Step by Step Layout with Guest DT Ngaire

Okay – we’re a little late for Week 3 with Ngaire ...

Apologies – Hubby added on an extra night to our stay at Hotham the night before we were due to leave. Gotta love the man!!

This week we are doing a step-by-step with the gorgeous boy range Zach’s Life from Little Yellow Bicycle.

I love the diversity of colours in this range – and the fact they include both bright/funky papers as well as dark/grungy ones.

Today we are working with a bit of each – the bright blue and orange, matched with some grungy browns.

Again – the papers are busy – so to tone them down a little we are going to make strips of them and mix them in with less obviously patterned cardstock and patterned paper.

To make things a little more interesting, we are going to make it a multi-photo layout (use a 5x7 portrait photo for the main photo with 2 smaller ones to suit). Those of you who know me well will know I do these as often as there is a full moon – so this must be my multi-photo layout for September. Lol

Materials needed: (available from my2angels store)

LYB - Zach’s Life

- Arrows & Light Blue Solid

- Blue Camo

- Wipe Out Blue

- Grunge Brown Dot & Groovy Brown

Scrapware Chipboard Antique Lowercase Alphas

Versa Color

- Versa Color Pine Cone

- White Chalk Ink

ExpressIt

- 6mm Double Sided Tape
- Foam Mounting Tape

Derivan

- Crystalina Kindyglitz

Buzz and Bloom

- Spiders

- Worms

Tim Holtz Trinket Pins

my2angels White Scroll Felt Stars

my2angels Red Copper Skeleton Charm

Dimensional Magic (back in store early October)

(stash)

Any 12 x 12 cardstock (you use this as a base and won’t see it)

Length of thin twine

Sandpaper or Basic Grey file

Heat Gun

Blue Cotton Thread

Tim Holtz Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink (in stock first week of October)

Step by Step

Step 1

Trim 30.5 x 1.5cm strips of the following: (in both cases you want the reverse solid colour side)

Arrows & Light Blue Solid

Blue Camo

Ink along the edges with a matching ink (I’ve used Versa Color Pine Cone) and then adhere them as shown below – the inside edge of the blue strip is 6.5cm in from the cardstock edge for both strips. The brown strip simply butts up alongside the blue strip and you are left with a 3.5cm strip of cardstock on either end.

Just so you know – because I was using lots of small strips – it was better to use a junk cardstock to stick them to. This gives a firm background for the layout. As you can see I have used a white cardstock that had some ink marks on it that made it useless for other layouts.

Step 2

From a sheet of Wipe Out Blue – cut 2 strips of 30.5 x 2.5cm from across the bottom of the sheet. Again ink the edges with a matching ink.

Adhere these to the top and bottom of the page as shown. You want a gap of 1cm of cardstock left between these strips and ones already on the layout page.

Step 3

Use your (Threading Water) border punch to create a 30.5 wide punched strip across the bottom of your Core dinations Orange cardstock. Trim this so the widest part is about 2cm wide. Then repeat to get a second strip.

This orange is a little bright for the other colours in the layout (the original oranges in this range were not quite the same as this cardstock) so we need to grunge them up a little first. Using either some sandpaper or a Basic Grey file – take off most of the bright orange layer to show the lighter orange that is underneath. The image below shows the difference between the original and sandpapered versions.

Step 4

Before adhering your orange strips to the layout you need to run some twine through the holes. Simply thread the twine in and out of the holes and then tie off at the end with a knot as shown. You can either knot the beginning of it as well or tape that to the back side of the strip with some double-sided tape.

I’ve put them onto the layout with some foam mounting tape – simply to give some dimension to the layout – which otherwise is very flat at this point, it also helps to avoid an up/down effect from the twine running behind the cardstock. You don’t have to do this though if you don’t want to.

Adhere it to the layout over the space left between the strips of patterned paper as shown. It will slightly overlap the strips on either side of it, but that is fine.

Step 5

Next we need to trim two very thin strips from the orange cardstock. Since we also want to sandpaper them, it is best to do this before we cut them – as they are too thin to withstand the rough treatment once they are cut. So sandpaper back a section of your orange cardstock that is about 1.5cm wide along one complete 30.5cm edge of it.

Once you have sandpapered to your satisfaction – trim 2 strips that are 0.5cm in width. Adhere one strip so that it is slightly over the join of the blue/brown strips, but mostly over the blue strip – as shown below.

Step 6

From the sheet of Wipe Out Blue – cut a full-width section that is 17cm deep – and make sure that you measure the 17cm from the top. You want that neat little dot-grid pattern at the top left of the paper. Ink the edges of the paper with a matching ink and then adhere so that it is in the only remaining empty section of the layout (the bit in the middle)

It might just be slightly too big – depending on how accurate your earlier placements were – so you can either trim it a little to fit exactly or just overlay it slightly.

