Life's Good on the Farm Tutorial with Melinda Spinks

"Greenacres is the place for me,

Farm livin' is the life for me.

Land spreadin' out so far and wide,

Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside."

And now that I have that song stuck in my head, I'll move on to the tutorial. It's Melinda with you today and as you have probably already guessed by the intro, I am sharing a layout about the life my children have on the farm.

 

 

 

I recently took this photo of my three kids who were hanging out by the creek on our property and I loved how candid it was with their bare feet and grubby clothes. Which led me to the idea of continuing that theme down through the title. I just needed to come up with an idea of how to do make it happen... water colour!

 

Firstly I laid my title down onto the patterned paper for position only, so no adhesive at this stage!

Using a fine pencil I traced around each letter and then removed the pieces to leave the outline of the heading.

 

 At this stage I was all set for my title to be in the same colour so chose a matching colour of paint and proceeded to paint small sections around the edges of the letters. Not all letters were painted as I really wanted the patches to be quite random... like my daughter's grubby spots on her pants in the photo.

 

 

Now I don't know if I'm the only one but I'm not fond of the way that paper buckles when it gets damp from paint etc. So, after I had painted the letters I placed a sheet of non-stick baking paper over the top of the layout and then put a book on the very top to avoid the warped paper. Once it was completely dry I used a good quality eraser and removed as much of the pencil markings as possible before adhering the alphas.

I really liked the effect... however I did have my reservations about the title being teal only so I started playing around by adding a few different colours to alter the mood of the layout. A little bit of pink never goes astray. And finally I was happy with the result!

Supplies:
Jillibean Soup
Patterned Paper: Birthday Bisque/Bite Size Bits; Sightseeing Stew/Poached Photos
Beanboard Alphas: Pickled Pink, Tart Teal, Yam Yellow
Coordinating Label Stickers: Birthday Bisque, Sightseeing Stew, Spicy Social Soup
Soup Labels: Sightseeing Stew
Wood Sprinkles: Travel
Clear Stamps: Butterflies

Other: Vellum, Water Colour Paint, Gold Ink, Embroidery Thread.

Comments

[Monique Liedtke]

How totally awesome! You always have such cool ideas!!! LOVE this!

[Cathy Harper]

love, love, love this!

[TracyM #6773]

YES, it sounds like LIFE REALLY IS GOOD ON THE FARM, for you and all your family Melinda :)
LOVE your photo and vellum journaling, your kids will treasure it in years to come. THANK YOU for sharing your CREATIVE INSPIRATION and CREATIVE PROCESS, I really enjoyed learning about your lovely title!!!
PS - I used to LOVE watching Green Acres on tv too, so I'm singing along with you!!! I grew up on a farm too, so can totally relate to your journaling.