Getting Sketchy with Practical Scrapper Ann

The seasons are changing and so is Practical Scrappers!  Get ready for a new fun line-up in our schedule.  We love our readers/followers and we still still be asking for submissions to our calls so no worries there ladies.  We will still challenge you every Tuesday with some tool, product, technqiue (whatever our clever Practical Scrapper Erin comes up with).  But as for the rest of our week, get ready to be inspired by all of the talented designers we have here at Practical Scrappers.  For those of you who have been following us for awhile, it will look like our Christmas time schedule with each day one of our designers sharing a very special project that they've create just for their day of inspiration here at Practical Scrappers. Kicking us off is Practical Scrapper Ann...

Back in December, each Practical Scrapper was asked to post a special feature or article. It was a lot of fun and very popular with our readers, so we've brought it back. I am thrilled to be first up!
You might remember ago, Practical Scrappers did a blog hop and we were all using a sketch or layout by the fabulously talented Liz Qualman. Well, I recently went back to Liz's blog and saw this sketch, and just knew I wanted to use it:

I've been all over the pennant/flag trend recently so this sketch really appealed to me, and I liked that this layout was multi-photo. I went searching through my Cuba photos and realized I had a few 4 x 6 photos that would trim down nicely for the horizontal band of photos. Here is what I created:

The colours in the Paradise line were perfect for these photos of things Brian and I saw while strolling through Varadero. I love distressing and inking my edges, especially on masculine or outdoor layouts and with this being both, I had to include those techniques and a little tearing.

I loved the sentiment on this acrylic diecut for a title/subtitle for my layout. Sometimes adhering clear or acrylic pieces can be a challenge, but this was easily handled here - I used clear liquid glue (love my Beacon's!) to adhere one end to the photo. Because I raised the photo on foam adhesives, the other end of the diecut needed to be raised up. I could use foam for this, because I had layered that sweet chipboard bird on the diecut, hiding any evidence of foam squares!

A journaling spot or tag just wouldn't have worked on this layout without cluttering it up, so I elected to journal write on the page. To make it stand out from the patterned paper background, I lightly brushed some gesso on the spot where I planned to write. First I stamped some lines on the dry white primer, and then I wrote my journaling, choosing pink since there were little smatterings of pink elsewhere on the layout.

My favourite element on this layout is my banner. I love that I mixed in some non-banner elements, like the leaf and cloud in with the more traditional banner shapes. I fussy cut the letters from a patterned paper and adhered them on the inked banner shapes and then adhered them with foam squares. I then adhered baker's twine that I whimsically looped from shape to shape. Something about this banner just makes me happy!

I hope you have a chance to make something that makes you happy!

- Ann


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P.S. For those of you who celebrate, Happy St. Patrick's Day! Pin It **Designer projects are not always linked in our posts, but you can always find their blogs in our sidebar or in the staff tab**