Molossi

Afternoon one and all we are so lucky to have three special shares today:

The first is

“Beach Boys”

By Joanne Baker

Living in Queensland there is always opportunity to use beach or ocean related chipboard, so I was excited to receive this fabulous anchor and chain from Molossi in my pack for August.  Despite being winter, my son and his mate hit the beach in early July for a day in the sun, sand and water.  The outside temp was a pleasant 23 degrees and the water temp was not far off at 20 degrees.

Firstly I decide to put a pattern onto my anchor using a Crafter’s Workshop template and Sakura Gelly roll pens to give the chicken wire pattern.  I coloured the chain in a silver Gelly Roll pen and then added dimensional magic over the entire piece to give it a gloss and to bring out the glitter in these pens.  I think the chain especially looks much more metal like with this treatment.

 

Putting this centre piece for my layout aside to dry I started on the remainder of the layout.    I pulled out a piece of Kraft coloured card and randomly spritzed it with Turquoise and Pale green glimmermists, trying to pull out the colours in the water on the photographs – again I set this sheet aside to dry.

Next I printed my photographs in the various sizes I wanted to fit with the layout design and distressed the edges of the main photograph with a simple nail file to make it stand out a little from the others.  I wanted the lifesaver’s blackboard on the layout but did not have room for a whole photo so I trimmed it from a photograph and added it to the white space in my focus photo – pop dotting it to the top right corner.

I printed my journaling into strips on kraft cardstock and after slicing them into strips I ran them through the Cuttlebug in a woodgrain embossing folder from Craft Concepts. – I think lightly inked over the top with a brown ink to make it look like the journaling was printed onto wood.

The papers I have used come from a Kaisercraft range of beach themed papers – one piece I trimmed down to 5” x 11.5” and then used a Fiskars wave border punch on one edge – I then inked the edges of the whole piece with brown ink.    The smaller strip is 1.5” x 11.5” and  I simply distressed both sides of before mounting it a ½ inch from the border punched edge of the other piece of pattern.

I took some paper scraps in co-ordinating colours and pulled out my trusty Cuttlebug and some Sizzie dies to create some handmade embellishments to add to the layout – shells, starfish and even a little bucket and spade give the feel of beach.  I rustled around in my stash and found a packet of tiny shells to add to the embellishment cluster. 

For the title block I found a scrap of paper which looked like wooden planks – however it was black and white and I really wanted the sandy colours so I ran it through the same woodgrain embossing folder as the journaling strips and again added a brown ink over the top.  Tear the edges to make it look like a plank of wood washed up on the beach and ink the edges of the entire piece.  Add some simple alpha stickers for your title and a couple of those smaller starfish I die cut earlier and the title block was complete.

I pulled some medical gauze and some teal cobweb ribbon from my stash also and I was ready to put the layout together.

I started by placing the patterned paper block just inside the left hand edge of the cardstock – now I added the photographs – some were mounted flat to the card, others with foam mounting tape to raise them up.

I added the medical gauze beneath the focus photograph and stretch it across the layout and then added the cobweb ribbon in snippets to fill in gaps.  Now came my centrepiece embellishment of the Molossi chipboard anchor  on the left of the layout – ensuring the top of the anchor overlapped the photograph.  Now  the smaller die cuts and the shells were sprinked around and glued into place.  Lastly the journaling strips were adhered into place where spaces allowed for them best.

Thanks for dropping by – with spring just around the corner I’m sure everyone will have loads of water related photos they can use this wonderful anchor for in their upcoming layouts.  

Be sure to view  more of Jo' work at  http://www.josscrapofdifference.blogspot.com.au/