Hope Layout

Hi!

Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday! For me, it's been a relaxing day at home with my family watching TV and enjoying time together. While watching TV in the family room, where I have my crafting table, I finished this layout I'm sharing with you today, titled Hope. It's a layout about our new normal style of life, using face masks when going out, and living very different as we used to because of COVID-19. I made this page for my daughters, to remember these hard days of quarantine, curfew, restrictions, having everything closed here in Puerto Rico, and them not able to enter any place; not visiting family, working, and studying from home, etc.

Let's talk about how I made this layout. First, I chose the cut file from the Silhouette Store. I was looking for a rainbow and found this cute one with the word Hope, which makes it perfect for this layout. The file is from Paige Evans. 

I knew I wanted to make a shaker with the rainbow, and this is when the hard work started. I backed the file with a piece of transparency and started cutting foam tape in thin strips and adding them to the back of the cutfile to separate each stripe of the rainbow, and around the clouds. Then I used a second cutout of the same file and backed it with patterned papers from the She's Magic collection by Dear Lizzy for American Crafts.

For the clouds, I backed them with vellum and then white cardstock. Once they were ready, I went back to the cutout with the foam adhesive and started adding the glitters to them. I used glitters from Target and Michael's. I have a collection of them, thanks to my sister who lives in Florida and buys them for me. After that, I removed the paper covering the adhesive and glued both cutouts together. The "Hope" word is not a shaker, there is no transparency but I used the foam adhesive on the top layer to add dimension to the word.

It took me a few hours to create the shaker out of the cutfile because of the color separation, but I love how it looks. It was worth all the time and effort! The worst part was cutting the foam adhesive in strips. I used 3M Scoth Mounting Tape, which tends to adhere to the scissor, although it is coated for non sticking.

Now is time to decide how to use the cutfile. I started looking for patterned papers, but the file was full of colors and the best way to showcase it, was using white cardstock, and since I love to use white cardstock, it was not hard for me. To add more color, textures, and interest, I decided to create a background using mixed media. 

I prepared the white cardstock with clear gesso. When it dried, I started adding color. I used Shimmerz Ride the Tide and Lapis Dance. Once the colors were dry, I made some paint splatters using the same colors and Miner, Miner 49er. This gold tone will help the yellow on the cutfile stand out and will balance the layout.

Now that the background is ready and dry, I cut the white cardstock to 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" and adhered it to a blue polka dot frame I made using one of the papers from the collection. I love giving this look to my layouts because it is another patterned paper used, another color, and a nice finishing touch!  I distress the border of the white cardsock and used my sewing machine to stitch a yellow/gold border around the page three times, in a messy way.

The photos were added using craft foam on the back to lift them to the same level as the rainbow and place a part of them on top of the cutfile. To embellish them a little, I cut a green frame from the collection in half and place it under the photos. Then, I used stickers from the collection to add another detail to the photo, in yellow to enhance the color from the word Hope.

With all the colors in the rainbow, the glitters and the mixed media, I thought only a few embellishments here and there would be enough to make the cut file the focus of the page, but still letting the photos being seen! For this reason, I added a big heart in the center of the letter "O". It is from the Paige Evans sticker book, an oldie but very practical in situations like this, where the collection in use doesn't have what I am looking for, and I don't want to use any paper punch or cutting machine, lol.

The title was complimented with the "this too shall pass" phrase, made with Thickers from one of Paige Evans collection. I love the size of those letters and the font too. I used liquid adhesive to add them to the layout, to be sure they stay there with the pass of time. From the She's Magic collection, I used some birds from the cardstock and puffy stickers. They are so cute! I also, used a label from the stickers, next to the "Hope" word. 

At the end, I felt it was missing something, so I grabbed some cloud dies I bought on Wish last year and cut them using vellum. I wanted to add the clouds to the layout, but I didn't want them to grab a lot of attention. I added them using a little bit of liquid adhesive that dries clear, Scotch Tacky, my favorite for years. Then, I embellished them by adding a glitter border made with Stickles Frosted Lace.

I wrote the journaling on the bottom corner, using a Staedler gray pen, and added a puffy bird and a sticker heart to the right to embellish it and capture the viewer's attention. I hope you like this project and it inspires you to create! Thanks for your visit!