My Creative Scrapbook: Love Grows Here with Claire!

Layout: Love Grows Here

Hi everyone!

It’s Claire here, sharing quite a bold layout on the blog this month. It uses the May 2022 Main Kits featuring the Paige Evans Splendid collection.

This month’s kit is bursting full of bright colours and happy vibes, perfect for scrapping all those spring and summer photographs. There is one paper in the collection however, that has a beautiful black and white monochromatic floral design.

The second I saw this, I knew I wanted to pair it with yellow to create a real statement layout. Here’s the result!

You may have noticed by now that I love a black, white and yellow colour combo and this is no exception.

I started with a piece of white cardstock, adding yellow paint stripes with a spatula across the page. By applying the paint with a spatula, the paint has a little more texture and dimension, especially around the top and bottom of each stripe.

I added machine stitching on each line in bold black thread, alternating the stitch pattern to create some extra interest.

Next came the fussy cutting – Lots of fussy cutting! I usually do this whilst at my desk, but given I wanted quite a lot, I settled down to cut out about half of the paper whilst watching TV. It was very therapeutic.

Once all the flowers were cut, I began forming clusters – one to sit on the top right of the page, and the other bottom left (where my photo will be).

I layered the flowers with foam squares for extra dimension, helping create a flowing kind of effect through the corners.

Before adding them to my page, I mounted my photo on black cardstock and cut a yellow tag from the tag paper that comes in the kit. I layered the photo on top of the tag, adding black twine and a brad from my stash.

I positioned the photo in the bottom left corner and built the floral cluster around it.

The ‘Your and Me’ phrase was cut from the tag paper. I curled this to create height, adding it to the floral cluster.

Next, I began to think about my title. This month, the kits include an exclusive cutfile – and it is beautiful! I wanted the file to really pop, but also not to take over. I decided to resize the file to just 4.4” wide and use just the centre pieces – cut in black cardstock.

I adhered these flat to the page to sit alongside my photograph.

To tie in a few more shades of yellow, I fussy cut some butterflies from that stunning butterfly paper and positioned these in a triangle around the page, using the rule of three.

The butterflies’ bodies were various colours (blue, pink etc.) which didn’t match my monochromatic layout, so I coloured these in with a black felt tip pen. I glued just the bodies to the page, leaving the wings free. I rolled the edge of the wings round the tip of my finger to create movement.