Sweet, silly, serious?!

This kid is the perfect combination of sweet, silly and serious! Today’s scrappy page is all about my youngest son. He is such a fun, sweet person and he keeps us smiling all the time.

 I was so excited to capture this telling picture, because his expression just say’s it all! That raised eyebrow was followed by a big, cheesy grin. It is just how he rolls! He is our sweet, silly, serious kid and he makes my heart really happy.

Scrappy background, yes please!

Let’s talk about that background for a minute! I wanted a happy, scrappy fun feeling background for this picture and page. I searched through my ridiculously large pile of patterned paper and came up empty handed, so I decided to make my own!

Steps to making your own page background

• Dig through your pile of leftover scrap pieces (We all have a mountain of those!)
• Pull out several pieces that you think will play nicely together
• Choose either similar colors (for a calmer page feel) or contrasting colors (for a more energetic page feel)
• Look to your photos to help with your color palette
• Place them together and see how you feel about them
• Arrange and re-arrange and pull out the ones you don’t like
• Once you are happy with your choices you can use them together to create your page backgrounds

I chose my scraps, what now?

Before I started rifling through my scrap pile I looked hard at my photo. I wanted my background to use colors from my photo, so I went with blues and grays. Then I just played around with different patterns until I found the ones I liked. Honestly, there really isn’t a right or a wrong way here. Find papers and patterns that you love!

Once I found the papers I wanted to work with I started cutting them into strips. I varied the width of my strips, so there would be some visual variety. Then I trimmed random small pieces off of the end of about 1/3 of my strips. That left me with a pile of strips that were different widths and lengths.

Lay it down

Once my strips were all cut I started laying them in place and arranged and re-arranged until I was happy with the way they looked. I shifted them sideways and moved different strips up and down until it all felt right. Once I was pleased as punch with the placement I glued everything down. It left me with a fun, playful feeling page background to work with.

Circle, circle, dot, dot

I wanted my picture to stand out, so even though I went to all the trouble of creating this cool, stripety background, I added these giant circles right smack on top. It provided me with a little chunk of clean space so my photo would remain the focus of the page.

I used my Cricut and cut my smaller circle first. It measured 9 3/4″ and then I cut a second larger one that measured 10″.

I adhered the smaller one to the larger one and added it to my page slightly off center.

I used my Cricut again for my title. The font is Cricut Sans. Once I glued all of the letters in place I added my signature dots to each letter. I use a white gel pen to do this. It just adds a fun little something extra to the letters. I am a firm believer that all the little bonus details are what make the page.

About those details

Speaking of details, I added some fun arrows and circles to the page in a couple of places. I used a silver glitter paper for the circles, because I like the little bit of shimmer it added to the page. I used several whole ones and then split one in half and added it to the top and bottom of my picture.

I embossed my arrows and then added them in a straight line; which encourages the viewers eyes to travel along the page. I added the circles in a triangle pattern in sets of three.

Stamp a little here and there

Finally, I added a little bit of stamping to fill up some of that empty space and called it a day! I really like to add little stamped bits to my page. It is usually pretty subtle, but goes a long way towards making the page feel finished.

That’s a wrap!

Here is a final look at the finished page. I had a great time making it and I appreciate you stopping by to peek in on the details! I will be adding a step-by-step tutorial to the resource library very soon with all of the specific how to’s for this page background. Once I get it added I will update this post with the link!

Have a wonderful day! I will be back soon with lots more to share! Until then happy scrapping!