February's Focus Summary and a Layout

This February I was playing with my Distress products (during January it was mists), and between my taking a week to decide which product to play with this month, being on vacation for a week, and February being a short month, I didn't have as much time to play as I would have liked. I just might have to revisit these products another month. But I have to say that I definitely see how focusing on one product for a month lead to using it more also after the month was finished. It's really all about playing with the products in my stash, the more I try things with them, the more I reach for them when working on other layouts. I feel more comfortable using them, since I know better what results I can get.
And now to today's page. I recently purchased just a few items from my favorite new 2014 winter releases. I'm really trying to cut down on my shopping, with partial success. I have managed not to buy new 12*12 papers so I just use my stash and the Scraptastic monthly kits. I think 6*6 pads are a great way to get the feeling and the look of using brand new and exciting products. They cost 6$, and you get a lot of paper and possibilities.
Using just 6*6 pp is a good opportunity to use some other products and media on the page, like inks, sprays and stamps. For this layout I chose some Distress Markers that coordinate with the colors in the new Maggie Holmes collection for Crate Paper, Styleboard.



I used white cardstock and the February Scraptastic stamp set (that coordinates with the Feel Again kit) to create a fun background. I started with some experimenting, I did it in the middle of the page, where I knew it would be covered. I find that different cardstock and papers react differently, so I just wanted to make sure it looked right.


The far right circle is that same stamp, but spritzed with water, the shape of the heart on the stamp is unrecognizable. It would actually look pretty cool as well, I think, but I wanted the heart to show.
I started from the bottom left corner and worked my way up, using the different colors.


Then I stamped starting with the top right corner, working my way down (sorry about the blurry shot). I discovered I had no peachy shades in my ink stash, which was indeed surprising and might have led to a serious inky splurge at Simon Says Stamp. I blame Hero Arts Shadow Inks and Simon's new inks for this. Oopsi.


Here's the finished page-


A good rule of thumb, when having just a few items from a collection, is to go to other products you own from the same manufacturer. I found that many many times they coordinate. Of course not every item in every collection, but it's a really good place to start, instead of getting lost in all my stash. So here I looked at some embellishments from the Close Knit collection by Crate. I only have the one product from that collection, the Close Knit Adhesive Layered Standouts, but the colors are a great match to the Styleboard collection, as you can see (the two stitched layered hearts)-


I used 4 papers from the 6*6 pad to create the focal area of the page around the photos. Border punches are one of my favorite ways to add some texture and interest just with paper.


The Styleboard collection has a lot of ephemera packs, and it was hard to choose which one to get, but I am addicted to chipboard, so I chose this pack.

March is here already, and this post takes me smoothly onto March's Focus, this time I decided fast, and I'm gonna play with patterned papers this month, particularly 6*6 paper pads. So I hope you'll join me as I share more layouts, trying to make a dent in my overflowing box of those cute pads.
Have a great week!

Comments

  1. Sweet page. I love it! I decided not to get the chipboard pack but opted for the vellum pack. I can't wait for it to arrive!

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  2. Oh how pretty! It's absolutely gorgeous!!

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