& then there were 4

Good evening fellow scrapbookers!

Today I was abandoned by Carole on our normal crafty Tuesday, so I played with my new toy..the cricut explore.

Its difficult to get your head around when you've only been used to pushing buttons but with a few trial runs i think it will become a lot quicker and easier, heres what i did with it:

* It all started with this very cool ampersand which i purchased from studio calico for $0.99, bargain!

* I did have to play a little bit to get the solid shadow background, but I managed it eventually. I cut this out before i chose anything else to go with, I found the photo and papers after cutting this piece in the white and woodgrain.

* After adding the photo and choosing the background i then added my title. I chose pink as i wanted it to be completely different to the rest of the woody, natural bits that were already going on on the layout.

* This pink looks completely different as the one above in these pictures but they are from the same paper pack and don't look so different in real life I promise.

* I chose to do the 4 a couple of inches bigger than the title so that the emphasis is on that as it is an important part of the story.

* This was the last bit of detail to be added to my layout. just a couple of feather stickers and a word banner which I lifted with pop dots.

* So this is how it ended up. The cricut was used to cut the ampersand and the title with the number piece.

* TOP TIP OF THE DAY: Just something that i've picked up over my time of scrapping.... These sky papers are always hard to use, the best way i would approach them is with a picture that doesn't have sky in it!!!

* when you use a photo with sky in because you think this paper would be appropriate, it never works as you are trying to match one sky with another, the same principle as double denim?!?!? does that EVER really look good?!?!?!

* I can get away with an outdoor photo here as you don't see much of the sky, its blocked by the trees, give it a go...use your sky papers with a non sky photo, see what you think, you can even test it with a sky photo to see what I mean :)

* I added journalling along the bottom of the page as i wanted to see the detail in the paper and the title and photo says a lot so I didn't need to add too many words.

I hope you've enjoyed today, see you all tomorrow xxxxxx