Little Miss Pouty Face

Hi friends. I have a monthly feature on the Gossamer Blue blog called Pattern Play. If you haven't seen it yet, HERE'Sa link to the most recent one on the Gossamer Blue blog. I'll include a link to previous posts at the end of my blog post. 

 For April's edition, I thought I’d show a fun way to mix patterns to create a shape. Let’s take a look…

Look at that face…beautiful wide eyes and then that lip.

I thought it would be fun today to walk step x step through how I created this layout.

1. I wanted to use a patterned background paper but I knew it had to be an understated patterns. Otherwise it will clash with the other patterns I was planning to add.
2. I chose to create large “blocks” of patterns and I knew I wanted them larger at the top and tapered down at the bottom. I drew my design and then created a cutting file in Silhouette. You can download the cutting fileHERE. There are three files. One is long and wide, the second is long and skinny and the third is short and wide. Using an odd number, in this case, three sizes of the same shape gives it a great variety and it works nicely.
3.  I chose to use 4 colors for my cuts – blue, yellow, white/cream and multi. I didn’t necessarily use the same pattern but I stuck to those four colors.
4. I also chose to use small, medium and large prints. The combination of sizes, color and pattern scale works great to pull it all together while keeping giving it the variety it needs.
5. After you cut the triangles, cut a 6” circle slightly off center to the bottom left of the page.
6. Once all the angled rectangles were cut, I moved them around the page in the shape of a circle until I liked their placement.

7. Add a white/cream lined or grid background paper to the back of the circle.

8. Once you have the triangles arranged how you like them, adhere them down with just a little glue. You don’t want to add too much, since we’re going to stitch over them.
9. Stitch 3 circles around the triangles. I used the same color green as my background paper.

10. To make my photo stand out against the various patterns I used vellum on the bottom layer. I then added bits of white, yellow and the green. The green is from the center circle that I cut out. I popped the photo up using foam dots.

11. We’re almost done now… Embellish with various elements. I used ephemera, wood veneer, flair, die-cut, resin shapes and chipboard.

I hope I’ve demonstrated that you can combine many patterns on one page as long as you consider using a variety of pattern scales and limit the main colors (that also complement each other) to just 3 – 4 colors.

Gossamer Blue April 2014 Supplies: Main Kit, Main Add-on, Main kit Add-on 2, Life Pages kit, Life Pages Main Add-on, Life Pages Themed Add-on, Bits & Pieces

Thanks for stopping by today! Care to see my other Pattern Play features? See the links below:

March 2014: The Sweet Life

February 2014: Dream a Little Dream

January 2014: Best Day Ever

December 2013: Layered Christmas Tree Tutorial

November 2013: Made with Love

October 2013: #favorite