Don’t let the small size of this project fool you-it’s a 3″x3″ square “One Sheet Wonder” folding album and holy wow can it fit a lot!
So, last week I was beyond burnt out and needed to just sit down and do some mind-less crafting (FYI, these creative moments most often become one of our best and most productive ever, so never feel bad for taking the time for some mindless crafting!) I didn’t intend to create a teaching project, but here are.
It started with this little album I have had sitting around. I watched a tutorial on it months ago, I have no idea who’s You Tube this came from. I had no idea what I was ever going to do with it. But here I was on a Thursday night at 12:30am needing to get my creative bugs out. So, I grabbed this little guy. He has a total of 29 pages that needed some panels, so I grabbed my scrap paper folder, picked out the most random, most colorful scraps in it and cut 29 little 2 3/4″x 2 3/4″ squares. I stacked them all up and just started adhering them to the pages. NO rhyme or reason.
So, that was fun. I was already starting to feel good and inspired. But now these little pages needed some decorating. Now, if you are like me, and you always make more embellishments than needed when you are making your projects, you probably have a container somewhere of all these random bits and pieces. Mine was literally exploding! lol!
Yeah, just a bit overwhelming! lol, but I took a deep breath and started sifting through all the goodies. Starting with the front page square, I picked out some fun colorful elements. When I was done with the front page, I realized i unknowingly had put it together using the color and composition techniques. That was totally unexpected, as this was supposed to be a no-brainer project. Turns out, this made me even more motivated and made me feel even more creative! So, page by page as I went through this, I turned it into a game. Using only what was in my box of goodies, I challenged myself to use color and composition theories in putting each page together.
The page spread above is an example of composition. The big pink flower started life as a cluster, but I snipped off the leaves and smaller cluster that were attached to it and used them on the facing page. This, as well as using the same color accessory embellishments, bridges the two pages together, regardless of the different backgrounds.
The page spread above is some color theory and balance: both pages use pinks and blues and are balanced with the colors as well as the color temperature (meaning; blue is on the cool side of the color wheel and pinks are on the warmer side of the color wheel.)
The spread above shows a good example of balanced composition, use of complimentary colors from the color wheel, and utilizing texture to add depth (the blue and gold washi strip on the left panel and the orange “snowflakes” on the right panel.)
Before I realized it, it was 3 am! Lol, and I felt great and surprisingly ready to sleep. And I slept great that night! But most importantly, MY BOX CAN SHUT AGAIN!!
This blog post is just highlighting some points from this project, but I did do a walk-through video of each page, explaining the theories and techniques I used. Hit the link below to head over to Stamp the Fun Up on You Tube and check it out! Let me know if this helps inspire you!