Hey Friends!
Today, I thought that it might be fun to share a few of my favorite techniques and strategies for creating with stamps and ephemera when you have used all of the patterned paper. This works great for any collection and really helped me get some more mileage out of my Wild Whisper One More Chapter stamps and Child at Heart ephemera.
During the month of June, I am creating daily on Facebook for a series called Etch-A-Sketch where I share a sketch and issue a little challenge all rolled into one. Here is today's sketch that I used as a base for this layout and I would absolutely love to see your version if you use this too...
The bonus challenge for today is to use paper tearing as a fun technique and this sketch is just full of opportunities to do that! It is also one of my personal favorite techniques lately. Now, I didn't have any patterned paper left that matched my photos from these two collections BUT I did have the stamp set and ephemera and I just knew that these products are so versatile that I could match them with some paper from my stash. I love the bright colors on the black background and I hope that you do too!
Since I didn't have a lot of patterned paper left (and because it was perfect for the sketch) I included a large gears cut file to mat my photos. These seemed to fit the color scheme as well as the vibe that I wanted for this page documenting my boys. I used a felt stamp pad to color the cut file and give it a little bit of a distressed look.
I then took my stamp set from One More Chapter and used it to create the foundation for a few embellishment clusters. By layering the "one more chapter" and the pen in different colors, it creates even more depth and dimension. That is a great way to include the theme or supplies with any patterned paper that you might choose to use.
Next, I knew that I wanted to use that "You Are Loved" die cut but the colors were not exactly a good match for my photos or papers. That was an easy change! I simply took a darker shade marker and colored over the top of the letters. Here's a shot of that in progress just to show ya the darker shades that I was going for in this simple technique....
I also took a journaling spot from the Child at Heart ephemera pack and combined it with the book stamps from One More Chapter to create a unique and customized journaling spot. By using a lighter color ink, it gave me a little of the book detail but allowed me to be able to journal right over the top.
I added just a few more little die cuts and some leftover hexagons that I had cut from some Wild Whisper patterned paper scraps left over from other projects. Easy peasy! All of these little touches helped to bring the layout and its theme together even though I didn't have the coordinating paper for these two collections. I added just a few little enamel dots and put my entire cut file on foam adhesive just to finish the look and create even more dimension.
I hope that you will give each of these fun tips a try as a way to stretch your stamps and ephemera even when you run short on the coordinating collection patterned papers. I would also really love to see your take on this sketch!
If you want to check it out, I did create this layout on Facebook Live and you can watch that by clicking here. You can also use my coupon code DTKHRISTINA if you wanna grab this amazing stamp set in the shop!
xoxo,
Khristina