Boys and their Camo Gear

Hi it's Ngaire here, my2angels Guest Designer for September ...

I had to laugh when Tracy told me the theme for my DT month was boys – with 3 teen males I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem coming up with suitable material.

Having a poke around in the store I found the Rose Moka Mec Fort range for my first layout.
It’s just perfect for this photo of my DS3 sitting out in the backyard in his camo gear.

These much loved clothes now blend better with the rag pile than what’s in his cupboard, but there is no way he is giving them up yet.

The state of his clothes suggested a grungy sort of layout – so distressing was the name of the game.

Often you get bits and pieces of patterned papers that are left over from other layouts – not enough to make something in their own right – but too much to bear throwing out.
Mixing and matching them together to make a grunge layout is a great way of making sure they don’t go to waste.

I’ve ripped up bits and pieces of the Fort (I used both sides) and Rose Moka Positif papers and then mixed them up in layers with cardboard from a packing box and some bits of the Pink Paislee Twilight Dusk paper (again – I used both sides).

The alphas you can see are Buzz and Bloom – the trusty Urban font, which I have inked to grunge them up a bit. (Only one left of the Urban Chipboard letters in store and once that is gone that is it!)

The main embellishments for the layout come from the Scrapware Army Men chipboard set. These are really cool – and to get that camouflage look to them I dabbed them with some blue and lime inks, which – where they blended – gave me a darker green third colour. Then to tone down the brightness, I smudged a little black ink over them.

The tags (and also the flag on the other side of the layout) are also part of the Army Men set – again I have inked them and then added the symbol and writing.

The chain came off a clothing tag and was just what I needed for the tags.

A few twine cross-stitches here and there also help add to the grunge factor.

Here you can see that I varied the techniques I used with the patterned papers – tearing, inking, distressing, sanding – I used the lot.

I also like the way that using the papers in small areas like this can allow you to include a paper you might not normally consider. The Pink Paislee Twilight Dusk paper is a Halloween one – but with the words on the paper all ripped like they are, you cannot see that.

Even the 31 fits here – even though it has no significant meaning – it just looked good there.

So, I have a layout that is as grungy as the clothes and one very happy Tween.

I hope the layout gives you the courage to gather up all your left-over bits or rip right into whole pieces to use together on your layouts.

Ngaire :)