Hi there and Happy Halloween, I’m popping in with a Mega Mash-up for the end of October so given the timing, I’m calling it a Monster Mash. In the past colour schemes, designer styles and themes have been the focus of my product mashing but today all I’m looking for are packs that have spiders or spider webs as my commonality. The process would be the same if you were to pick circles, hexagons, stars, hearts… you get the idea right?
When I search for ‘spiderwebs’ in the store, much like bats, spiders and spiderwebs feature in Halloween kits like are on sale at the moment but are also in insect and backyard related kits, as well as some superhero kits like my photo theme is today. (And I’m so grateful that it’s so much faster than if I went to my physical cupboard of paper scrapping things and had to pull out every paper or element that was spiderweb related because I don’t sort and store things that way!) So I’m not looking at the whole kit or product pack, just certain things in it so I can gather supplies from the start and (hopefully) pull something together quite quickly. [Reality check: ok that didn’t happen, too many distractions this month and this took 2 and half days of small increments of time in between distractions and mum life stuff].
Anyway, a template with a spiderweb seemed like a good starting place so I am pulling out this Trio 13 template pack by Mommyish from my stash to use again. I love the cut-file look but since my style has definitely taken on more of a mixed media look of late and I found this pack of misty sprayed masks by Amy Wolff as well, I knew I’d have to make them work together. Because my photo includes some blue and reddish tones, I grabbed Allison Pennington’s Thirty One elements and papers to use – the plaid spider was the deciding factor here and to add some cuteness, I grabbed a journal card pack also by Mommyish – I couldn’t go past that cute dangly spider card and the frame is grey and neutral so it was a no-brainer.
Now I have some of my supplies decisions made, this is where the scrapping starts with those key items and my photo placed. Big important pieces on the page first so they will definitely fit like I usually do.
Even though I initially thought the journal card would sit right over the template journal box, the long rectangle just didn’t look right so I settled on popping it in an open area towards the bottom but kept it connected to the main photo cluster. It has less visual weight because it is predominantly white and so doesn’t detract too much from the photo and die-cut web but does go some way towards balancing out the dark misted web area.
Next I trialled some of the Thirty One papers and decided on one that brings in a bit of blue but was not overwhelming. The scale of the coloured triangles pattern works well with the small die-cut areas between the webby bits as well. Because I wanted those Amy Wolff’s misty spider webs to stand out, a light background with some subtle notebook lines enabled that contrast but still brought more interest than a plain old solid. (By this stage if you’re a regular visitor to the blog, you know that if there is white space in a page design, I will try to fill it with pattern or a photo or something!).
I was still deciding whether to change out the provided redd-ish polka paper from the template at this point, as well as leaning towards a title that was ‘Wicked Cool’, which to me is slang for ‘totally awesome’, which is how my son felt about all things Spidey at this age.
So I went alpha shopping and decided on one with some sparkle by Allison Pennington called Random Tricks: Scarybets. Neutrals plus colour variations?! Sold!
Having placed the ‘wicked’ wordart sticker and being happy with how it sat linking the photo and journal card, I couldn’t get the word ‘cool’ to look cool on my page. It wouldn’t nestle in under the sticker and it was starting to cover up the spiderweb on the Mommyish journal card. So then I tried ‘Wicked good’, same issue, (oh, the minor frustrations of scrapping!), then I changed the title again so that the first part of the title would fit over where the journal box originally was on the template. It looked much better, I wasn’t 100% happy with the wording of ‘Oh so wicked!’ but I didn’t totally hate it either, and there’s a kind of irony in that my son is really the opposite of wicked in the traditional sense of the word and well, that’s the reality of my pages sometimes: scrapped is better than not scrapped; pretty happy is better than not happy at all, so I called it good and moved on to adding more blue and more sparkle, and here is the end result.
To finish up, I duplicated the misty webs and brought some of the edge of the mist over to the right side of the page added some subtle gold details with the glitter triangle arrows and sequins from Allison’s Thirty One element pack. Then to bring some extra dimension and clustery goodness, I used some of the pins from Project Mouse: Halloween Enamel Pins that my store search for ‘spiderwebs’ initially turned up. I always love how the enamel pins look on my digi pages, and the stars and arrow worked nicely to repeat the colour blue and the directional elements like the gold triangle arrows.
Whenever I add extra mix and match little bits and details for a Mash-up page like this, I intentionally try to add pieces that amplify or tie to the other elements already on the page (in this case, the triangles, the pops of blue and the spiderwebs) so it still feels cohesive but is unique in the way only mixing and matching can achieve. I find thinking like this makes mash-up scrapping easier, whether it’s using just just 2 kits or a bunch of products in a Monster Mash! See ya next time!
Monica says
Love this Justine! I can’t tell you how many times my title doesn’t end up what I first planned haha glad I’m not the only one!
mary kate says
Great inspiration for mashing up very different styles with a common motif! I love how you combined the template’s cut-file spiderweb with the misty spiderweb spray underneath. Also the cute spider journal card, and the pops of blue to complement your son’s costume.