layout redesgin

yay, i've got some blog posts ready to go this week.

last week i pulled out my scrapbooking supplies and got quite a few layouts made.  it felt good to dig back in to some creativity.

the first thing i wanted to do was redo this layout above.  when i created it i was playing around with a simplistic approach.  i just wanted a stamped background and not much else because i felt the collage of pictures was busy enough.  but i knew as soon as i created the layout that i did not like it...at all!  however i just didn't have any other ideas for it at the time.  this time however i knew exactly what i wanted to do for a redesign.

i started by stripping off the college of images.  they were all taped together pretty good so i couldn't do much about that.  i did add a couple more pics to change the size a bit.

after adhering the pics to white cardstock i wanted to anchor down the other side of the layout so i added a strip of paper and began adding embellishments accordingly.

before i added the title though i felt that the white cardstock was a bit too stark between the dark pics and the muted blue paper section on the other side.  so i thought a bit of watercolor might be nice.

at this point i was a bit nervous about trying to do some watercolor since i was nearly done w/ this layout and it was already the 2nd time i'm dealt w/ these pics.  so i grabbed a piece of extra cardstock and tried out a few techniques first.  i love the finished look that came out.

i took a watercolor 'pen style' paintbrush that houses water in it and dipped it into a mister huey in the color watercooler.  the first brush strokes were a bit too strong in color so i'd swipe the brush across the extra paper until it was the opacity i desired then i'd brush the color onto the layout.  it did warp the paper a bit, but i just used a heat gun and it doesn't look too bad.

i'm not sure i'd ever do this again to a layout, but i definitely am happy with the redesign of this one!

~ jess