AUTUMN - Season of Gratitude

Hello and welcome back to my blog!

So, December has soon caught up with us again! I’m not quite ready to start the festive season yet, still have lots of autumn photos to scrap! I am studying full time at uni, and this time of year can be quite tricky! I have boxes and boxes of autumn papers waiting patiently on the shelf to be used. I have used collections with more contemporary colour schemes in previous months, and I just wanted to get one last layout completed, before shifting my focus onto Christmas. I decided to get my collections out from previous years and go with a more traditional colour scheme!

So here is my December double layout for Stick It Down:

And here is the sketch I have used – I didn’t adhere to it completely, I used it more as an inspiration:

I replaced the large photo on the left with a die cut design by Paige Evans. I seldom use my Silhouette these days, and it was a real treat to spend some quiet time selecting patterned papers for the backing of the diecut piece! I cut it as large as I could on my Silhouette Portrait, which meant that I had to omit the ribbon design element on the sketch.

As I used both horizontal and vertical photos, I had to modify the position of them slightly. The idea was to start and finish the journaling in the box the photos have created, however it didn’t quite work out to plan. The lines ended up quite paced out, too, I completely misjudged the available space and the distance I would need between the lines... Never mind, live and learn…

The papers I have chosen for the background was from a woodgrain 12”x12” paper pad from The Works! I bought it about a year and a half ago, when we were on holiday in Wales. Even though quite cheap, it is a fantastic quality! The papers are lovely and thick, and most of the designs are very usable. There were two of each designs in the pad, making it perfect for double layouts! I have been waiting ages to use this particular design – frosted leaves!!! Perfect for late autumn!

I created three embellishment clusters, as suggested by the sketch – I feel very comfortable using three embellishment clusters on my layouts, so this was easy. Working with a double page layout means that generally there is enough room, so you can keep those clusters quite big.

I used embellishments from collections from previous years – the manufacturers included Echo Park, Pink Paislee, Pinkfresh Studio and Pebbles. I also used a few diecut leaves, which were leftovers from previous layouts – these are the beige woodgrain pieces.

I struggled quite a bit with the subtitle – I had to dig deep to find an alpha that was the right colour and size. I settled on an Amy Tangerine alpha book – the letters are sticky vellum, but the colours are vivid enough to be visible on the page, even with all the crazy going on…

The layout itself captures some of the times we’ve spent together as a family on days out this autumn. I love making these ‘recap’ layouts at the end of a season – just a little reminder of how blessed I am.

For more inspiration from our design team, please visit the SID blog! We’ve had announced our new design teams recently for the next term! Thanks for visiting!