Boy Page using Maggie Holmes Collections with Katie

Good Morning to you all!

Who has been enjoying the Commonwealth Games over the past week?
I have to admit to a few too many hours in front of the TV cheering on the cyclists and swimmers, and although they are being held "just down the road" from me we decided to support from the comfort of our own home. Although we did watch the baton relay run through our neighbourhood, so that was special.

So, back to crafting... my last shares have been showcasing how versatile the Crate Paper Maggie Holmes collections are and I thought I would continue that theme, this time showing you how you can create a very masculine page with supplies that are mostly of a feminine feel. My page has been made using mostly the Gather collection, with some other bits and pieces thrown in for good measure.

 The first thing I did was go through all the papers looking for the colours that had a more masculine feel, like the black and white prints, greens, blues, yellows, wood grains and that kind of thing. I was amazed at just how many papers I had that I could use. Given my photos were of neutral tones I decided to go with a green, yellow, and black & white colour scheme. I followed the same process with the chipboard, Thickers and other embellishments that I had. The papers that I decided to use were: Jane, Magical, Melody, Favorite, Beautiful and Kate. I used Jane for my background as it was a good small black and white print, so not distracting. A great way to get your hands on all the papers is with the 12x12 paper pad, then you have plenty of options with your papers.

To grunge up the background a little I put down some gesso roughly in the area where I was going to add other mixed media and eventually my photos. Once my gesso was dry I used a spatula to spread out some Colour Blast Colour Pastes, you can spread these out like paints to give a thicker more textured result. I used Envy and Stormy Weather as they worked well with the papers. I finished the background off with splashes of yellow using Liquitex Ink in Cadmium Yellow. These inks are great for adding splatters because of the dropper that they come with, and are one of my favourites to use for splatters.

Next, I went about layering the patterned papers behind my photos and then started embellishing.

 The wood enamel button came from the Gather Embellishments pack, lots of great bits included in this set. Also from the ephemera pack, sticker sheet and Gather Thicker set. I used these pieces to create a small cluster.

 In a similar way, I added another small cluster also including a button from the Chasing Dreams collection.

From the Gather chipboard sticker sheet I decided to use the frame as a place for my journalling, it was the right colour and cut down made a great additional cluster. I also added another button from the Chasing Dreams set, the tag from the embellishment set and some word stickers. The title was a combination of numbers from the thicker set and puffy alphas from the Chasing Dreams collection.

Well, that is all from me. I hope this inspires you to look at your collections differently and see if you can use more feminine collections for masculine pages.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by,

Katie x