This month, for Jones Crafts, I have been sent the new Graphic45 Raining Cats & Dogs Collection of papers. At the risk of alienating half my loyal readership, I don’t really do cats… so it’s just raining dogs in this massive layout! I’ve used an Ikea Ribba 50x50cm frame to hold the layout, placing the main sheet behind the mount which is conveniently sized at 11½” square aperture. The pictures of Esther and her pups are mounted on the various complimentary papers, embellished with various of the die cut chipboard tags, cut out stamps from the Mr Whiskers page (omitting the cat ones, obviously) and layered paper ribbon from the Playful Pals page. A few paper flowers decorated up to more or less match brings the centre to the mount and breaks up the border.
I’ve edged everything with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and that includes ageing the gingham ribbon bows as well so they didn’t stand out quite as much. Oh, and a top tip – if you’re keeping the deep frame, remember the insert takes up quarter of an inch round the outer edge of the mount if you’re laying out away from the frame… And if I’d had a couple more of the centre sheets, I would have decoupaged several of the elements, such as the flowers and the stamps, and the lovely lady with the umbrella.
Hope this inspires you to work with the Collection – and work big!
I really have used up all the papers I was sent for this month’s projects by Jones Crafts. This 12×12″ layout uses the last of the Sandy Toes Collection. The largest ‘porthole’ is actually hiding the bit I cut out from the ‘Flip Flops’ sheet for the clock face for my beach hut, framed with a circle cut from the ‘Sandy’ sheet. I stuck a square of the ‘Ocean’ sheet behind to fill in the hole. The rest is made up of elements from ‘Beach Bum’, ‘Waves’ and ‘Sea Shells’ sheets.
