Anita Enright: Together is the Best

Hi Everyone. Hope you have had a great start to September and managing to find the time to keep your craft alive.

Today I have to share with you a layout that I created for a class. It features the wonderful Sea Breeze collection by Denise Boddey.

1. Remove the strip from your Weatherboard paper and gently tear the paper from top to bottom, approximately in the middle. See the picture below.

2. You now have two pieces made from the Weatherboard and will use both sides of the paper. For the piece with the word SUMMER you will use the reverse.

3. Rotate each piece 90 degrees as above. Distress the edges of both pieces of paper.

4. Using some texture paste and a stencil apply to the patterned paper. Remember to put some closer to the edges so that it is seen once your photo and embellishments are added. Set aside to dry.

5. The layout has 3 flowers, 1 x large Cottage Pollen flower and 2 x Paper Magnolias.
Take the large Cottage Pollen flower and ink all the tips of the petals in the blue/green ink. Using the same ink dab over the Paper Magnolias with a dauber or blending tool.

6. Take some pearlised spritz and spray the flowers with enough spray so the ink starts to soften and blend.

7. Dry off the flowers using a heat gun or set aside to dry.

8. Take your white netting and ink it with the blue/green ink. Spritz with some pearlised spritz so it blends and absorbs into the cotton of the net. Set aside to dry or dry with a heat gun.

9. Mat your photo using a corner of the Hippodrome grey cardstock. Adhere foam tape to back of the grey cardstock.

10. Cut a second rectangle our of the Hippodrome grey cardstock as 5 x 7” in size

11. Take the Silver Sands patterned paper and cut two pieces of 4 x 6” in size in portrait. I trimmed the tab off the top of the paper and cut one vertical strip at 4" and 12" long (portrait) , then cut in half to give your the 2 x pieces of 4x6". You then have a 8" x 12" piece left for your fussy cutting later.

12. Take the Bottom of the Sea patterned paper and cut a piece as 5 x 7” in size in landscape

13. From the Silver Sands remaining paper, cut out at least 4 of the shells, a large compass and a ship’s wheel.

14. Cut out the following dies:
1 x sea horse in the Hippodrome grey cardstock
1 x set of 4 shells - 2 in Hippodrome grey and 2 in the Charming blue/green cardstock
4 x coral in the Hippodrome grey cardstock

15. Adhere all the die cuts to cardstock with glue. I used alternate colours, that is, if the die cut was in the grey I adhered it to the blue/green and vice versa.

16. Fussy cut all the die cuts.

17. Using a cream colour ink pad and blending tool, soften the edges or the grey and blue/green cardstock on the shells and seahorse.

18. Take your matted photo and adhere to the Bottom of the Sea 5 x 7” piece that was cut out earlier. Offset it slightly to the left side.

19. Take the other three pieces that you cut out and distress all the edges.

20. Using the grey as a base mat the two prints on top of each other, the greenish print towards the top left, and the cream print more centred. As per the main picture.

21. Take the natural twine and snip off a small piece, big enough to use to attach your charm. Wrap the remaining twine three times around your mounted photo and adhere it to the back. Take your small piece of snipped twine and adhere the charm to around the twine that you just wrapped around the photo.

22. Take your distressed Weatherboard patterned paper and place them on to the Battle Fatigue green cardstock, do not adhere yet. You will notice that the paper overlaps on either side. Tear off more of the patterned paper (either the top or bottom piece) so that more of the Battle Fatigue green shows. See main photo. Once you are happy with how it looks add glue or double sided tape to the reverse approximately 1cm or ½” from the edge.
Once it is attached play with the edges and distress them further with your fingers so that the green Battle Fatigue cardstock shows more around the edges.

23. Finally it is all about the layering of the background papers and your newly created embellishments. Once you have attached the three background papers take the netting and attach it approximately at the half way point down the paper. I found glue works best to ensure it won’t come loose at a later time. Add your matted photo and then finish adding your die cuts, flowers, cabochon and fussy cut seashells, anchor and ships wheel.
I left enough space at the bottom of the page so that I could add what ever size title I wanted that matched my photo.
And….. you’re done .