Guest Designer - The Tattooed Crafter

Today we welcome a guest designer known for her process videos...

Hello my lovelies, I’m Julia, a tattooed lass from England who enjoys nothing better than getting creative every chance I can. A few weeks ago I was asked to be a quest designer for May’s challenge and I feel so honoured to have been asked.  Being an ex Art Teacher, I have a natural creative flare. To be honest, there’s not that many crafts I haven’t dabbled in but my true passion over the past few years has been the traditional 12 x 12 scrapbooking and weekly Project Life.  I used to do a lot of larger scale scrapbooking many moons ago with my Great Grandma, so she was always my drive to record and capture every special moment in my life. With the help of my mum who is an amazing photographer, I have grown up in a creative household allowing my creative eye and skills to flourish.

When Laura introduced the sketches to me, I was SO excited to work with them…. it was just such a shame I could only pick one! I love to use sketches as I find them truly helpful when you are having a creative block and also when you just need to create a layout within a short amount of time. The sketches are a helpful guidance when creating layouts without any pressures. I also love to mutate the sketches so that they adapt to my personal style and creativity, so this month’s challenge wasn’t going to get off too lightly.

Now you’ll be able to see the full video on how I created this layout via YouTube but the main reason I picked this particular sketch was the fact that it was quick, easy to replicate and manipulate. The sketch didn’t require too many items from my diminishing stash and would also allow me to get quite messy. 

To create the overall layout, I worked with a series of items from a kit purchased from Rhie over on Mrs C Scraps that I have been working with recently.  She had purchased my first ever Heidi Swapp Colour Shine in Hot Pink so I knew that this was the colour I would use for this layout. As it is such a vibrant colour, I decided to print my photo in black and white allowing it not to contrast with the pink and also remain the focal feature on my page. 

Now the most “technical” part was the splashes of colour. Very simple to create, however it can become overwhelming at times due to that fact it can be quite unpredictable, so be mindful when using the “packaging technique”.  As I mentioned it is very simple to create the messy splodges, by grabbing some old plastic packaging, squirted the Heidi Shine (or any ink/paint you have in your stash) onto the plastic and starting to spread and smoosh (very technical words) this onto my white card stock.  I tend to use smaller plastic wrapping as I find this is more controllable to work with, but the overall results can be fantastic if you’re happy to get a little messy. 

If I didn’t mentioned already, I am the doily queen. No layout is complete without one, so this sketch HAD to be mutated to include one of my beautiful doilies, which I simple added behind the tag to add a little extra dimension and interest to the page. As I had backed my overall photo onto some baby pink tissue paper this allowed the photo to blend softly into the harshness of the vibrant pink ink. I love working with different textures so I try to add a variety within my layouts. Using tissue papers, lace and threads all create a variety of textures, which are very simple to add but have a major impact on the layout. Quick and simple is my motto! Matching all of this with a few words from my roller stamp in black, allowed me to add a little more curiosity to the three main areas on my layout.

As you’ll be able to see from the sketch below, there isn’t a whole range of embellishing. Adapting this sketch to add a little sparkle, I opted for some gold glittered punched hearts along with some wood veneer to warm up the page.  Complementing all that with these beautiful thickers from American Crafts called “Wild” where I used the word ENJOY. My husband wasn’t too keen to be totally messy and wildly creative that day in the photo. He is very methodical, so I knew that tagging the word “Enjoy” along side this would put a very funny spin on the situation. 

To finally mutate this sketch and make it my own, in a very simple way, I simply backed the white cardstock onto a plain blush pink 12 x 12 cardstock to help control the warping, as well as add another touch of colour to the vast white space at the top right of the paper. A few inches down I decided to create a rip allowing the blush pink to peep through adding a different aspect to the overall layout. I like to use this technique to add a splash of colour or pattern when I simply don’t want anything else too bulky on the page. My main cluster was full of colour and embellishments, that I didn’t was this rip to distract the eye from the main feature. 

And there you have it; the finished layout:

I would like to massively thank the UK Scrap Addict team for allowing me to be apart of their blog and YouTube as a guest designer. It truly has been an honour to share my work with such amazing people and I hope I have inspired you to give it a go and get creative with some sketches.  

Thanks for joining us Julia!  To see more of Julia's work check out the following links: YouTube Instagram Twitter Facebook