Weekend Challenges

As promised a layout from one of the challenges from our weekend away.

'Douglas' by Kate Holliday

This year it was the turn of Martina and Tracy to put together the challenges, one of which was to use a new technique on a layout.  Now whilst I can hardly claim to have tried all possible techniques I have tried a number and was struggling to come up with an idea.  However, as you will have seen from the layouts I create (and yesterday's 'A Day to Remember' is a good example) they are usually full of patterned paper (my favourite scrapbooking product!), distressing, inking and generally quite full-on and it is what I love to create.  So I decided that my new technique would be to create a 'clean & simple' layout.

My 'Douglas' layout is about a small sculpture that my husband bought me for Christmas which I had seen and admired in an Art Gallery in Windsor and he had secretly gone back to buy.  I wanted to portray the love that I have for this cute little guy but, more importantly, for my husband and this act of kindness and generosity and the effort he had gone to.  So the hearts seemed the perfect embellishment and I used the Crafters Workshop mask 'Mix & Match Hearts' to create the different hearts on the layout.  Some are inked through on to white cardstock using 'Fired Brick' Distress Ink with an Ink Blending tool and others I merely used the hearts as a template onto scraps of patterend paper.  Behind the photo I used the mini 'Chicken Wire' mask with 'Black Soot' Distress Ink to give some depth and to add extra focus to the photo and I also used scraps of paper behind the photo (it was a great way to use up some scraps!).

I have to say that I really enjoyed creating something very different from my usual style although the stress of trying to keep a piece of white card pristine was almost too much!!!  Whilst I still love my usual style with lots of ink, edge curling and distressing and layering going on I will definetely give this another go :).

Go on, challenge yourself to move out of your comfort zone and share with us how you get on!

Happy Crafting,

Kate xx