Getting messy with paints and templates...

This month, I was sent not only some gorgeous Fancy Pants Daily Grind papers but also a Crafters Workshop template to experiment with. I have never used templates that much in my scrapping before, but I was determined to find a use for them that wasn't limited to drawing around the shapes.

The papers and postage stamp theme of the template leant themselves well to a holiday layout, which was ideal for me as I haven't scrapped many of my photographs from our trip to Portugal in August. Its not unusual for me to be scrapping summer holiday pictures in Winter and Christmas layouts in July, but maybe thats just me! I wanted to use this beautiful sheet of paper without overpowering the design, so I decided to create a page that embraced the use of white space (not something I'm normally comfortable with to say the least!)

I tore a strip of yellow paper to act as a base for the photo, then adhered a page from a Making Memories spiral notebook to form a background to my title and journalling. Some 7 Gypsies 97% complete stickers added a touch of detail to one side of the layout, but I needed more interest aroudn the left hand side of the photo.

I lay the template over the corner of the photo and used green acrylic paint and a sponge brush to dab carefully through the designs that I wanted to use, in this case the tropical leaf shapes. You have to be very careful when doing this to avoid smudging paint through the other shapes on the template! The acrylic paint wipes easily off the plastic template once you have finished. After it had dried, I used a white pen to draw around the outside of the shapes to give them definition, and also added some background swirls in brown ink. I cut some small circles from another sheet of the Daily Grind paper, and mounted these on foam pads in between the stencilled leaves. A few buttons added a final touch of detail.

I'm sure to use this template again - the diversity of the designs on just one template will ensure there is something for a range of different layouts. Make sure you check out the shop for the other templates available in the range.