Hi everyone!
This is Karen. I am back with another Mix and Match for April. This month I wanted to try something slightly different. Even though I have a relatively good idea of what I like and don't like on my pages, I've learned over time, that even my favorite ideas feel stale sometimes and it's worth trying to mix things up a little. I also want to make sure to mention that sometimes a small, subtle change can have a big impact so it doesn't have to be a drastic change each time.
Here's my page for this month:
For this month, I wanted to see what would happen if I broke up the text on to two pages instead of having it all in one page. I still kept the same amount of journaling but I split it across two pages. Once I decided to do that, I wondered what would happen if I also put a really wide photo that stretched across two pages. So I created a 4x12 photo, broke it into two 4x6 halves, printed them and then glued one on each page.
I absolutely adore the new Hello World! line and I knew I wanted to use the papers with this page. My next idea was to pull all the pages I liked and a bunch of other yellows and blues from older lines and then punch circles out of all my pages. I used lines as old as four years in this page. I can never reiterate enough how well the colors match across MME's new lines and older ones.
Once I had all my circles, I lined them all up so that there was a relatively even distribution of color all along the page. The next step was to stitch along some of the chunks of circles to add some texture, visual interest and mostly for fun.
I also started thinking about my title and how I would display it, I knew I would break it into two sections across two pages, but I wasn't sure what color I should make it. I went around and around and then finally settled on white. I figured this way it would stand out but not steal the thunder from the circles or the photo. I also thought I could then use smaller colorful alphas to make it more interesting. The left side ended up like this:
And the right side is quieter but still mostly white.
Here's how the full title looks across the two pages: See how the white is subtle but stands out?
[mnm_apr12.jpg]
With the washi on top and bottom and the circles and the split title and large photo, there was already enough going on in this page so I didn't want to add too much more. Instead I decided to add some subtle small embellishments and those airplane and arrow enamels were calling my name, so I made a little cluster on the top right.
And then added tiny ones on each page on the bottom to create repetition and a visual triangle.
Some fun stitching on top and bottom and I was done! Here's a side look to see some of the fun texture the circles add:
And here's another look at the whole page:
The journaling is all about how I am having to travel for work quite a bit and my feelings around leaving my boys, etc. You can read the full text here.
Thank you for letting me share another layout with you. I liked experimenting with small changes to my page this month and I really like breaking up the text and enlarging the photo. If you've recently experimented with doing something that's new to you, I'd love to see your pages so please leave me a link in the comments. Thank you and see you next month!
