Monday, March 19, 2012

All Those Pretty Paper Packs!

Every scrapbooker I know has an obsession. Some collect buttons, glimmer mists or brads, others hoard punches, flowers or ribbons. MY obsession is paper. Every time I enter a scrapbooking store, I loose all common sense when I get anywhere close to paper. This is actually the one scrapbooking goodness that made me fall in love with scrapping. Beautiful papers and I have a long term relationship.... I love the textures, the colours, the patterns, and they all seem unique to me!

Which can be problematic when the time comes to use them. I am afraid of cutting them, 'hurting' them, even opening a new paper pack feels like a sin to me. I have paper packs that I bought over a year ago that remained untouched. So this weekend, I took one of these leap of faith I was holding on to, and opened TWO brand 'new' packs, nothing less! Not so new in fact, as I am talking about 'Out of Print' from Basic Grey, and 'Et Cetera' from BoBunny. Some of my friends went through 2-3 entire packs each of Et Cetera in the last year, while I watched them, 'envy' them for having the 'strength' to open their paper packs and use them! I admit, I have issues.... :)

So by deciding to open these two pretty paper packs, I also committed to make one of the nicest layouts I ever made. I was not going to be broken hearted and regret this ultimate decision!

Here is the double page layout I made using papers from both collection (Out of Print and Et Cetera), as well as 2 pages of the beautiful 'French Kiss' collection from Glitz for the background page.



I love the romantic atmosphere that transpires in this layout, the colours and the multiple layers of paper I created. Here is a close-up of page 1.


As I often do, I distressed and aged the paper using distress ink and stain to give it a vintage look. I also made an opening in the corner where flowers are peeking out, as if they were growing behind the paper.


Here is a close-up of  page 2. This page took quite a few hours to create, as my head was blooming with ideas! I wanted to create a multi-layered layout because it makes me used many of the papers I like, but just in small pieces so I am left with plenty to use on other layouts! This is perfect for the paper lover that I am...


I painted swirls on one of my canvas butterflies (Maya Road) using glimmer glam (Tattered Angels), which I also sprayed with glimmer mist from the same company.


Of course, I couldn't create such a romantic layout without putting one of my favorites elements: the Tim Holtz keys are also one of my obsessions, that I preserve and use only on very special layouts or cards...



I hope you enjoyed this post. Please feel free to leave a comment, and share what YOUR scrapbooking obsession is!

Thanks for stopping by!

5 comments:

  1. Wonderful layout Nathalie! I love paper too. And buttons. And Glimmer Mists. And flowers. But my recent obsession is with twine.

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  2. beautiful layouts!knowing you,i can only imagine how much time it took to make them!each part of the page "tells" a different story(in the details)saying that tho,it looks like it was alot of fun to make.Paper is also one of my obsessions,but my main one,is journalling spots.

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  3. Love, these are beautiful, almost as much as the hockey ones ;) These are amazing pages!!

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  4. Gorgeous layouts Nathalie! Love the colors and your photos are so sweet!
    xoxo Cari

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  5. Nathalie, your layouts never cease to amaze me! such an eye for detail, such depth, such dimension.

    My scrap obsession is flowers, every layout and card has one. And like you, I have packages from years ago I have never opened, and likely never will. I a afraid if I use it, I will never be able to again, so I have to make sure when I *do* use it, that it is the perfect project.

    Please come check out my blog, leave me a comment too :o)

    Lorena
    www.scrapingcorner.blogspot.com

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