CP Gal Subject Gallery: Setting the Tone - Stephanie Bryan

Before paying homage to the new Crate Paper "Notes & Things", we're giving our CP Gals a chance to showcase subjects close to their heart using the brilliant Crate Paper variety, Open Road included. First subject of interest is from Stephanie Bryan–establishing mood & tone via the scrapbook process. Enjoy!

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Layering pretty papers can set the mood and tone for your layout. Sometimes, I find my mood and feelings dictate the direction of my layout and creating becomes almost like a therapy to me.

For these two projects, I thought it would be interesting to show you how layering different papers can create different effects.

For this first layout, I was drawn to the calmness and peacefulness of the ocean and wanted my paper layers and my layout as a whole to have that same feeling. I started by selecting a few neutral papers from the Open Road and Styleboard collections and randomly trimmed them and layered them onto my white background. I typically like to layer my busier patterns on the bottom of my page, so I layered the text paper and the floral paper together to create my background.

Even though these papers are very soft and neutral, I wanted to mute them ever so slightly and decided to paint a thin coat of white paint over my papers. It's a very subtle effect, but the white-washed look keeps with the calm mood I'm setting for my page.

Next, I layered on a piece of map paper and the bricks background paper, both from the Open Road collection, to continue that neutral feel of my page. The soft pink frame from the Styleboard collection added a needed pop to my photo, but it was still subtle and soft enough to coordinate with my page.

I finished this page with a large floral chipboard piece alongside my photos, several embellishments and die cuts, some journaling and pink paint splatters.

I love how this page turned out and it portrays the exact mood and feeling I was trying to get across!

Now, let's try something a little more dramatic!!

I started this layout with these four photos of my kids being silly on a car trip. The quality of the photos wasn't that great, so I printed them out as black and white and kept the size smaller than my typical size.

Since the photos were black and white, I was immediately drawn to the black striped paper from the Open Road collection. I began with this paper as my bottom layer and then layered in a few busier patterns and bolder colors next to it, paying attention to alternate between a darker color and a lighter color of patterned paper.

Between my layers, I added a few pieces of vellum to break up the patterns a little behind my photos. Since I have four darker, busier photos, I wanted to try to separate the photos from the paper layers and using vellum slightly muted those colors and patterns directly under my photos. It also provided the perfect place for me to add some typed journaling.

Right above my journaling, I continued with a few layers using trimmed tags and bolder patterned papers. The black and grey from the tags plays off that bolder look of my page.

The overall feel of this page is so different than the previous page. The bold colors and dark images definitely give this page a more dramatic feel, don't you think?

I hope I have inspired you to play around with those patterned papers and try to create a mood or feeling with your page!