Hello! Going in to MOC soon, I am trying to remember what it feels like to get a page done in a timely manner. I joined in with Monica and Scrapping with Liz’s Make It Scrappy (MIS) this past weekend and this was my thought process and approach.
For starters, who has time to search through their entire camera roll or back-up folder of photos that dates back to the dawn of digital photography when scrapping for MOC unless the photo is specified? (Wait! You aren’t sure what Month of Challenges is? Check out the forum here for some info and join us in January!)
So anyway, no, I scroll back through anything marked as ‘favourite’ in my phone for a few minutes max. The first photo (or set) that I have a title idea for, instantly wins and that’s what I’m scrapping if it fits all the other challenge requirements. Today it’s bird photos (if you know me, I’m sure you’re shocked, or rather, no, you totally are not).
Now because it’s the MIS, I chose a Scrapping with Liz template using the handy categories at the top of her store. This limits me to looking through her 1 -3 photos templates – again, let’s not waste time scrolling. (I love her range of templates but this isn’t time for a leisurely stroll through the whole store). What can I instantly see working for my photos in this category?
SWL’s Artsy Journal no. 36 set it is!
Now I need a kit with the general theme and colours that would work with my photos.
I ‘advanced search’ the store for keywords like ‘bird and plant’, and scroll quickly, just basically scanning colours and make sure I’m logged in so if I see anything particular I can see right in that window whether I already have it in my stash. (If there’s more than 3 or 4 pages of results, I will go back and limit my search to a ‘category’/product type like ‘Kits’ or select designers to narrow it down but sometimes element packs and paper packs are separate and I never know what I’m going to find in the store).
The Here and Now collection by Elif Sahin Designs fits my parameters and has most of the recipe items in it too. Limiting myself to a kit or collection to start with makes me scrap faster because less decisions, plus the recipe means I already know which items to start with!
So here’s my first Work-in-Progress with most of my requirements placed. I needed a bow, paint, scatter and journal card, along with photos. (I was going to add paint from the kit but the template already has some so that works).
For my scatter, I used the yellow petals but knew I’d recolour them to look more like the plants in my photos. To keep the ‘real’ look and be quick, I used the ‘Color Overlay’ Layer Style under ‘fx’ and a blend mode rather than ‘normal’, using the colour picker to find a green that works over the yellow of the petals without losing the veining and detail.
And because I forgot to take into account that I needed a spot for a journal card when picking a template, I had to find a spot to tuck one in. Better to remember that now than try to squish something that big in near the end of the process. Photos go in to the template now too.
This is the part where I audition my ‘hero’ pattern paper for the top torn piece and become indecisive (which happens more often when it’s been a while since I’ve scrapped and when all the papers ‘speak to me’). I’ve got at least 5 I’m deciding between in the Layer’s Palette at the moment. I clipped a yellow solid paper to the paint layer of the template as well. I want to visually connect Steve, the bird as well as the journal card without filling the page with yellow and losing him, and a small amount of yellow like that paint seems a way to do that.
And here’s where I go off the rails and add everything. First that dark green leafy background near the bottom of the Layers Palette was probably my favourite in the paper pack and then this one with the mustard coloured icons all nested but spoiler, it gets changed out again and i’ll explain why in a minute. I knew the title from the start so I went and found the Joyous Alpha first (it was really love at first sight as far as scrap product goes!
The glitter on it is beyond amazing and I thought it was the perfect size for a long sentence kind of title, but it was a bit too much all in green and even in all the same glittery goodness (because that alpha paper has multiple colours in it and they are all divine – but the green with the parsley, well, that was a no brainer to me). So I found the cork one also by Elif and it was a great complement (plus my birds love to destroy cork in real life so it holds some extra significance to me).
So here’s the title work and some extra elements. How ‘understated glam’ is that Joyous glitter alpha?!
So I mentioned the paper didn’t feel quite right? As much as I loved the dark green leafy paper, it felt really top heavy and also a bit distracting from the photos and story and that ribbon/bow that was a requirement piece got lost against it. (And the first one with the mustard icons was also not quite right in that a Goldilocks kind of way). I liked that the teal-ish colour travelled down the page from that paper, through the journal card branches into the date tab but… let’s fast forward to the end after a ‘throw everything else on the page’ moment.
So because I’m always a ‘why’ person, this is the part where I justify my product and design choices and changes (feel free to skip this part but thanks for visiting!)
- To give the eye a bit more of a boundary, I pulled in a border from Lynn Grieveson’s InkyDink pack and rotated it a bit to fit the skewed photo angles and artsy alignment. Mixing the colour of the stamping meant it didn’t feel so harsh over the krafty paper I switched in for the leafy teal. I think because it fits with the neutral background of my kitchen tiles it feels less distracting and the colour and intensity certainly has less visual weight so means the page isn’t as top heavy (to me).
- I pulled the shadows of the torn paper in a bit to add some more dimension;
- I varied the angles a bit of the alphas to give more realism (because I can’t align anything perfectly in real life).
- The tag, heart and flower all create a visual triangle with that coral colour, highlighting the title and, because of their placement, connects all the photos.
- I’ve talked before about tending to place faces looking ‘in’ towards the centre of the page but also how to break this ‘rule’, so the flower sticker next to the top left photo was initially to give Steve something to ‘look at’ seeing he’s facing off the page (but also walking away from the crime scene, so understandable to me) and so repeating that sort of sticker next to each photo again connects them and forms another, wider, triangle.
- The additional circle stickers and wood-rimmed brads are about repetition for cohesion, as we’ve discussed before also.
And because I like to see how far I’ve strayed from the original template or scraplift piece, I’ll often look at the finished product side by side with the original. What do you think? Still close enough? See you next time!
Monica says
Close enough! ;) I loved reading this after seeing your page! I wonder if I could scrap faster now…thanks for the challenge!