Now the base of the layout is done – it is time for the photos and embellishments.

Step 7

Place your 5x7 portrait photo so that it is slightly to the right of the white dot/grid pattern and so that it slightly overlaps the top and bottom edges of the middle patterned paper segment.

I’ve given the photo a distressed edge by going around the edge with my file. It helps to define the photo a little more clearly.

You can adhere this to the layout now and put it to one side for a moment. It’s time to make the title.

Step 8

I’ve done my title using the Scrapware Chipboard Antique Lowercase Alphas – but for something different this time, I have covered them with one of the patterned papers from the Zach’s Life range.

To make your title the same as mine you need to do the following:-

Trace the shape of your letters onto the front side of the Grunge Brown & Groovy Brown paper. Then cut them out with a craft knife. They actually look pretty cool just as the cut outs – so you can use them like that if you want to.

Cover the chipboard letter with quick drying glue and then place the cut-out paper letter onto it and put to one side to dry.

Once the glue has dried – trim the paper to match the letter edges. Any excess can be filed off with some sandpaper or your file. Then ink around the letter edges with your brown ink in order to make them stand out.

Now you can leave it here – or do what I did. I don’t mind a little glitter here and there on a boy layout – and I chose to lightly smear some Kindyglitz (Crystalina) with my finger over the alphas. Again, you need some time for this to dry.

This next step might seem a little redundant – since I added Kindyglitz in the last step – but a coat of Dimensional Magic helps to protect your letters and ‘brightens’ up the colours a little more. You can see the sparkle from the Kindyglitz still – though the image below shows glare more from the reflection from the camera flash on the Dimensional Magic than it does from the K’glitz.

Step 9

Once your letters are dry you can add them to your layout. A split title works best with these size letters – so adhere (using foam tape) the letters of the first word (or part of your title) to the layout so they are above and to the left of the photo.

Step 10

You need to add your smaller photos now so that you can get the placement of your remaining title letters right. Depending on whether they are portrait or landscape and their actual size – the placement will vary. I’ve distressed the edges of these photos as well.

I’ve placed mine so that although they are different photos they are overlapping so that they appear to flow on from one another. If it suits your photo – you can overlap them over the main photo too – and cover up any ‘useless’ space on the main photo.

Try to have one of the smaller photos up on foam mounting tape. Again, this is to help give the layout some dimension and not have it all flat.

Step 11

Now you can place the rest of the title. You can overlap the bottom edge of your small photos (as I have done) if it suits your photos. Try to have your title finish at the right edge of the layout (or however far from the left edge your top title began) so that it is balanced left to right.

All that remains is the embellishing and journaling.

Step 12

I embellished some Buzz and Bloom Chipboard Spiders and Worms and used them to fill in some empty space on the layout and to highlight some features on the small photos that I wanted to draw attention to.

They have been given a coat of Versacolor white chalk ink and then a little Crystalina Kindyglitz was wiped over. This was then ‘set’ using a heat gun (though you don’t have to do this step). The heat gun reduces the glitter from the Kindyglitz – it makes it all bubble up and changes its appearance completely.

To the Spider I attached a skeleton charm with some blue thread.

Now obviously these arrows might not suit the photos you have – but the Spiders and Worms come in a sheet of different shapes and one of the others might suit better.

Once I had the layout finished I realised I really didn’t like the look of the stark white of the chippy and so I brushed over them with some of the brown ink to smudge them up a bit. This made them look much more like the dirty white of the patterned paper – check out the main layout photo to see what I mean.

Step 13

I altered some of the White Scroll Felt Stars with some Tim Holtz Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink. You need a long time for them to dry – for some reason the felt absorbs the ink without it drying much at all.

Then I scattered the stars about the layout – putting them where I thought a touch of orange was needed.

There is one change to the final layout that needs to be done in this step. The orange star by itself over the white dot grid wasn’t making me happy – so I added to it with the following.

Taking the Wipe Out Blue – edge punch a 5cm long x 2cm wide strip. Through the holes thread some of the twine and tie off in a knot. Pin one of the Tim Holtz Copper Trinket Pins though the twine and attach to the trinket pin another of the copper skeleton charms. Over the top of this attach the felt star as shown.

Step 14

For the journaling – sand some more of the orange cardstock and then run it through your printer. Cut the journaling into strips and ink the edges with brown ink. Adhere to the left side of your layout as takes your fancy.

Here’s the final layout again – with the couple of added bits.

I hope you found something here to inspire you and I’ll catch you next week for my final boy layout.

Ngaire