Hello! Alexa here, in
a state of scrapping exhaustion – read on below!
This story began on
December 15th, when I shared with you an advert in a magazine which
had tickled my design fancy, and on which I based a scrapbook layout in a graphic
style. Here it is again…
(And here is a very stylish interpretation by the lovely and talented Paul: go and have a look!)
Since I use my
computer a lot in scrapping, my challenge was to produce another layout based
on the same clean design, but with no reliance on anything that needed
electricity or batteries. I was interested to see what I would learn about
scrapping in these two different ways. Seemed simple enough at the time: just
photos, card, scissors and a few products. A nice bit of honest
scrapping-as-it-was-meant-to-be. What could be more stress-free?
Just about anything
else in my life, as it turned out. Which might need some explanation of the
process this layout went through, to illuminate why it looks the way it does. Here is a sample of the photos I opted to use: just a few everyday shots of my grandson
knocking down the towers of cups which the adults in his world keep building
for him.
What I didn’t realise
until I reached for the cardstock was just how clashing all the colours in the
photos were. Does this happen to you? The soft turquoise, greens, and browns of
his jumper set against the vibrant (nearly typed ‘violent’ there, but that might
be more accurate) reds, yellows and royal blues of the plastic tower hurled me
into an agony of indecision. Brightly coloured stripes? Pick up the primary
colours in the papers? Bung it all onto black and hope for the best? (Oh, and
you should also know I was racing against the clock, with visitors coming in an
hour, and frequent dashes to the kitchen to make sure the puff-pastry-encased sweet-mince-and-apple
squares weren’t burning.)
A hot cup of tea and
two ibuprofen later, I took what I think is called in the business world ‘a brave
executive decision’ and went for the muted shades. After much shuffling around
(‘How many times do you need to move three bits of card to decide where they
are best placed?” DH asked in passing), I opted for the brown top right to
balance the dark background of the main photo, and then stood up to squint at
it and get a better idea of what might be needed next. My stomach turned over -
heavy and lumpen, was how the clump of photos and card looked… At this point, chance
leapt in and rescued me. As I sat down again, despondent, my arm banged the
table. The photos and card shifted position, and then I realised that leaving a
little white space in between all of them both lightened the look, brightened
the colours, and echoed the white stripes in my grandson’s jumper. Smile time.
Now for the embellishments – always the fun
part, we’re told. A quick dash-through-the-stash and Bob’s-your-uncle.
Or not, as the case
may be. DD, safely installed again in her bedroom (or my craft room, depending
on your point of view) and busy working, made it clear in the nicest possible
way that frequent interruptions to hunt for scrapping-related items was not
helping her meet HER deadline. Anything within arm’s reach of the door was
acceptable. Asking her to move parts of her anatomy was not. One careful
manoeuvre from the doorway recovered a box of inks, a set of alphabet stamps, a
box containing brads, buttons and some random bits and pieces, plus a few embroidery
threads – at which point I ran out of arms.
So this is what I did
with them.
The green plastic letter J was too pale against the blue, so after a
fruitless attempt to ink the edges in brown (who knew that ink could smear so
far and wide?), I decided to draw round it onto brown card and create a subtle,
darker edge peeping out from behind. After rescuing the puff-pastry squares in
the nick of time and re-evaluating the quality of the card-cutting, it was
clear that Plan A would have to give way to Plan B – layering the two ‘J’s in a
more casual fashion. (Truthfully? There wasn’t a Plan B. It was also a happy
accident.) Since the only adhesive I had managed to rescue from DD’s domain
before the drawbridge went up was of the not-ever-going-to-stick-plastic kind,
I tied the two ‘J’s on with some red, blue and green threads. The curve of the
letter, and the shape of bright blue plastic cup in the photo, suggested that
the embellishment top left also needed a circular theme, and the bright buttons
did the trick, as well as mirror the colours in the photo. As time was of the
essence (visitors arriving in twenty minutes), it would have been a kindness if
DD had permitted a ferret-around under her desk to retrieve the glue-dots but –
hey – isn’t sewing on tiny buttons in a hurry fun!
That left the date to
sort: this is the bit I am least happy about. Eight minutes to go, an alphabet
set with no numbers, and a small hole punch… My instinct was to put the
lettered circles along the bottom of the brown square, but they looked as if
they were squashing DGS’s head, so I moved them up to the same level as the
white streaks on the green card. I may redo this at some future point – all
suggestions gratefully received!
So there you have it,
fellow-scrappers. What did I learn about trying to scrap in a clean and graphic
style without a computer?
- Trying to align
card/photos perfectly and manually so that the gaps inbetween are uniform, is a
headache. And fiddly. And slow. And frustrating. Arrgh!
- Being forced to use
a small range of items makes for quicker design choices. With a computer, I
might have spent ages hunting in my directories for ‘just the right thing’.
- Moving stuff around
physically on a page allows for creative and happy accidents.
So am I converted to
scrapping without a computer? Errr, no …! But I may give it a go more often,
once DD has vacated her room for the bright lights of the big city, and I have
more time to enjoy the process. What about you - which do you prefer? I’d love
to hear your experiences!
(PS The puff pastry squares
went down a treat. I don’t think any one noticed my fishing out that little
blue button masquerading as a raisin…)
