Creating a Pink Moodboard Monochromatic Layout
Kate pulled this pink monochromatic layout together using a mood board that was all pinks, blacks, and whites. She went full mixed media on the background – acrylic paint washes, modeling paste through a stencil, ink splatters – then layered watercolor florals and fussy-cut hearts on top. The whole thing started because she saw a photo of doughnuts on the mood board and thought "those colors."

Hi everyone, it’s Kate @adoreandmorecreate and I am super excited to be on the blog this week with a great valentines challenge. I hope you have some great valentines plans this year whether you are in lockdown or not, with your significant other or with someone you love! If you are in lockdown you could try and pretend you are eating out by eating in a different room and dimming the lights! We do this quite often and cook together as part of the date. For this challenge I was inspired by the beautiful February moodboard by the beautiful Vicky Parker:
Looking for card making supplies? Browse our monthly kits - each one includes coordinated papers, stamps, and embellishments perfect for handmade cards.

I had to create a monochromatic pink layout with black and white accents. I was most inspired by that delicious looking tray of doughnuts!
This layout was really fun to make and was made using the simply stunning January 2021 Hipkits which you can find here:
https://www.hipkitclub.net/january-2021
I started by creating the detail on my background, I loved that block of pink behind the ‘love’ word on the top right hand side so grabbed one of my old acrylic paints and washed over the background very messily. I added some splatters by watering this down and using a paintbrush to flick the paint.
We had a gorgeous stencil with the colour kit this month and I used this with some modelling paste to give the background some added texture.

As this was a colour challenge, which I have been really enjoying lately, I went through my kit and picked out things that would work. This may have taken me slightly longer than it should have as I kept swooning over the products…
I grabbed some greyscale, pink and black striped patterned papers for the background and cut these into blocks, I distressed the edges and sewed these into place to give some extra texture.

Then I wanted to include a circle shaped element that was inspired by the doughnut shape so I pulled out those beautiful watercolour paper floral die cuts. They were so easy to make, I took the Shimmerz Inklings in ‘Naughty or nice’ and watered this down. I roughly painted this onto one side of the die cut, I only painted one side of purpose because I wanted it to look washed out. Once they were dry I used wet glue to roll these together.

I printed my photo in black and white to match the theme and backed this with plain white cardstock and some tissue paper for added texture. I worked through adding in my embellishments and I cut a few extra hearts out of the patterned paper.
Then for my title I wanted to use more than one alpha but the only two I had in my kit were the small white one and the large purple one. I took a black permanent marker to the purple one and it worked perfectly. It’s great to think outside the box sometimes and if you don’t have an embellishment that would work could you try and recolour one you have with pens or paints?

I finished off with journaling and I printed off some phrases on my printer in the American Typewriter font.
There is a process video available for this layout which can be found here:
I had great fun making this project, I would love to see your projects using a monochromatic theme please let me know in the comments where I can swoon over your works!
Thanks so much for stopping by and happy crafting!

Kate's Mixed Media Process
- Paint your cardstock background with acrylic washes first, then add modeling paste through a stencil while the paint is still slightly tacky. The texture becomes part of the background instead of sitting on top.
- Print your photos in black and white when doing a monochromatic layout. Kate's B/W photo lets the pink and black color scheme take center stage without competing with photo colors.
- Watercolor your own floral embellishments using die cuts on watercolor paper and Shimmerz Inklings. Handmade flowers always look more organic than pre-printed ones.
- When your kit does not have the right alpha color, grab a permanent marker and color them yourself. Kate turned purple letters black to match her layout – takes 30 seconds and nobody can tell.
- Distress the edges of your patterned paper pieces before machine sewing them down. The roughed-up edges add a mixed media feel that matches the painted background.
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