Adventures fill your soul | Sam Ball | Recycled Elements

I love nothing better than ‘random’ things on my layouts, so when I saw this months’ theme to use recycled elements, I knew it was right up my street!

Having looked through my stash to find some recycled elements that inspired me, the most random items I could find were a 7” vinyl record and an old Mac keyboard.

 

I desperately wanted to use the record, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I moved on to the keyboard pieces and was fully intending to scrap a photo of a young child with an ABC theme.

I then got distracted by the fabulous Simple Stories Vintage Great Escapes collection, and decided to change the theme and elements completely as I was feeling so inspired!

 

I knew that I had lots of stash that would work with the ‘natural’ feel, so gathered together lots of elements including wooden buttons, hessian fabric, vintage French book paper and an old postcard, a 3D printed frame and even an actual twig, complete with moss!

Using the ‘Wild and Free’ paper from the collection as the base for the layout, it quickly came together. The left hand printed detailing was so pretty that although I toyed with cutting it out and layering it, I ended up clustering and layering on the right hand side, using the recycled elements to balance the busy left hand side.

Fresh off the tree, when I added the twig, my layout suddenly had a tiny spider crawling over it!

 

Even if you haven’t played along this month, why not share what the most random or recycled element you’ve ever used on a layout is? And if you have played along, don’t forget to share your layouts over on our Facebook page, or tag us on Instagram!

Hey Santa | Jackie Ashton | Embossing Folders

 Hi crafter, Jackie here with my layout for this months challenge, using embossing folders.

When I rooted my embossing folders out and dusted them off, I wondered why I hadn’t been using them on my layouts recently, and they are lovely.   I used to love using them, but as trends come and go, this is one that as been put on the back burner, which is such a pity as I love the effect they give to patterned paper.  So having this challenge got me back to thinking about adding them to my layouts more often.

Hey, Santa

To start this layout I went through my embossing folders and selected a few different designs to use.

I used a selection of 6x8 papers and embossed each patterned paper with a different design.

After I had embossed all the papers, including a piece of vellum, I cut them into different lengths and widths, which I laid across the middle of my cardstock overlapping some, and adding some machine stitching over a few to add some extra texture.

I backed my photograph with some patterned papers from the same collection, adding 3D foam to given it some dimension.

Finishing my layout with some wood veneer, word phase stickers and puffy hearts from my stash.  

I love how the embossing folders have given the papers some additional texture without it making the page look overwhelming.  Its definitely a technique that I will be going back to using.

If you have time over the festive season to do some crafting, then please share your layouts over in our Facebook Group, we would love to see them.

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Till next time, 

Keep scrapping,

Stay Safe and enjoy the season the best you can.