Posts Tagged ‘Inspiration’

It’s time for another 4play! I’m loving how this weekly challenge stretches my creativity, and I hope you do too! Each week we choose 4 kits to mix & match exclusively. The challenge is to ONLY use items from the 4 kits that were chosen.

With Thanksgiving on my mind this week, I wanted to pick some kits that weren’t specifically Fall, but had traditional fall colors mixed with some non-traditional colors such as blue and pink. I started with Deena Rutter’s Hotel California Desert Highway Papers because I love the color combo. Next, I chose Audrey Neal’s Madeleine Elements since the colors coordinate well with the papers, and I love the assortment of elements. I added some solids with Gennifer Bursett’s Sweet Child of Mine Baby Girl Solid Papers, which includes both traditional and non-traditional fall colors and pulls the blues from the other kits. Finally, I wanted to throw some basic patterns in the mix, and Kate Teague’s Basics Patterns fit the bill with a wide variety of patterns and colors. I picked a variety that shared some common colors to show how you can stretch your kits and mix some not-so-obvious matches.

First up is Jennifer Hignite:

Jennifer said: This 4play was a challenging combination for me. My personal scrapbook style is pretty clean and simple and this many patterned papers honestly scared me at first! I definitely would not have thought to try to scrap all these papers together, but I love the results! The colors of each paper pack are subtle, and work together beautifully. The distressed frames, rotated and placed in a square pattern like I did here, makes for a fun peek-a-boo effect!! Audrey’s elements are the perfect way to tie the whole layout together.

Next is Liz Jutila:

She shares: One of my favorite tricks is to clip patterned paper to white stitching for coloring stitching. Deena’s buddy patterned paper from the Hotel California Desert Highway collection worked really well to color the stitching from Tiffany Tillman’s template (52template 28). A very light drop shadow helped give the stitching a little depth. The delicate pattern in the tan paper from Desert Highway had an understated and cool effect when clipped to the unusual shape of the mask in Tiffany’s template. I really liked Kate’s Basic Pattern dots for the background — subtle and not too overpowering, but not plain either. And, of course, you’ve got to love Audrey’s word art and fun elements. This turned out to be a really fun combination for the challenge!

We also have one by Gennifer Bursett:

Who said: I’ll admit, at first glance this 4Play scared me a little. I loved the kits; in fact, I already had every single one of them, but I had never really contemplated putting all those patterned papers together. In the end, I decided to go big, and used a little bit of a lot of them in the form of small strips. I kept a lot of white space to balance out the strong patterns, and added an unexpected twist with the baby pink background. I absolutely love the way it turned out, and I’m so glad I played along this week!

And finally, my layout:

The blues from each of the kits pulled together nicely to add a pop of color to the more neutral fall colors. The papers and elements coordinated beautifully to showcase the fall photo of my son from a few years back. The distressed frame adds to the rustic feel for my fall cowboy, while the banner ties everything together and adds a bit of whimsy fitting for a toddler layout.

Don’t forget that today only (ends Monday at midnight PST), you can get each of these kits for only a dollar, and one is even FREE! So go grab them, and then play along. Upload a layout using these four kits to the DHD gallery by Sunday, then come back here and post a link to it. Not only will you learn to stretch your kits, but you could win a gift certificate to DHD!

(Congrats to treasurebachs, who wins a GC for playing along last week!)