I have been wondering about "messy" pages. The kind with a lot of elements all over; stacked on the picture, under the picture, around the picture. Messy, except they make a beautiful page. Random, so all the pieces looked like they were naturally strewn on the page. I wanted to try this.
Becki had some sparkle swirls that would be a wonderful chance to simply fill a page with elements. I envisioned a wreath made up of the swirls, all entwined, and a circle shaped picture in it, on it, or feathered behind it. I would figure out the single picture after I had my messy elements.
I started with four of the coloured swirls: silver, gold, green and red. I placed them together and rotated each one ten degrees more than the one before it. The plan was to copy these four layers around enough times to create my circle of swirls. By the time I had four sets that went all the way around I realized that they looked nothing like a wreath, and were looking too patterned for the natural look I wanted.
Instead I layered and rearranged the sets so they were different. Starting with the top swirl I erased where I wanted it to be under the other three swirls. Each layer had one less layer it could swirl under, making each step faster. In a short time I had four unique yet intertwined vines.
Since they would not form a circle on my rectangular page, I chose to have them come in from the corners. Then I could tell which picture to use, and how I wanted it to go on the page. I also realized that a title would be too much for me to deal with. If I just put it on the page I would lose my entwined mess. If I entwined it, the title would probably disappear. There would be no title on this page.
And this was the result. While it is almost nothing like I planned, I like it. It has a feel of the Princess Pea walking in a tangle of vines, in the woods, as Little Red Riding Hood does. Without a title or journaling it lost the feel of a scrapbook layout. Instead, I see it as a beautiful picture.
How messy do you like your pages? How do you keep track of all of the layers?
an amusing sequence
and a year-end collage
of the Princess Pea for her pages in the "Grandchildren's Calender" for my Mother in Law.
I didn't want to overload the page with pictures, and I didn't want to overlap too much of the pictures. I also found the cool button that shaped the text like a fish. And so I chose nothingness behind everything.
I'm happy to say I became better rather quickly.
I began to use more of what I call the "scrapbook look."
I learned about drop shadows, adding a whole new dimension to my pages.
