Pinkfresh Studio Keeping it Real - Big Mood by Meg

 

Hello guys, it's Meg here again today with my second layout using Pinkfresh Studios Keeping it Real collection! 

This page was inspired by the vibrant colours in the collection - I wanted to showcase them and after spotting how perfectly the colours on all of the different papers match each other, I really wanted to have a go at a tone-on-tone layout. 

I absolutely love both sides of the striped Big Mood paper (so much so, I had to buy another sheet of it!) and I had so many ideas spinning rounds in my head for it, but the stripes just lend themselves so well for tone-on-tone designs. It just felt clear to me that's the direction I needed to take! 

First decision I needed to make was to have horizontal or vertical stripes - I liked the idea of vertical and thought perhaps I could try dripping some mixed media down the page (I'm really enjoying that effect at the moment), but I decided to go with horizontal instead, so I could journal along the stripes eventually. 

 Next I wanted to fussy cut some paper to create tonal ephemera - I love doing fussy cutting! It really makes a collection stretch further and is a cost effective way of creating embellishments. 

I'd noticed the A-side of the Big Mood paper matches the stripes pretty well, but so do the icons on Daily Grind and those sweet houses on Adulting! I decided to use the houses (honestly they are just so cute, I wanted to fussy cut the lot!) and some of the little icons from Daily Grind. 

Once I'd decided which papers I was going to cut into, I started thinking a little bit more about how I was going to arrange my page.

Now was the time to pick out photos, because the amount of photos I want to use dictates the design of the page - I almost always pick out my photos to match the papers I'm planning on using (for example, Spring photos for Spring collections), which was easy with Keeping it Real because the papers go well with almost any event and situation! 

I picked out two black and white photos of my family during the COVID lockdown as I liked the idea of making a 'mental health being stuck in the house' type of layout, which tied in with the houses and some of the sentiments. I picked black and white so that it would stand out against all of the vibrant colours on the rest of the page and decided I wanted them to be central, so that the eye would be drawn there. 

After picking my photos and having decided I wanted to use the houses and the stripes horizontally, it came naturally that I should cut the background piece diagonally - so that the houses would stagger nicely along it and still be visible. So I cut the stripes and distressed the edges, fussy cut my houses and icons and fixed them in colour order with the coordinating enamel dots, puffy stickers and phrases cut out from Daily Grind. 

Lastly, I had to decide on journalling. I thought that the top right hand corner looked a little too white but couldn't decide how to embellish it for a while. Eventually I decided to use a corner of the Big Mood, while saving some of the arches on the other side of the paper for a later layout. I distressed it to match the rest of the page, journalled along it in white and finished with a few more enamel dots to jazz it up a little! 

And there we have it - another page finished and it was made easy by the wonderful coordinating colours. The Keeping it Real collection is definitely a must-try for you if you have ever fancied trying a tone-on-tone layout like this! 

I hope you enjoyed my page and I hope to be back with another one real soon - have a happy scrappy week and take care, 

Meg x