Beauty Live Life / Paige Evans DT

Happy Friday...woo hoo!!  I'm here with a new mixed media layout for the Paige Evans Design Team featuring Paige’s beautiful Bloom Street collection. I often get asked how I come up with design ideas and the answer is certain things just pop into my mind when I go to make a page. I wanted to use a lot of patterns on this layout, so making small shapes of those patterns sparked an idea. I pulled out a small square punch and chose a few papers to use. I also used four rolls of the Washi Tape. I stuck it to white cardstock and punched it out. I chose the B-side of Paper 18 as my background and I coated a lot of it with white gesso after deciding on the arrangement of the squares.

 

I used a combination of Distress Oxides and Shimmerz to create a watercolor effect. I also splattered some watered down white acrylic paint. Once I glued down all the squares, I machine stitched through them with white thread to add detail and texture. I wanted mostly solid colored embellishments since there was so much pattern going on. I added purple butterflies that I fussy cut from Paper 08 and one large one from the Layered Butterfly Stickers.

 

I embellished around the photo with mostly pink flowers. Since there was so much blue in the pool image, the pink was a nice contrast. I fussy cut flowers from Paper 11 and Paper 12 and layered them on both sides of the picture. My title is a combo of a Puffy Word Sticker and a few fussy cut words from an Ephemera Die Cut. I like the pop of dark blue that brings to this area, which echoes the dark blue in some of the washi tape. I added a few more pink flowers with blue thread underneath. That scalloped border under the photo is from the Ephemera Die Cuts.

Since I was scrapping a pool photo, I wanted a sun somewhere. I fussy cut this one from Paper 17, popped it up with adhesive foam, and added yellow thread under it. Here is the larger butterfly I mentioned earlier.

Since I used patterned paper as my background, I did have some warping going on once I added the mixed media.  That's going to happen.  I try my best to flatten it out by laying heavy paper pads on top of it for a while.  I don't mind some warping...it's to be expected.  I still love using patterned paper like this :)

I also love wrinkling up the edges of die cuts to give them dimension like this.

Another way to add a little bit of depth is to add dimensional foam.  I added a small piece under this smaller flower, and you can see the difference it makes.  It just helps to bring the page to life a bit more.  Overlapping is another great idea...like I did the title here.

Here are a few more close-ups of all the colors and textures!

I hope this inspires you in some way today! I challenged myself to use patterned paper as a background here since I use white cardstock a lot. How often do you create little challenges for yourself? It was a lot of fun to make and thank you for stopping by to take a look!

Here's the process video for this layout if you're interested:

Have a great weekend!