Father’s Day inspiration

Friday, June 10, 2011

Hello everyone – HAPPY Friday! :o) Kylie here with a jam-packed post… part  digi-scrapping, part hybrid project – and for the most part, all inspiration …well, that’s my hope, at least! ;o)

Mother’s Day has only just visited, and for the majority of us we are about to celebrate Father’s Day. Now, given the fact that I live in Australia, I won’t be celebrating until September, but hey, having prepared this post to share with you all I’m now going to be super organized… no excuses this year!

Thoughts of Father’s Day led me to thinking about scrapping ‘guy-style’ layouts. Sure I’ve scrapped plenty of pages for my cute little nephews but have I ever crafted one for just my husband or my dad or my adult brothers? – Sadly, I can count the pages on one hand. Yes, I admit it… I’m a girly-girl scrapper and I tend to avoid masculine layouts… I find them a little daunting. Not to mention I have a problem with reigning in all my flowers, ribbons, bows and pretty things. I’m certain I’m not alone here!

Armed with the following tips, I’m about to change all that! So… here are some ideas that will make our masculine layouts easier and more fun to put together… for all those special men in our lives:

• Need help starting? Start with your photo/s. Create a layout that is an extension of the theme or the feel of your photo. Cheeky, formal, adventurous, active, sweet…
• Design: Have fun pushing the traditional boundaries – think outside the box in terms of creativity and focus more on design rather than embellishments. Take a no frills approach! Start with simple straight lines and see where that takes you…
• Papers: Rich earthy tones are the popular choice but don’t forget about all those fresh light and bright colors. Mix your solids with strong bold patterns – try stripes, checks, plaids, spots & dots. Geometric designs are perfect! Shabby, grungy, torn edging – yes, please! And there’s no reason you can’t use more feminine colors, patterns, even florals, as accents – you might be surprised at the result!
• Embellishments: Metal embellishments add an instant masculine touch. Staples, stars, brads and buttons! Don’t avoid flowers altogether, just put more thought into their style, color and placement… and if in doubt less is more. As alternatives to pretty bows and ribbons think string, rope, knots and messy stitching. Splatters and messy rub-ons are always fun too!
• Journaling: Best not to forget that! …just as important here as on any other layout you make! Add journaling in your own style, from your own perspective. But for something a little different why not try a question-and-answer ‘interview’ style to get the man in your life to participate in the journaling… include their thoughts and emotions on the page.

Here are two layouts I put together for my sweet Dad. To help me create the perfect pages and ‘speed scrap’ at the same time I used two different easy-as-pie templates from the Shoppe’s MEMORABLE collection. I also chose no more than five papers and handful of embellishments. But what really makes the page are those clustered WORD WHIMSY titles! I selected the {dad} and {grandfather} words from the FAMILY collection. They are full of detail and make the page look as if you’ve worked on it for hours instead of just a few minutes. A little whimsy wow-factor… gotta LOVE THAT!! (I’ll add these pages to the Shabby Artist’s gallery if anyone was wondering about the kits used.)

I’m looking forward to scrapping a special Father’s Day photo now that I’ve had a little practise at some ‘grown-up guy’ pages! Do you have any tips or preferences when it comes to creating the perfect ‘guy page’? We’d all love to hear from you… add a comment if you’d like to share. :o)

Now onto the HYBRID part of the post! :o) I’m loving these word whimsies bunches and bunches – SP has kindly done all the hard work for us by creating these wonderfully-embellished title art pieces. So again, I made use of the super-cute {dad} word whimsy to create a hybrid Father’s Day card. My work area in Photoshop was 10×7 inches, to produce a 5×7 inch card when folded. I chose a couple of papers from the BAREFOOT collection and layered them as a background. On a separate work area I clipped two longish rectangle strips (my belt!) with some brown paper from the GABBY collection (I darkened it slightly!), added some AUTUMN MEDLEY stitching and a metal photo corner from ORGANIC. For my ‘belt buckle’ I chose a journal label from the BLOSSOM collection, added my word whimsy and some “Happy Father’s Day” text. I printed the main card and the belt pieces on some textured cardstock. To give the word whimsy belt buckle a shiny effect, I printed it on semi-gloss photo paper. Each piece was trimmed as required. I added holes to the belt with a hole-punch. Inked all edges and then put the front of the card together using double sided tape for the belt and 3D-dots for the buckle. Nothing too difficult at all… I’m sure even the kids would love to give this a go!

And as far as Father’s Day gifts are concerned you can’t go past the Family Man WALLET ALBUM! This is an amazing hybrid project – so special and super personalized – and ‘masculine’ to boot! And there is still plenty of time to enjoy making this very realistic wallet album for your special dad, granddad, brother, uncle, son… hey, I think I want my own too!! ;o) Some of our very talented gallery members posted their completed wallets last year for us to peek at! Let’s have another look… here and here and here and here! Awesome work girls!!

Well, that’s quite enough inspiration for one day, lol! We’ll be back on Monday with LOTW…until then have wonderful weekend… and HAPPY SCRAPPING (and/or hybrid project crafting!! ) :o)

KylieHybrid Projects, Inspiration, Uncategorized 12 Comments