9-5 with Claire!

Hi everyone,   

It’s Claire here, and today I’m sharing a fun layout using the February 2023 Main Kits which features Simple Stories Life Captured. 

This kit is full of vibrant patterns and colours and works incredibly well for both pocket page scrapbooking and the more traditional 12x12 which is how I’ve used it here.

I decided to scrap a photo of me at my desk as I now work from home following the pandemic and must share my scrappy desk with my work computer. This kit really helped me capture my typical 9-5 workday, surrounded by all the stationary, work and scrappy supplies.

 I love this technique of filling big open spaces with lots of ephemera, stickers, and chipboard, and it’s perfect to use up those bits of a kit you have left over.

In this layout I used:

• Patterned paper

• Stickers from the sticker sheet

• Chipboard

• Elements from the cardstock Ephemera Pack

I started by drawing a big thought bubble on a piece of plain printer paper. Once I was happy with it, I cut it out and used it as a template to draw around the design onto my plain white 12x12 cardstock. Then, I cut the shape out of the 12x12 cardstock (starting from the centre to keep the outer frame unbroken) and laid my patterned paper behind it.

I wanted some of the ephemera to appear from underneath the bubble, coming out from the edges, so stuck my chosen pieces to the patterned paper before applying any adhesive to the white cardstock.

Once the outer edges were filled, I added foam tape to the back of the white card, around the edges of the bubble. This enables the ephemera in the bubble to sit lower, creating extra text and dimension on the page and a shadow effect inside the bubble.

 

Then came the fun part – filling the rest of the shape!! This was a lot of fun to sift through all the ephemera, stickers, and chipboard I had left to fill the space, combining textures, materials, sizes, and colours to make the design vibrant and bold.

Tip: When doing this technique, you need to start with the biggest piece first, working down to the smallest. This will help you make the most of the space and avoid having large gaps left over where nothing fits.

 

After the thought bubble was filled, I wanted to help ground the layout as there’s a lot of bold, bright colours. I outlined the bubble with a black sharpie pen which really helped the bubble to pop off the page.

Next, I focused on my photo. Again, I mirrored the black accents, mounting on black cardstock.

 

I also used one of the cut apart cards from the November paper and laid this underneath the photo to show the days of the week – helping to bring all the colours together.

On top of the photo, I created two small embellishment clusters, but nothing too overpowering as the design is already very bold.

I added a chipboard typewriter along one side, and a small cluster using a chipboard mug and a pen pot form the cardstock ephemera pack on the other.

 

To complete the design, I hand drew three small circles, one slightly smaller than the others and mounted these on foam. I stuck them between the photo and the big cloud to finish the thought bubble and that was the page done!

 

I hope you’ve been inspired by this technique. It really was very quick, easy, and fun to do, and delivers such impact.

Enjoy creating with the kit – please do share what you make as I love to see!

Take care,

Claire

@Scrappysoulmate