Paper Herringbone Layout by Paige Evans

 Hey friends! I have a new layout and process video to share with you today made for SaraScrap's YouTube Party Hop! 5 years on YouTube is definitely cause for celebration :)

Here is the process video and be sure to check out all the other scrapper's videos in the hop:

The inspiration for this layout came from when I was working on my December Daily 2020 - I backed the Star Quilt cut file from my 25 Days of Christmas Cut Files with a few papers from my old Turn the Page collection (find the digital version here: Turn the Page Digital Collection) and I fell in love with the colors all over again. I had 8 little rectangles of patterned paper sitting on the corner of my desk since December, waiting for the right assignment to make a full layout out of those papers and the time finally came!

I also had a blast with this layout - even a blast from the past! I file my layouts away chronologically and I had a blank page in Fox's scrapbook between July and October 2011. We went to Hawaii then so I challenged myself to find and use photos from that vacation to fill in that space in his scrapbook. Done and done! Love getting things checked off my "to scrap" list :) It was so fun to go back through all of those photos of baby Fox, he was only 10 months old. Now he's 10 years old! Thank goodness for scrapbooking to remind us of all the great times!

Back to the layout! I punched (8) 1" squares from the 8 12x12 papers that I love and then grabbed a colorful one with gold foiling from the 6x6 Paper Pad to tie all the colors together. Once all of the squares were punched I grabbed 4 at a time and cut them in half to create a whoooole bunch of rectangles.

I chose a textured off-white cardstock for the background and did a little bit of mixed media on it for a first layer: I splashed watered down white acrylic paint and my favorite Pastel Dreams watercolors all across the background then sped up the drying process with a hair dryer I keep at my desk. Super handy! Once the background was dry I needed to figure out the placement for the rectangles. We're about to re-do our kitchen so I've been looking at a lot of tile designs for backsplash - I love the herringbone pattern and decided to try that with the patterned papers.

I quickly placed the rectangles without adhesive into the herringbone pattern across the top and bottom, decided I liked how it was looking, and adhered them all in place with foam squares for dimension. This is the part that took the longest, I'd say about 2-3 hours to attach them all. Then I found these two photos of Fox in Hawaii, printed them at home into 3x4", and trimmed them out leaving a border. Since the photos were vertical I decided to rotate my layout so the background was also vertical. I overlapped the photos at the bottom and tucked floral die cuts under and around to mimic the tropical vibes of Hawaii. Between the herringbone pieces I added the title "HAWAII" with the Turn the Page Thickers. Three butterflies create a visual triangle to draw the eye all around the layout. To finish I wrote journaling with a blue pen under the photos.

I hope you are inspired to try making a paper herringbone background layout! The more patterns of paper I can add to a layout, the better! And I hope you enjoy hopping through the YouTube Party celebrating SaraScrap's 5 years on YouTube! Have a wonderful day!

SUPPLIES: Patterned papers, die cuts, stickers, Thickers: TURN THE PAGE; Turn the Page Digital Collection; white acrylic paint; Pastel Dreams watercolors