Hey everyone! It's Elsie back on the blog today and I'm going to be talking about my go-to methods for adding some subtle finishing touches to my layouts.
Looking at this layout now, I absolutely love it, but if you had asked me how I felt about it 10 minutes before finishing, you probably would have gotten a very grumpy: 'ugh, it's just not working' response!
These subtle touches are such an integral part of my process, I think I'd be pretty lost without them now. They're a great way to make the designs of my layouts feel more cohesive.
First off, we're going to talk about stitching.
I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone that this technique made the list; I honestly can't remember the last layout I made without it! I did both hand-stitching and machine-stitching on this layout, but for different reasons.
Machine-stitching is great, because it's obviously a lot quicker and it was a perfect way to (very messily!) add some extra detail to the leaf.
Mimicking the machine stitching along the edges of the page, anchored the blue border to the main design, and using white thread on white paper makes the stitching really subtle and not too distracting.
Hand-stitching is less subtle, so I used that to it's advantage with elements that I wanted to be accentuated. The clouds, leaf and 'Fall' title are the three main focus points of the page, so the bolder stitching helps them 'pop' off the page. And again, tone-on-tone makes everything look in sync.
Aside from the stitching, I created texture in a few different places. I added some loose thread behind my photo and the cloud attached to it, just to add a little more interest.
After glueing down the falling leaves, I felt those areas looked a little bare. I didn't want to add any more leaves, otherwise I thought it might look a little over the top! I added some iridescent and clear sequins (from my stash), some small gold ink splatters (for some extra sparkle!) and I scattered some of the smaller enamel dots we got in the kit. All of those different textures make that section of the page a lot more interesting to look at.
Layering and adding dimension are things I love to do on my pages. You can see from the photo below that I added some foam close to the spine of the leaf on each layer. This gives the leaf some height and also makes those gorgeous warm-toned orange papers a little more noticeable.
After stitcking down the woodgrain paper, I felt that it looked a little two-dimensional. I used a very small flower punch, and scattered tiny woodgrain flowers all over the paper.
From a distance it looks like the woodgrain has a rough texture, like the real thing, but up close you can see that it's actually made from a lot of little flowers. I think that's a really nice and serendipitous little detail.
Also how perfect are those puffy hearts that come on the alpha sheets? Talk about the perfect subtle detail on a layout about my love of Autumn!
Thanks for joining me today. And I hope you're inspired to give some of these subtle finishing touches a try on your layouts!
- Elsie x
Supplies Used: Emeline Kit | Emeline Patterned Paper Add-On | Emeline Solid Colour Paper Add-On | Emeline Puffy Alphabet | FJ Leaf Silhouette Cut File | FJ Scripty Fall Cut File