#58 Inspired by the Roaring Twenties

I thought this was such a cool prompt I really wanted to do it justice. I wanted to find an aspect of this era that spoke to me. I searched art deco on google and pinterest. The results were heavy with fonts and photos of buildings in NYC. 

For a little bit I considered making a page about Rockerfeller Center and the Empire State Building. I even had the title. But today, I decided to focus my attention to the other aspect of this prompt - the roaring twenties and the great Gatsby.

And thus my layout was born.



Even as I typed the words "roaring twenties" I knew I would have to make a page about this decade of my life which is coming to an end.  

 
I searched easily on my memory drive for photos of me every year since 2003 and cropped them all to the same size and added the same action to them.

Tip: when scrapping multiple photos from different times, add the same action or filter to all the photos for a more cohesive effect. I did this easily by adding all my photos to the same document in PSE and then applying the effect to the document.

 
My internet search also turned up many great fonts reminiscent of that era. This one is called Andes and can be downloaded for free {:http://www.dafont.com/andes.font}. I also thought it'd be a nice touch to add a Fitzgerald quote, so I searched brainyquotes.com and found a fitting one. 

 
I felt with all the busyness of the page I needed to add elements that made it feel like me, so although I asked an art deco background paper, the embellishments were pretty current and in my style. 

How did you do this week?

Would love to see your creations uploaded and tagged WM#58.

I'll be back Monday with a new prompt.

xo,
Pamage

#54 Inspired by sewing

Well, you all should know by now that I LOVE sewing on my layouts. Most times I am too lazy to do it, but whenever I do I end up loving my pages.

So I save this technique for special pages.

This week I turned to Studio Calico's Design Team gallery for some inspiration. If you are not familiar with the work of {Kinsey Wilson} and {Sasha Farina}, I recommend you take a look. They take sewing to a whole other level. 

you love ice cream

for this layout, I used {this} layout from Kinsey as my inspiration. I drew the loops on cardstock from my discard pile and cut out the inside of the loops to make the template for my real patterned papers. Once I pieced all my papers together, I poked holes with my paper piercer and used some embroidery thread to outline the shapes.

I also used sewing on my title with some baker's twine...

and a little detail of blanket stitching

I added a few details in red once I chose my photos, to balance out the red that is peeking through in the photos.Overall this page took me longer to create than I usually take, but it is certainly worth it. It just makes me smile to look at it.

sew fast sew easy

i didn't use a sketch or an inspiration piece for this one. I just laid down some papers I really like.

 I stitched on my title and I added a few sewing related embellishments to reinforce the theme, such as the felt sticker from Amy Tangerine.

 I also added a clothes hanger clip from Amy Tangerine, a scrap of fabric, some buttons and the tape measure washi. It was a story I had been meaning to tell but hadn't found the time or photos. This challenge pushed me to get it done. 

Hope you had a chance to play this week.

xo,

Pamage

# 45 ~ Inspired by Social Media

Hello, hello.

I have a ton of stories to tell about this particular part of my life that seems oddly missing from my pages. But as always, when I posed the challenge I knew I'd struggle to come up with the story I wanted to tell. One kept coming to the forefront above all others as I discussed on the discussion board but I wasn't sure how I wanted to present it. Eventually, with a little nudge from Lisa today, I felt ready to tackle this story. In the end it came together quite quickly and to my surprise, I love it.

Because this was mostly story driven, I started by typing out the journaling, which is an approach I hardly ever take. Journaling, even when I make the space for it, is usually the last step for my layouts. But with this, I wanted to make sure I got all the details and I could edit it until I got it right, so I decided to type it. Next came the pictures which are screen captures from my phone's Instagram application. Lastly, once all these elements were in place, I looked for a design that would fit these nicely but still give me a bit of white space.

If you are not familiar with Instagram, it is my preferred time-sucker these days and a great way to document the moment and share with all your "followers". I have a ton of more ideas for this prompt, but I think this page got me off to a good start documenting this aspect of my everyday life. If I end up completing future pages, I will upload them to the gallery and tag them WM#45. I hope you will join me and do the same.

Lisa will be posting her page soon and remember to come back on July 2nd when the new challenge will be posted.

xo,

Pamage

#43 Inspired by Ads

Hello, hello.

As promised on the boards (please don't forget that Lisa and I actively check, read and post on the discussion boards of our flick'r group - here), I created two layouts this week inspired by each of the suggested ads.

Of course, having noticed the ads myself, I knew I found them appealing and that this week would be easy for me. But in the process I wanted to show you how you can take something so graphic, clean or different and make it fit your style. I hope I accomplished that with my two layouts this week.

{best of} summer twenty ten


First off was a page inspired by the Sally Hansen Ad

from the get go I knew I wanted a strip of orange paper running up the length of the page and white alphas. This was the part of the page that drew me... but I couldn't decide if the nail chips should be embellishments or photos. In the end I chose a combination of both.

 I was able to incorporate little scraps of a variety of patterned papers which fit my style quite nicely.

 For actual embellishments I kept it really simple, with a layered sticker about the subtitle and fussy cut cameras from an Amy Tangerine paper from AC.

Overall the page feels like me although it was clearly inspired by the ad. It was the perfect way to incorporate 12 photos while still having some white space.

Easter 


Next up was the Banana Republic ad and admittedly this was more challenging.

First off, I wanted to find an oversized picture and couldn't find one in my stash. I also wanted to find a bold and vibrant floral paper for my background and came up empty handed. So I settled for multiple photos and a colorful floral paper.

 I completed the page above quite quickly and then let it sit on my desk for a few days to simmer. It felt too graphic and plain for my taste. Yes, I could have left it like that and called it a day - but I didn't. It had a lot of the elements of the ad that I loved, like the multi-sized titles in black, and the large photo area with frame around it. But it needed a little more whimsy.

This is the final result. I randomly stitched along the border several times and then inked the paper around the edges in the bold magenta and orange shades from the ad, giving me the "bold" I was going for. I also added some tone on tone embellishments that dress up the page without detracting from the general clean design.  The finished page more aptly fits my whimsical style and I like it better.

And there you have it. My layouts for this week. I hope you will share your creations with us on the gallery. Lisa will be back tomorrow with what promises to be another fun challenge.

xo.
Pamage

#22 Inspired by "new"

Sometimes I read a prompt and my mind decides instantly on a project/page. This happens to me 90% of the time. And sometimes I am even lucky enough to get that idea down on paper. Other times I am not so lucky. This prompt from Lisa instantly had me thinking about the makeover my room is getting this new year... I had a sketch, a color pallete and certain elements I wanted to highlight in the journaling.

Of course, as the week went on, I realized my makeover project was more of an undertaking than I originally anticipated so I had to change gears.

I settled on my new camera, which is also part of my 2012 and a story I wanted to tell. With no printed photos of said camera, no color ink and no time to run to the photo lab, I had to improvise. I snapped a few [bad] shots of my shiny new camera with my [also new] instax 7s. Although the pictures turned out crappy, I decided to embrace imperfection and go with the flow.

The layout was a close lift from [this] Amy Tangerine layout I loved. For the purpose of this blog I try to stick to original designs whenever I can, but this week I was just out of my mojo and needed a jump start.

I hope you were inspired by all things "new". From new languages to new things, new beginnings are all around us. I do wish we take more time to ponder about these and visit this lovely prompt over and over again.

The prompt will be up soon. Will you play along?

xo,
Pamage