Hello lovely Flair Enthusiasts!
Alex here and today's post requires somewhat of a backstory and while it's not part of my "Inspiration Series", it could be looked at as a sort of extension to
Part 3 which is about scraplifting. I think I may have even hinted back then that I had this particular layout in it's beginning stages. I didn't want it to be the part on scraplifting, since it was a much less true example to the original project.
It turned out to be entirely co-incidental that I'm using both the
Cat Flair and much of the same paper (a lot from Shimelle's Box of Crayons which features plenty of cat and dog motifs of which I used 0! 🤷)
Now for the backstory... in May, my buddy
Sara Scraps was a guest designer for
Virginia Walker in her Facebook group
Confessions of a Paper Addict (known as COAPA). Virginia released a series of animal cut files including a dachshund for Sara. I got so excited when I saw there was a matching cat so I suggested I should scraplift her layout since I have similar photos with virtually identical expressions! You can watch
Sara's YouTube Process Video here.
Sweet Puppy Days
By Sara Scraps
As I was preparing to do so, I had another idea! With Sara's permission I used a photo of her dog and my cat and BOTH cut files. This meant fairly major changes to the original since I had to squeeze in TWO cut files and figure out how much to keep the same and which modifications to make to ensure the layout was in my style.
The first step was figuring out the size and cutting the critters and loosely planning how they will sit on the page. Painstaking backing of cut files with paper comes next!
Sara's style is quite different to mine and I admire it a lot so I wanted to do it justice, but keep the balance in maintaining the things I love. Sara used paper cut into strips and punched with border punches. It was the perfect place to start since my punches don't get as much love as they should!
I used two types of punch as well as some branding strips and narrow strips. I wanted to make sure I included enough black to co-ordinate with the flair and it could get tricky since I was using a fair bit of navy.
It seems as though I always stitch on my layouts, but I don't I promise! I just felt these borders and strips were begging for it and I could lift up any loose edges for texture.
The background is an older Studio Calico crosshatch (as opposed to a plain white sheet of cardstock), and while I used multiple photo mats and more borders than Sara had in her original, I split the title into two areas like she did using two fonts as well. This is definitely different for me (I rarely have the title split like this, nor do I have the construction of the two cut files and photos separated, but it was the only way to squeeze them onto the page).
While I was on the punch kick. I punched some pinked circles under the flair to help them stand out and putting them om either side of the title helps with that and to make it a bit more obvious that it's a single phrase.
Due to the pattern of the pink paper at the top of the page, the embellishment cluster where Sara put hers would have to come down. And get a whole lot bigger obviously, because this Crafty Mama is all about All.The.Things! 🤣
The corresponding area diagonally across from the embellishment would be the natural spot to put the journaling. The journaling and story is always critical for me and especially in this case when it may seem a little weird to scrapbook her dog and my cat regardless of our friendship! The story is less about the animals themselves, but more about our similarities and in this particular case only a fellow Fitzwilliam fanatic and Austen aficionado would co-incidentally name her dog the same thing I named my cat! 🙌🙌🙌
Before finishing off with some puffy hearts, I added tiny tabs with the dates of the photos since they weren't taken at the same time. In such a case as this, I'd most likely store the layout in the same month of the later photo.
A Tale of Two Fitzes
So you can see how I started with Sara's idea, yet made it look really quite different but simply starting with two cut files. Even without the other changes, it's a pretty big shake up.
Embellish With Flair Products Used:
Cats
Thanks for stopping by and as always,
Love and Embellish With Flair!
xx Alex
