Welcome to Make It Monday for April 4, 2016!Unless I manage to round up some of my crafty buddies in the next few hours, at the time of writing this there is no blog circle today. It’s just li’l ol’ disorganized me!
But I’ve been playing with my April Simon Says Stamp card kit and I wanted to share what I’ve made so far with you. Did you see my reveal video on YouTube? If not, here it is.
Ready for another design lesson? Since learning about Balance and Rhythm, how are your projects feeling? As you create a scrapbook page do you find yourself looking at how you can ensure that the eye is carried in a logical manner from one element to the next? Perhaps it’s something you have always known how to do. That’s great! Even though these concepts may seem innate to you, knowing the terminology can still help to recreate a successful layout, and teach others how to do it with their own pages.
Now that we know how to direct our viewers eye around our page so they don’t miss anything, let’s talk about how we can force that viewer to pause on one (or more) element so they can take a bit more time to appreciate all the details within it.
Emphasis is all about accenting certain elements of your design more than others. This creates a relationship of dominance and subordination. It gives variety and character by creating focal points. In interiors this interest is achieved by the use of different forms, colours, lines, and textures – think of a living room that is painted a neutral colour except for one wall which is a vibrant red. Your eyes immediately go to that red to see what’s so special about it. Perhaps that’s the wall with the fireplace, or a fantastic painting, or even the windows with the amazing view. The designer and home owner want to draw attention to that particular fantastic feature or favourite art piece so they emphasize the area in question.
How does this translate to the scrapbook page? And why is it important to have a focal point? You are probably already creating emphasis on your pages without even realizing it (or completely on purpose depending on how long you’ve been scrapbooking!) We use our photos, our paper choices, our colour schemes, and our embellishments all the time to highlight elements.
Let’s take a look at some ways to do this, and why it’s important by looking at examples from my own body of work. I’ll also give you eight tricks to help you easily create emphasis on your own pages. Continue reading
It’s officially 6 months til my birthday. Or, as my kids are fond of saying, my half-birthday. Woot! Do I get a cake?
Speaking of cakes, did you see my recent attempt at a Rainbow Cake on Instagram?
Did you enjoy my lessons on Balance last week? How did it change the way you created layouts over the week? I know I was always asking myself “does this balance that?” Had to make sure I was following my own guidelines after all!
Today we are talking about ways to create movement on our pages.
Rhythm can be thought of as a repetitive element that creates a sense of organized movement. In architecture it manifests as things like brick patterns, columns a la Greek temples, and rows of chandeliers in a ballroom. All these repeated elements move our eye up, down, and through a space. This even works in nature – think leaves on a tree, or a field of wild flowers or rolling hills fading into the horizon. Just because items are not evenly spaced, doesn’t mean our eyes are less likely to roam over them. We are hard wired to pick out patterns even if we don’t realize we’re doing it!
How does this transcribe to the scrapbook page? Well, for starters, you may be more familiar with the term ‘flow’ instead of ‘rhthym’. Basically the same thing but for the purposes of this article I will be using the term ‘rhythm’ exclusively. You can make the substitution as you read if you need to. 🙂
Now, let’s look a bit more closely at the three different ways to create rhythm and I’ll share some examples from my own work so you can see them in action. Continue reading
Welcome to another Make It Monday!
You may be arriving from Karen’s site where she is sharing colours that help her concentrate.
Today I am showing you how easy it is to send a bouquet of flowers to a loved one, using your stash of stamps and inks.
I was recently admiring a card I saw on YouTube which was made with a beautiful floral stamp set. One of those ones with different sized flowers in both outline stamps and filler stamps which allow you to create beautiful layered projects. Instead of lamenting that I didn’t have one of those sets, I decided to see what I did have. Quite a bit actually!
Here’s a video where I show you all the different sets I raided and take you through the creation of my card. Continue reading
Some of you may know that once upon a time I went to Interior Design school. Yep. Slogged my way through one course at a time while juggling babies, toddlers, and more babies! Nothing like coming into a class massively pregnant with #3 to see the same teacher who saw you massively pregnant three years earlier with #2!
Ah, the good ol’ days!
Despite a left turn into the wonderful world of scrapbooks and card making, my heart still dreams of designing beautiful interiors. So, I thought I’d create this little series to marry both my passions. The lessons I learned all those years ago influence what I do now, greatly. For example, I live in a metric country and I swear I did learn metric as a child, but now I think in feet and inches. Twelve by twelve inches to be precise!
Whether you are creating an elegant living room, or a scrapbook layout, there are six basic principles that guide the placement of elements. Most likely you follow some if not all of these without even thinking about it, but knowing the reasons behind can help you take your designs to another level. I’m not saying I’m an expert – even I mess up ALL. THE. TIME. But I have a text book and I’m not afraid to use it!
Over the next six weeks we’ll break down these concepts together.
Let’s dive in, shall we? Continue reading
You may be arriving from Kristie’s site where she is combining paint, photos, and digital vintage St. Patrick’s Day postcards for a fun take on memory keeping. At the end of this post there is another link that will keep you going on our circle until you go all the way around. So if you missed Kristie’s post, don’t worry, you can still get to it. 🙂
We hope you enjoy all our green, shamrock and everything Irish inspiration!
I am sharing my Top Five favourite projects that celebrate this holiday so let’s get started. Continue reading
