Hi everyone!!  As a memory keeper, do you ever feel that your style has become stale or too familiar at times?  If yes, why not try something new?  Robin and I are here to share with you some new techniques you can try in your TN. 

First up is Robin with her beautiful layout made with stitching.   I always love it when she includes stitching in her work.  Here is a close up.

Here’s what she said about her layout. ” For this design I chose a patterned paper from the Autumn Whimsy planner papers and stitched along its patterned lines to create a textured background. I loved how the paper looked against the colorful wave patterned first page of the Autumn Whimsy TN. In fact, the color scheme of the page is the inspiration for all of the embellishments I chose.  Color blocked washi tape and a couple of die cuts were perfect accents for my journaling page.”

She writes, “I have always wanted to use the weekend banner from my planner add-on kit and I finally did with this layout. I’m not sure why I haven’t used them before!”

She adds, “My blue glass pumpkin photo is the star of my story which is the reason I chose to stitch the page background. I wanted to draw the eye to the photo each time I open my TN to flip through it. There is a die cut tag and a sticker I stamped with a simple phrase as embellishments. I used some rose colored seam binding to finish off the tag. This TN is getting very chunky and that is one of the reasons I chose the seam binding. It’s soft and thin and is a perfect way to finish of the tag.  I truly love the chunkiness of my TN and will probably add seam binding to the covers of this one to create a wraparound I can tie in a bow to close.”

My turn.  Recently I tried to up my style by incorporating some paint into my layouts.    For this layout, I decided to try using my gouache paints.

I fell in love with the bright, vivid colors and the leaf patterns of the Memphis Season kit.  The design on one of the pocket cards really caught my eye so I tried to replicate the same style using my gouache paints.  At first, I tried it out in my Hobonichi painting notebook as practice.

Once I felt more confident, I trimmed some watercolour paper into TN size and started painting my replicated pattern on one side of the layout.

Using the matching pocket card, I then picked out the alpha stickers to spell out the word Fall and then proceeded to write out my Fall Wishes.  I used stickers from the planner kit to act as bullet points.

The Memphis Season kit contained a lot of goodies pertaining to the Autumn Season.  I live in the Philippines, where our only seasons  are wet and dry.  I have yet to experience Autumn but I love that in this layout I was able to partake of the season in some way.

One thing I learned about trying this technique out is that gouache and watercolour paints can actually be used to create patterned backgrounds or even hand lettered titles for scrapbook layouts.  It’s so fun and I am glad that I tried something new.

Thank you for passing by the blog.  I hope you give stitching and goauche painting a try in your TN too.

Ria and Robin