more Monthly Moments: August...

I don't know why, but I've been designing many things on the diagonal lately. I'm loving it! My last project with Papertrey Ink's Monthly Moments: August collection is inspired by cards on the diagonal, like these by Maile and this one. I always love to use scrapbook ideas on cards, so I thought why can't I do the opposite and use a card idea on a scrapbook page? I love the cut out panel idea.

I'll share a little bit about how I made this...

First, I started with a large 11" x 11" piece of watercolor paper. (Since my watercolor pad is 11" x 15", I just trimmed it into a square). I cut a section of it out on the diagonal and backed it with Soft Stone cardstock, so the gray would show through the cut out. Then I watercolor painted the top and the bottom panels. I didn't adhere anything down yet. You can see the paper is a little warped from the water, but I want to be able to lay everything out first and decide where the items will go, so I'll attach it down completely later and flatten it out.

Next, I had an idea to fill the center cut out with large-scale flowers. Bold Bouquet came to mind. I also used a few of the Embellished Elegance die cut leafy stems. A few of the smaller bouquets were stamped and embossed onto vellum.

The ink colors I used were pulled from some of the colors in the Monthly Moments: August Journal Card collection. I also die cut a Monthly Moments: August die from white cardstock and a Monthly Moments: Spiral Notebook die from one of the Monthly Moments: August Journal cards.

Now I'm going to layer a couple of 2x2" pics that I printed out of my daughter Taylor from this month and layer them over the journal card. These are going to go in the open space on my layout. I stamped a "today" from the MM: August stamps and made some banners from the MM: August Journal Cards. I'll start adding in the flowers around the focal point, the photos. Notice how the black draws your eye to the pictures and creates contrast to the lighter colors.

You'll want to spread out the colored flowers and the white ones to make sure they are evenly distributed.

Adhere everything down when you are happy with the placement.

Next, the journaling. I am always afraid to write directly on my layouts after I went through all that work to make it pretty. So, I used a piece of vellum to write the journaling and placed it on the layout to see how it would look. I decided to keep it and stuck it on. "A day in the life" was stamped with the Monthly Moments: August stamps and "this is me" was stamped above the photos.

That's it! I know at first glance it looks like a difficult page to create, but I hope it helps to see the breakdown of the steps. Not hard at all. I love large scale stamps, they work great for scrapbook layouts. A few larger things look better to me on a page than a lot of smaller items. Look through your stamps to see which ones would work great as a background or to layer around your photos, and don't be afraid to mix and match them with the Monthly Moments line. Also, if you want to use stamps on your layouts but are afraid of stamping directly onto your page, stamp on die cuts...that way you can move them around on your page freely to decide where you want them go.

Visit Ashley, Melissa and Heather for more Monthly Moments inspiration.

August scrapbook layout:

(All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.)

STAMPS: Monthly Moments: August

INK: Hibiscus Burst, Orange Zest, Aqua Mist, Tropical Teal, Sweet Blush, True Black; Versamark - craft supply; Soft Granite - Hero Arts

PAPER: Monthly Moments: August Journal Card Collection, Stampers Select White and Soft Stone cardstock, vellum

DIES: Monthly Moments: August die, Monthly Moments: Spiral Notebook die, Embellished Elegance dies, Bold Bouquet dies

OTHER: watercolor paints by Reeves, clothespin by Crate Paper (The Pier).

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