a bold pattern in your layouts, another goal of mine with this project was to use some embellishments left over from previous projects. I know that everyone is trying to save money right now, so I decided to use some of the THICKERS Vera Accents I had leftover from last week's project. The Vera Accents are vinyl die cut shapes. They are versatile and can be used in so many projects. I used my black accents left over from last week and also opened a pack of the Vera Accents in Taffy for this project. The flowers & flourishes from the Taffy pack help bring a little "girly" to this page. Another leftover on this layout are the letters. I opened this package last Fall, for a Halloween layout. These letters are also THICKERS, they are Daiquiri black vinyl letters. I love how THICKERS give my pages an added dimension, without making them overly thick in my books.

I haven't had a chance to get a print of the photo I'm planning to use on this page, but I wanted to share this layout right now anyway. With so many bright colors, I'm going to print my photo as a 5 x 7 in black & white. The photo is one of Delaney & two of her friends cuddled together in a restaurant booth, just before we headed out to the Hannah Montana movie on opening day. The girls are so excited, I just love the photo. With the bright colors that I often use, black & white photos are my savior. No matter what color people happen to be wearing or what colors are featured in the background of my photos, black & white always brings everything together. People's faces stand out with black & white and everything in the photo seems softer. In this particular photo, the girl's clothing matches my layout perfectly, but the background of a Red Robin restaurant just clashes with all I have going on...so black & white it is!

I only have one photo of Delaney and her friends, so I wanted to really set it off by using three mats behind it. For the mats, I have chosen Passion Fruit cardstock from World Win Papers' Caribbean Colors collection. This paper has no texture, but it appears it has one, the bright pink has a spotty surface, almost as if someone has dropped water on it. Behind the Passion Fruit, I used a Black & a White from World Win's regular selection of cardstock.

For a final touch on this layout, I used Kaisercraft Black Rhinestones. These rhinestones are a bargain at $1 for a pack of 60. I used 4 of the large ones to set off my photo and two smaller ones as the centers of my flowers.

I hope you enjoy this layout and my tips. Please let me know if there are certain techniques that you'd like to learn more about. I can feature them in a future edition of Layout of the Week.

I also plan to use the leftovers from my Taffy THICKERS and Kaisercraft Rhinestones in a future layout. I think it's very important to get your money's worth out of your scrapbooking supplies by using up those leftovers.