SOSN Stash Mash – June 28, 2023

Hi there, if you are a regular visitor to the TLP Blog, you might remember the Monday Mash-up Series from last year, where we looked at strategies to step outside the ‘one kit only’ scrapping box to increase your confidence in mixing and matching and ability to stretch your stash. (And if you didn’t see any of them, you are forgiven LOL and the good news is you can still access them). Anyway, with all those lessons up our sleeves, this year I’m introducing the SOSN Stash Mash!

Every Wednesday when TLP Designers put a selection of goodies on sale at half price (here’s a link to this week’s specials category), I’m reminded of some specific treasures I have in my stash and feel inspired to pull them out from the depths of my harddrive again. And I know now that I can find a few kits among that day’s selection that will work perfectly together to tell my stories and support and enhance my pictures. So welcome to another SOSN Stash Mash!

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I was glad to see some Summer kits in today’s SOSN and as I needed a dose of Summer while it’s raining and (relatively) cold here that helped me pick a starting kit and a few throwback pool photos. Here’s what I’m mashing with today.

[Designs by Irma – Dreams template; Elif Sahin Designs – Making Waves elements; Paula Kesselring – Summer Sea Bundle (paper pack & swirls pack); NBK Design’s Art Therapy No.4 (drop down menu options 5- Doodled Borders , 15- Painters-Toolbox: Drippin, 7-Transfers (creases), 17-Painters-Toolbox: Impasto-Styles )]

Paula and Elif’s products share a summer theme which as we’ve discussed before makes it easier to mash these products together, but moreso it’s the colours that work well together even though they are both different design styles (Clean and minimal compared with more artsy and messy – but they can work really well together (in my humble opinion). And although Irma’s template is pretty clean, it has some paint and stamped elements to it and some free space that makes me feel like she’s given me permission to messy it up with more mixed media with some of NBK’s digi goodness. (If you’ve been following along with Mixed Media Beginners, you’ll know by now that I really don’t need permission anymore, it’s becoming my norm but it’s probably worth noting here that I’m 99.9% sure that template designers want you to use their templates however works for you, permission is a given so just credit that their template was your starting point and go for it).

Alrighty, dragging the template and my pics into Photoshop and getting started. I’ve enlarged the template to fill the page a bit more and clipped the top photo in the middle paper spot as well; using the water to connect all 3 photos.

I’m usually an ‘elements first, papers last’ scrapper but the paint on this paper of Paula’s sold me on it and so this was a ‘no brainer’ step. I don’t love the boat but I know I can cover that up somehow (probably with mixed media or by moving one of the template flowers so the boat’s not a deal breaker by any means). I then added a few elements and wordarts while trying to think of a title… and got nowhere fast, probably because I’ve made a few hundred pool/ swimming pages since 2005 and I’ve used all the titles already. Cue repeat of mental debate on the value of original titles. (Does everyone have these mental debates during scrapping?)

While my internal monologue replayed every title argument possible for both sides of the debate, I threw some mixed media and more elements on the page. The peachy skin colour paint strips and splotches below are from Elif’s elements and complimented the paint on Irma’s template, and also made the flamingo float that I *had* to use – I know *you* know what I mean by that – feel more intentional, but because it was floating out there all alone really, and I was trying to cover the boat anyways, adding in one of Paula’s swirls served 2 purposes and pulled in some more red, balancing out the date tab and red patterned paper strip. Adding the yellow Poolside block also connected the flamingo a bit and the yellow sequins, sun and yellow paper strip again provided balance and cohesiveness through repetition of that colour.

So the title ended up being pretty generic. (The ‘In 10 years time, no one will care what this page is called if you even remember to print it out and show someone’ argument won against the significant time investment it would require for me to come up with something punny or original). I used a ‘Summer’ wood veneer brad from Elif’s elements and a font called Elephant. To jazz up the chunky font, I loaded NBK’s Impasto Styles in the Layers Palette and used the darkish one to give it some texture and colour variation (in just one click – too easy. It’s shown on a separate layer in the Layers Palette clipped to the word ‘memories’ so you can see how much pattern is contained in that style). I also used one of the Dotted Borders with another Impasto Style and in the Navigator smaller preview of the full page you can see some of the Drippin brushes I used on the left side of the page, maybe that’s a spoiler but we’re near the end anyway.

And ta-da! So now you don’t have to squint to see those drippy painty bits and the creases are from NBK’s Transfers and add to the texture of the page. (The background paper of Paula’s already has great texture but these transfers suggest with all the paint I’ve thrown on there the paper got a bit too water logged and adds realism to the digi painted page.

To finish up, I tweaked the photo shadows to be more ‘lifty’, threw a few more of Paula’s sequins from the Swirls pack on the page and added some font numbers with the same NBK’s Impasto style. The imperfect dot border, with the cool colour variation from one of the Impasto styles, fit with the artsy paint splatter look, as well as the dot brush lines on Irma’s Dream template that are still there (with the Impasto style added to them for a more stampy look) even if the painted background and my element placement and moving the title spot took my page in a slightly different direction, but that’s part of the layout creation process and joy of mashing and SOSN Smashing different design aesthetics and products. Consider this your permission to mash away if you need it!