Hey everyone, Raquel here today sharing my latest layout using the September kits. For this layout I wanted to document the grumpy and tired moods my little man gets in. Anyone that knows him always says that he speaks with his eyes like his Mummy, so I wanted to tell the story of this. Apparently you can tell what we are thinking just by looking at our eyes, ha.

This layout pretty much contains only ephemera from the Gather collection, some chipboard/veneer from the Gather and Saturday collections and a scattering of Simple Stories products in ephemera and enamel dots. I didn’t use any patterned paper either which is something different for me too!

Here is the layout I created: Smile Mr Grumpy Bear

My big ‘hooray’ moment in creating this layout was when I found the perfect piece to add this bear Gather acetate piece to. I don’t know about you but when I first saw this piece I had no idea how I was going to use it. It was perfect for a layout about my lil grumpy bear. To adhere is to my tag I simply added it with my tiny attacher.

I created this layout in a somewhat grid style design, with only minimal layering when I worked on the clusters. Loose grid style layouts can be a little tricky as the design principle of ‘balance’ needs to be taken into account a lot more. To have a ‘loose grid’ design the layout must be balanced in a way that is pleasing to the eye. A helpful hint to do this is to stick to a visual triangle, and here you will find three main clusters. If you drew a line from each it would form a triangle – hence balance can be achieved. The little bow from the dimensional Gather embellishment pack sat beautifully on the bottom of that xoxo.

We are in the season of Spring here in Aus so it wasn’t anytime soon that I was going to use those leaves for an Autumn layout. I added them as a feature to two of my clusters and love the look they have brought to the page. I adhered the tips of the leaves with some dimensional tape so the ends popped off the page. Both the photos on this layout are added to the layout with a foam adhesive, again to add a touch of dimension.

As always I have typed my journaling on my typewriter. The Gather tag was the perfect place on this layout to add my story. It is only a short and simple piece of journaling but it is enough detail for me to get my point across. Each of the tags on top of the page have a little bow with crochet thread added to them also.

The bottom photo cluster has a little more detail and layering than the bottom one. I added a journal spot cut from one of the 3×4 cards in the Project Life kit, a Dear Lizzy veneer ampersand, Crate Paper Gather ephemera and chipboard and finished it off with Simple Stories Posh ephemera and enamel dots.

The overall layout as you can see from the image below has varying levels of dimension. Some things are popped up on foam, others only partially adhered with foam and some just adhered directly to the page.

Thanks for stopping by the blog today. I hope you have learnt something about creating ‘loose grid’ design layouts.

I will have a process video for this layout up on my blog soon, xxx