Wild and Free – Winter Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to our Creative Life Scrapbooking Blog Hop!  There are 8 of us blog hopping today and sharing some scrapbooking ideas with you.  Just follow the links the end of this post to see more!  You might also like to follow Creative Life Scrapbooking on Facebook where we share weekly ideas and inspiration too!

I know this is the “Winter Blog Hop” but as soon as I saw the Beneath the Pines collection, I knew it would be perfect for the wildlife photos from my trip to Manitoba last summer!  I couldn’t wait to play with this collection! And if you swapped the summer bear photos, the birch trees in this paper would be perfect for winter photos, don’t you think?

But even with a new collection, I found myself reverting to my standard layout, so I challenged myself to add elements I don’t usually add, and if you know me, you will spot them right away!  Circles, yes, circles!  I don’t use them in my layouts very often, as I am a square!  But I know circles add softness, they help draw attention to what you want to feature and they create interest… so circles it is for this layout.

I started with some nice straight lines first by cropping the photos and grouping them on a large 8.25″ x 9.5″ cardstock mat. I then added the circles, a journal strip that doubles as a border to ‘ground’ the layout and some stickers, using Creative Memories Foam Squares, of course!

This layout came together quite quickly to my surprise! See below for step-by-step instructions and the sketch!

Materials:

• Beneath the Pines Paper & Stickers
• Dark Green Cardstock
• Beige Cardstock
• 12″ Trimmer
• Custom Cutting System with Circle Templates
• Adhesive
• Foam Squares

The Sketch:

Instructions:

• Crop 2 photos to 4″ x 3.75″ and 2 photos to 4.75″ x 3.75″
• Create an 8.25″ x 9.5″ rectangle from the Dark Green Cardstock and adhere to the center of the background paper
• Adhere the photos to the Dark Green rectangle
• I like to get the most out of my paper, so to make the three Patterned Paper Circles, I used the largest Custom Cutting System Circle, cut the outside template with the Blue Blade, then the Red Blade, then cut inside circle with the Green Blade not moving the template at all. (image shows the reverse paper for the smallest circle that I used on the layout)

• Using the CCS, the largest Circle Template and the Red Blade, cut an inside circle from the Beige Cardstock.
• Adhere the thin circle frame to the top left, tucking under the Dark Green rectangle.
• Adhere the thick circle frame to the bottom right, tucking under the Dark Green rectangle.
• Adhere the pattern small circle to the Beige circle and then to the page, in the corner of the right side  photos, just above the thick circle.

• Use the 12″ Trimmer to cut a 12″ x .75″ strip, adhere just below the Dark Green rectangle. Journal on this strip
• Add stickers as desired using Foam Squares to create dimension.

So, what do you think? Can you imagine creating a layout with circles to soften the rectangles?

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to check out all of the other stops along the way! Next on the Creative Life Scrapbooking Blog Hop is Tessa from Tessa Scrapbooks!

Happy, Happy Blop Hopping!
Tammy

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