Hi everyone,
This is Karen, back with another Mix and Match with Karen. As I continue on my journey of two-6x12 page layouts, I've been thinking about this new style and pondering how I feel about it. I've received some thoughts
and questions about this style and wanted to share some of what I think with you.
1. I love having the room to write longer journaling. When I switched to creating layouts with hand-journaling a few years ago, one of the things I missed was the ability to tell much longer stories. I know that, for me, handwriting my journaling means writing more randomly and naturally. But not always going as deep. I seem to be able to collect my thoughts better on the computer. So I love having this mechanism for telling my
longer stories. Making deeper connections on my layout.
2. I've been asked a few times, why I like the 2 6x12 over the 12x12. On a purely mechanical level, I don't have a large-sized printer and would not be able to print my journaling if I did a 12x12 page. But, even more significantly, with this system when I sit to scrap, I am still designing a 6x12 page. I always put the two blank pages side by side but, with the exception of the photos, I don't think of any overlap until I've fully designed the right side. So my brain is thinking of a narrow rectangle (6x12) and not of a square (12x12) and different ideas come to me that wouldn't if I started with a square. This month's layout is a perfect example. I'd never have put an arrow in the middle of a square page, but with the split design, the arrow that splits across the pages makes it visually interesting.
3. More than anything, I like the process of doing something different than I usually would. Doing the same thing over and over again can get you into a rut. It might put you on auto-pilot and fewer creative ideas bubble up. Changing your perspective, changing your fundamentals (like the size and shape of the paper you design on) can really shake things up and help you see new possibilities.
So if you've been doing the same thing for a while, I encourage you to try something new this month. You never know what surprises you might get.
With that, here's my page for April:
I noticed that my last few pages were really full so I challenged myself to keep the page more bare this time. One of the products I've been really enjoying from the new release is the cards in the Record It! line.
For this page, I cut up the little saying below from one of the cards in pretty things line and the hearts behind come from another card in the follow your heart line. The little hearts are from the awesome Cupid's Arrow.
You don't have to use the cards as 3x4s. You can cut them up, cut parts of them apart, etc. In the photo below, I used the other half of the hearts card and then I cut the big gold heart from the Record It! Charmed line and then the "you have my whole heart" part comes from one of the cards in the Record It! Follow Your Heart.
I just cut things apart and put them back together in a way that speaks to me. I added an enamel heart right on top of there, too. I can't get enough of those.
I then grabbed a bunch more cards that I liked and lined them up against the right edge and then cut what came off the page. I layered them with gold bits from the Lost and Found 3 line and an embellishment from Find Your Wings and Fly. Some of the wonderful word stickers from the Now & Then life and a few more heart enamels and I had a mini collage I liked.
Even though it was a bit challenging, I even cut the enamel embellishment to fit my needs.
I wanted to try something different to unify the two pages this time, so I put the enamel embellishment you see above on one side, and then did a cluster of embellishments on the top left. I included gold just to match the gold heart and embellishments on the right side.
I then painted the edges with a happy yellow color and added some more painted hearts all over the page to unify. And finally stitched everything together to make it look even more coherent.
so here it is again:
You can read the whole journaling here.
Thank you for letting me share my page and I hope you choose to try something new this month, too. If you do, please come share so I can see it!
