Cleaning It Up

I love to distress and crinkle and layer and make "thick" layouts. I think that's why I'm so drawn to the guest designers this month. They too, seem to employ numerous techniques to add texture to their projects.
But I realize that not everyone goes for that look. And I like to change things up a bit myself so that it's more interesting when you're flipping through an album. After awhile, everything starts to look the same. A more "clean" layout is like sorbet between courses ... cleanses the palette :)

This first layout is about as bare-bones as I'm able to go. The background is the embossed leaf cardstock and looks much nicer IRL. I first spritzed the background with Jeni B Blu Shimmerz. I then discarded aforementioned background. The pure white was a much nicer look for this layout. And when I say "discarded", I mean "set aside to use for something else". I don't throw much out ;)
A strip of the Hambly transparency provides the only matting for my photos (two 4x6 ... one trimmed slightly so that there would be some border showing on the sides too). I didn't use my distressing tool at all on this layout, but I still had to sand the edges of my photos. I don't know why, but I can't leave them unsanded. They look unfinished to me when I don't.

I applied the Jeni B Blu Shimmerz to the Pink Paislee frame and wiped it away ... leaving the colour only in the recessed areas. The frame is exactly centred width-wise on the page and the chipboard letter centred in the frame.

The finishing touch is a length of trim added to the very bottom edge of the page. It's the same colour as the cardstock, but just adds a bit of texture.

So there you have it ... no distressing, no adhesive foam, no thick accents. So different for me. And I love it.

The next "flat" layout I did was a two-pager. I haven't done a two-pager since I-don't-know-when.

Again, very simple. Neutral colours with only a few pops of red to draw the eye from the left-hand side and all the way across to the title.

The background is the Bazzill Swiss Dot that comes in the kit (a second sheet can be purchased in the cardstock add-on), so again, not just flat cardstock. I chose the back side of the Basic Grey patterned paper to stretch across both pages. A very simple technique to tie a two-page layout together. A wee strip of the Jillibean Soup cardstock and a wee strip of Girls Paperie wrapped with a strand of the packaging twine and embellished with a button.

The photos are matted on plain kraft cardstock.

And a very simple title that mixes two alphabets.
I admit ... I broke down and used my distressing tool on this one. But I think it's subtle and needed :)

A quick note about the July kits ...

I received the last few items for them yesterday and the design team kits will be going out today! Look for sneak peeks coming soon and an early reveal on the 27th. We're taking off on July 1st to go camping for a week and I wanted to have everything organized before we go. Past customers will receive their e-mails the week before the kits are revealed on the website.