Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Anatomy of a Page

Halloween is almost upon us.  It is this holiday that I miss being a kid the most!  Costumes and parties just don't seem to come my way as often now that I'm all grown up but I still love to delight in the holiday.  Although this year, I've been slow to get out the decorations.  See my first one didn't go over so well.  I picked up this singing and dancing broom at a craft show last week because it seemed so fun.  I also thought it would keep the dog busy, and I was right about that.  What I did not anticipate was the terror it would cause little AJ.  He doesn't like it at all.  If the music goes off in another room, he cries.  If he sees it, he turns away.  If you take him near it, he trembles.  Oh boy, hopefully next year AJ and the broom will be on better terms.
Well, that's the story behind the page.  Here's a look and a few things I want to point out.
The papers and elements are from Altered Art Halloween.  To create a border for the page I placed the golden tan paper on top of the gray paper and shrunk it down by 5% of it's original size.  I had selected two plain papers to start knowing that I would add in some pattern and interest with the circles and elements, but when I got done it just looked a little plain for my taste.  So I grabbed a pattern paper from the kit and placed it on top of both of the bottom papers.  I changed the blend mode to 'overlay' and changed the layer opacity to about 75%.  The blending mode and opacity you choose will depend upon the paper you start with. 
The overlay mode is a contrast mode.  This means it both darkens and lightens the layer to which it is applied.  Using any one of the contrast modes - soft light, hard light, vivid light, etc. - will generally help the pattern on a patterned paper show up best.
Lastly, I wanted to further add interest to this layer by taking away some of the pattern.  I added a layer mask and choose a grunge brush from Sara Schmutz to knock out some parts of the pattern.
Hope you can try some of these ideas on your own pages! 

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