To infinfity.......and beyond!

It's always hard to sum up your own scrapbooking style, but if pushed I'd have to say I was all about the pattern. Combining patterns and colours is my favourite part of the creative process, and I often use five or six different patterns on one page! I just love me some pattern!

When I saw the fabulous Rocket Age collection from October Afternoon (wouldn't Buzz Lightyear just love it?!), I immediately fell in love with the warm colour tones and retro patterns, and knew it would be a perfect collection to record my other half's technological (i.e. geeky!) occupation and interests! So I quickly snapped up a whole bunch of the papers, as well as some matching embellishments, and set about using them on a single page. Where as lots of people are nervous about using lots of patterned paper on a page, I have the opposite problem and am terrified of plain cardstock! So I thought I'd show you how I combined seven papers to make this page:

Geek

 (give it a little click to see it more closely!)
The products I used are as follows:
October Afternoon Captains Log paper
October Afternoon All Systems Go paper
October Afternoon Black Hole paper
October Afternoon Incoming Transmission paper
October Afternoon Return Voyage paper
October Afternoon Rocket Age Word Stickers
WRMK Out & About Grid Lock paper
Bo Bunny Double Dot Designs Journal Paper in Denim
"Divine Twine" in Orange
Jilly Beans "Sugar Picks" decorative pins in orange & turquoise
Adornit Tiny Cardstock stickers in Whoopsy Red
AC Chit Chat Puffy Thickers in Chestnut

• I began the page by creating my own sheet of background paper by layering strips of the orange side of the Return Voyage paper, rear of the Incoming Transmission and the Grid Lock paper together. I then added a vertical strip of the Captains Log paper from top to bottom.
• I mounted this onto the Bo Bunny Journal paper (if you've not seen these papers yet - check them out here, they are fab and have a great texture and weight). I like to mount my page onto cardstock as it gives the page a nice border, creating a "finished feel" and keeps the focused eye within the page. Before mounting it, I gutted a piece from the centre to use for my journalling. 
• I created my journalling in MS Word using a type writer effect font, and created a list of all the geeky things Mr T is in to. I printed it on to ordinary white copier paper first, then using repositional Herma, I carefully placed the gutted piece of cardstock over the print (holding it up to the window to help me see more clearly) to make sure the writing would be exactly where I wanted it, and stuck it down. I then ran this through the printer again, and peeled the copier paper from the back. I used a note paper effect border punch down one side and then attached it to my page. You can see the journalling printed on the paper here:

• I then added further matts by cutting "adverts" that I felt were fitting to Mr T's personality and interests from the Black Hole paper.
•  I created an embellishment cluster to the left corner of the photo. I made a star by cutting the shape from pizza box cardboard, misting it with brown mist, and then peeling back a little of the top layer to reveal the corrugation underneath. I then inked it and added a little sticker from the OA sticker sheet.
• To finish the cluster I added a little spaceman cut from the Captains Log paper, two of the Sugar Pick pins and a wooden button, through which I tied the twine and created a big bow, tying the ends right around the photo matt.

• I used the alphas to add my title - the white space in the photo leant itself to having wording applied directly to it so used the tiny red alphas for this.
• To decorate the right hand of the page, I cut a robot from the Captains Log paper, added a word sticker, and used a little star punch to create a mask to mist some brown shooting stars on to the page.
• Finally I created this little tag effect at the top of the page using some stars cut from the All Systems Go paper and a sticker from the Words pack.

Of course, using a huge amount of pattern paper on each layout means one thing - tons of left over scraps! I usually put them into a storage box with good intentions of using them for other projects, never to see the light of day again! But with Rocket Age, I immediately knew I would definitely use up my left overs to make a series of cards for men - something I usually struggle to make but these papers gave me loads of inspiration to get cracking!

My "scraps" from this project went really far, and I made six cards! I could have kept going too if time was no object!

Here's the collection I made - check back tomorrow for a picture of each card along with a tutorial for each - the perfect project for the weekend!

Thanks for stopping by today,
Nat xxx