Climb: an exploration of inspiration

   Paint can be a tricky medium. It looks awesome on a page but yet, it is such a permanent thing to commit to. It takes a little getting used to when you are trying it out on a page. I find that the more I use it, the more comfortable I am becoming with it.

For " Climb" I felt that paint was just the thing to use on the page. It's a page I completed for a combination of challenges at Sketches 4 All. One challenge being a scraplift and another being an ad inspiration challenge. I also added the challenge to use circles on the page and my own posted challenge...to make a hand made embellishment. Here are the 2 inspirational pieces from which I created my own page:

by Stacy R.

ad inspiration challenge photo

The basic design of Climb is a very close scraplift of Stacy 's page. I have been wanting to go back to basics...back to when I frequently used pens or markers on a page as part of the design. I did that a lot when I first started scrapbooking and somewhere along the way, I forgot that pens were for more than journaling. I used my new Bic Marc it's to draw a border around the white paint on the kraft paper. Overall, I placed many of my page's elelments the same way she did.

From the ad, I took the color. I love the bright splash of green and orange on the white. Those colors instantly drew me to the trees in the Jillibean Soup papers. However, the black base was too much, too strong. So I chose a more organic approach with the kraft paper and the browns. It also better matched the outdoor photos. I loved the repetitive circles of the trees. So I fussy cut some more Jillibean paper and made the circle into scallops. I used papertrunks circle pattern from the Batik collection to stamp some white circles onto kraft. Layering this trim over the scallop provided a more finished look to the page. I fingerpainted a circle onto a piece of scrap kraft. Some handstitching and painted rays made a sun. However, the sun was still flat. Stitched swirls similar to the splashes of paint in the ad provided a more complete and interesting  sun. A Handstitched title and date ad to the homespun/natural tone. The bird( from K and company) completes the nature imagery.

I am definately more comfortable with the paint than the times I have used it before. It's easy to combine challenges and inspiration into one page. It can leave you with a wonderful page that you love and enjoy sharing.