Melanie's Monday Column 9-28-09

It's true...if you take a voyage you'll discover something new and will probably love the end result!

I used to be a clean, straight line scrapper and one I day I felt the need for some grunge on my page. I have never look back since that day. I love the look of torn paper, pictures with sanded edges and using bits and pieces of "stuff" on my layouts. Go ahead and try something new, get out the distress inks out and play, play, play!

Today's layout, "Take the Voyage and Discover", is from the Shining Madonna kit


I used a Tim Holtz compass mask on this page. It's the perfect embellishment! I used it twice, once on the tag and the bottom of the page. Using some foam dots gives my page a little more texture, they are are a must have for me!

Speaking of texture, check out these papers, totally layered and distressed!



Take a peek at the photos, all the edges are torn and distress with the Tim Holtz distress inks (a color combo of 3 colors--one day I will do a how to technique on this.) I often get asked if I burn the edges, but no, it's all in the ink and technique of applying it. At one time these pictures were bright and full of color (they were taken at a playground.) I printed them off and changed the tone to a "warm" tone and by adding the distress inks they match my page a lot better.


Using some of the leftover packaging from Melissa Frances, I made this embellishment as an arrow, perfect for my page and a good way to go "green". I applied gesso over the surface to make it usable and used a few colors of Tim Holtz distress inks for the grunge appearance and of course to match my page. Again, adding the compass mask to coordinate my page.


To make my long title seem a little more colorful and add some interest to it. I mixed in some Pink Paislee alpha's.

Finishing off the page with the map coordinates of N, W, E and S really is an extra bit of detail that finished off the "map" page.


Thanks for stopping by and visiting! Make sure you stop by the BlueMoon store, there's lots of fun stuff coming in everyday! Also, check out the gallery-lots of eye-candy in there.

Have a great week!

~Melanie