Sea Sun Fun | Polly's Papercrafts | Clustering

Hey Scrap Addicts! 

It's Emma with you today and, unusually for me, I don't have a video for you unfortunately. My tech decided it no longer liked me and gave up. It's in for repair though so hopefully I'll be up and running soon. In the meantime, we are talking clustering at Scrap Addict Central. 

Clustering is a technique of its own, and some people find it really tricky. I'll be honest, at times, I find it tricky. Mainly because usually with embellishment clusters, it means using a lot of ephemera or stickers or enamel dots or, in short, a lot of the pretty stuff we like to hoard. Am I right? 

For my layout this month, I'm using Crate Paper's Oasis collection. I had received some things in the last Like For Ever kit (no longer running sadly...I'm still sad about that, but I digress...) and I'd also picked up some extra bits in Hobbycraft, you know, as you do!

I'm using a photo of my brothers' adorable pooch, Ace, who's totally soaked from a lovely dip in the sea. Not only is the photo 'totes adorbs' but it also had some nice empty spaces where I could begin to build my clusters.

I made use of both the chipboard sticker sheet and the cardstock stickers, by first removing the stickiness on the back with talcum powder so I could move the pieces around like ephemera until I was happy with the placement. 

Toward the top of the photo is the heaviest cluster. Making use of smaller occurs if ephemera pieces and tucking them behind the photo to create layers. A couple of tags and the larger chipboard camera piece made the cluster look a bit more balanced. Later I added the flair and messy thread, to offset the heavy, blackness from the 'swim' piece in the other cluster.

The second grouping is lighter in terms of the number of pieces, mainly because they are larger. The 'Sea Sun Fun' Polaroid sticker becomes my title and I added the chipboard 'Swim' because, let's face it cute as he may be, the pooch looks something akin to a drowned rat (a happy one though!)  - haha! To finish the glittery frame just groups it's all together, making it slightly more cohesive, rather than a 'just-been-plonked-here' look.

At the bottom of the page, I wanted a small little 'something' that would really drawn your eye down over the last part of the page and would actually end up framing the journaling strips. I kept it simple with just the chipboard caravan (they had gone camping when this photo was taken) and a 'Let's Get Away' word sticker. It's simple but effective and brings the page to an end. 

Things to consider: 

✏️ Consider all types of embellishment when building your clusters i.e. Chipboard, cardstock die cuts, stickers, flair, puffy stickers...the list goes on. 

✏️ Visually, they tend to work better in 3's. They don't all have to be big focal points but the eye tends to rest in 3 places on a page. 

✏️ Don't be afraid of using your stuff - that's why you bought it right? 

Happy clustering lovelies, until next time (hopefully with a video!)