Masculine Week at Pink Paislee - a Layout

Hey everyone, I'm here with you sharing a project completed as part of Masculine week on the Pink Paislee blog. I decided to create a layout using the new release patriotic collection, ‘Sweet Freedom’.

I live in a household with two males: my hubby and 2 year old son, so I find that as a scrapbooker I am always looking at themed or more feminine style collections and how I might create masculine layouts using them. When viewing the ‘Sweet Freedom’ collection I knew this would bring me some challenges using it as I reside in Australia not the USA. However, this collection provides lots of opportunities to create both feminine and masculine pages without having that patriotic theme as the focus. Today I am going to show you one pattern and colour combination you could use from the collection to create a masculine layout.

Here is the layout I created: Forever Young
See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom

My son is the subject of this layout. This photo was taken late last year and at the time he was beginning to do more and more things that were ‘grown up’. He began showing greater interest in attending our weekly playgroup, to the point of getting his own drink bottle and wanting to pack his own snack in his backpack (which he is wearing in this photo). Sometimes I just want time to slow down so I can enjoy each and every moment with my kiddies. I think that is why I appreciate this craft of memory keeping so much. I can record those little everyday moments that show where he was in his actions and personality at that time that can be looked back on in the future.

When creating a masculine page from a themed collection, I tend to sort though my papers first to find a combination that I think would work really well on a page. For this layout I chose to begin with a white piece of American Crafts cardstock, and then the scheme of blue, navy, and pops of copper from the ‘Sweet Freedom’ collection.

A tip when creating a masculine page is to go for a geometric page design; circles, stars, triangles, or even grid designs. This is the approach I took for my page design today. I began by cutting a large star cut file on the white cardstock and backed it with the geometric blue patterned paper. This gave me a shape to work around as well as creating a nice feature on the page.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
The star dimensional stickers were a nice touch to this layout as they add a nice detail and worked with the colour scheme I had drawn from the papers. Being dimensional stickers they of course create a raised effect. I decided to scatter them in a diagonal across the page, at the top left of the photo and bottom right.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
When deciding on my photo placement, the actual photo and how it is composed came into play. The photo had a lot of negative space to the right and my son is on the left side and looking towards the right. This made me choose to place it on the left side of the page. I also matted the photo with a soft grey stripe patterned paper and that gorgeous copper foil star specialty paper.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
To further embellish the page I used any coordinating die cut ephemera that I thought may work on the page, like the stars, and more blank pieces like labels. A little tip for you is that if you like the washi designs but do not like committing to their placement (thats me!) then you can do what I did and place one of the washi pieces onto some plain vellum and fussy cut around it. This gave me a non adhesive die cut that is translucent like the washi is originally that I can move freely around the page.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
I found the ephemera piece that had the forever young sentiment on it and thought that was perfect for the journaling that I wanted to convey. I layered that with some of the other ephemera pieces and added some typewritten journaling to add my story.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
I hope this layout has inspired you to think outside the box a little see how you can create a masculine page from a themed collection.

See how designer Raquel thinks outside the box today and creates a masculine layout using our new patriotic collection 'Sweet Freedom' @raquelLbowman @pinkpaislee #pinkpaislee #12x12 #layout #masculine #ppsweetfreedom
Raquel x

Jot Magazine Issue 17 - OUT NOW!

Hey everyone,

Did you see that the latest issue of Jot Magazine is now out?

I'm pretty excited to share that my little man made the cover - the cover layout is featuring the amazing Alex collection by Bella Boulevard and was created for the No adhesive gallery within the magazine.


See the magazine by clicking the image above, you may want to grab a cuppa and find a peaceful spot, its a bumper 185 pages in total!

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Love you using Cocoa Vanilla Studio

Hey everyone, I'm here with you today sharing a new layout featuring the gorgeous Wild at Heart collection. Today I will focus a little more on the papers and ephemera pack in the collection and how to showcase them.

Here is the layout I created:

And here is the process video:


For this layout I decided to document this recent photo of hubby and myself taken at my cousins wedding. I thought the colours in the photo would work with the Wild at Heart collection perfectly.

I decided to do a little something different with the background today. I used the Colour Me Happy cut files and cut the heart into the background white card stock. Except I wanted the heart to be cut into the background and not a separate piece so I didn’t cut the outline of the heart. I actually used a pen holder and pencil on my machine and drew the outline. That then gave me a line to follow with my sewing machine, and I stitched around that heart shape outline as you can see in the image below. The woodgrain patterned paper placed behind the file gave a really nice soft detail to the page.

I created embellishment clusters to the left and right of the photo. These clusters consisted of mainly fussy cut papers and ephemera pieces which are the focus of this post. The larger floral piece is cut from one of the patterned papers. When I fussy more detailed flowers I will normally pick and choose my battles, sometimes I will cut around each and every petal perfectly but other times if time is more short I will choose only a selected few and may not cut as precise. At the end of the day though, it pretty much has the same effect don’t you think? I also added and tucked in the layers a floral piece, star, heart, and a couple of tiny word stickers from the accessory sheet.

The second cluster to the right was made up of pretty much the same elements, except I also added one of those AH-Mazing rubber charms too.

For my title I used the ‘love you’ pieces from the veneer pack plus two of the hearts. I wanted to work in a somewhat vertical design with my journaling underneath.

The sentiment ‘you’re some kind ….’ came from one of the cut apart papers in the collection. I also added the ‘I just can’t get enough’ sticker. The journaling is a quote I found recently that I absolutely loved.

As always I used a variety of adhesives, foam tape, liquid adhesive and tape runner to create lots of dimension and interest. I also added a few splatters of a gold mist to finish it off and some of the glitter enamel dots.



I hope you have enjoyed this layout today. Don’t forget to join and stop by the CVS Community over on Facebook, its always a hive of activity!

Raquel xxx

Last project for Hip Kits - featuring Chasing Dreams for Crate Paper

Hey everyone, I'm here today sharing my last page with Hip Kits. I love this February kit, and just had to use those amazing Crate Paper Chasing Dreams goodies to create a page. 
Here is the layout I created:

There were so many amazing pieces in the Ephemera pack and sticker sheet. I wanted to use everything!


This photo was taken by Splash of Life photography and is of my girl modelling beautiful clothing by an Aussie store Harmony Eve.


I fussy cut a floral from one of the papers and placed that to the right of the photo. Love it!


It is so fun creating a simple grid design. I love to layer and make clusters within the grid spaces. 


This journaling was inspired by a quote I saw on Pinterest. It was just perfect for this layout. 

I hope this layout has inspired you today, thanks for stopping by. 
I am grateful to have spent the last year and a half on the Hip Kit Club team. It will be missed, but when one door closes another one opens don't they say? xxx