Memory Lane is one of our newest paper collections and we can’t help but feel completely nostalgic because of it!
The beautiful motifs and colors used throughout this collection are reminiscent of that romanticized childhood neighborhood, where trees line the streets, a tire hangs and swings from a branch, and dragonflies dance in the garden’s warm summer breeze.
Just like most of us can imagine that one place, person, or moment in time that will always feel like home, the Memory Lane collection will catch all of those deserving memories in one place, ready to be revisited and enjoyed, time and time again.
This evocative paper collection is ideal for scrapbooking our everyday stories—complete with photos, mementos, and journaled experiences—the big and small moments that add up to and make us who we are.
To get you started on this memory keeping journey, we have put together a scrapbooking workshop that makes three 12″ x 12″ two-page layouts and one 12″ x 12″ single-page layout using the products from the Memory Lane collection!
These dreamy pages are intricately designed but, with the help of the free and easy-to-follow instruction guide available for download on our website (and here), you will find yourself enjoying revisiting the moments that you’re scrapbooking about more than minding how it all gets put together!
In addition to the already beautiful patterns that make up each layout, there are several optional techniques embedded on every page, and we absolutely encourage you to try them all! The artwork can be somewhat deceiving because the techniques we’re about to highlight are quite simple to perform but have stunning results.
Like we just mentioned, the three techniques we are sharing today are used throughout every page of this workshop. However, all three techniques we’re focusing on are also used on just this one single-page layout of the workshop! As we break the techniques down, we’ll be looking at this page up close, but make sure to look through the other layouts and see for yourself where and how they are also used!
First, let’s talk about adding color with a blending brush! The fine, soft bristles of our blending brushes are not just great for blending (as the name implies) but are also fantastic at buffing inks on paper.
Looking at the page, you can see that we’ve added a Sage ink background to the three areas where we have our embellishment clusters, creating a place for them to “rest” rather than appear like they are floating. Additionally, notice that we even added color to a patterned paper, not just the White Daisy cardstock. You want some cohesion between your embellishment clusters, and this inking technique is one way to achieve that. Also, when adding embellishments of any sort—including buffed on color—our eyes prefer to see sets of three or five. Including the bottom cluster’s Sage background was a no brainer in this case, giving us three places on our layout with the buffed-on ink.
Adding color with a blending brush is quite simple and pretty difficult to mess up! Simply load the brush with ink by rubbing the bristles on the ink pad and the apply the ink to the paper using a gentle circular motion.
The tree hiding behind the house in that bottom cluster was also colored with Sage ink and a blending brush, in much the same way. We stamped it first, then colored it with the Sage ink for the leaves and a brown marker for the trunk, and hand trimmed it with scissors last.
Coloring all the way to the lines, or inside the lines, was not important. It’s a look and we’re here for it!
Next, let’s talk about how that cute little house came together! We certainly didn’t color in the lines for this one, and it worked out great!
There’s an incredibly easy technique for adding color to symmetrical stamp images, and that’s to use the same stamp but on its back side. By that we mean to mount the stamp on a stamping block with the smooth side facing out, the detailed part of the stamp touching the block. This way, with our My Acrylix® stamps, you will get a solid shape of the original, detailed version. And that’s exactly what we did with our house!
Once we stamped the details with Sapphire ink, we colored it by stamping it again, this time in reverse, with Melon ink. (You can play with your ink here, and either do a light color or make a color lighter by using generational stamping.)
We snuck another technique in by using paper-piecing to make the windows white!
We stamped a second house in Sapphire ink, then hand trimmed the windows with scissors and attached them to the colored house. The final colorful details to the roof, windows, and door were simply added with marker.
As a bonus, we’re going to share a final tip with you, today—and that’s the use of Liquid Glass!
Liquid Glass is a longtime favorite with us, and we named it liquid glass because of its glossy, glaze-like appearance once it’s dry.
Throughout this workshop we added dots of Liquid Glass to the centers of all the hand trimmed, stamped flowers. This small and simple detail makes these pretty floral clusters that much prettier, catching the light with every little movement of the page!
When you’re using Liquid Glass, be mindful that it requires a good amount of time to dry. We encourage that you either prepare these flowers before attaching them to your layouts or to add the liquid glass to the layouts once they are all completed, setting them aside on a flat surface to dry before adding them to Memory Protectors™.
The Memory Lane collection, including the kit for this gorgeous scrapbooking workshop, is only available through the end of August and while supplies last. Get your hands on these beautiful products while you can and take that trip down memory lane as you prepare your scrapbook pages!
