Family Thanksgiving Layout - Crate Paper Chalkboard Theme

You may have spotted this layout on the Crate Paper blog recently during their week-long chalkboard theme. Chalkboard is a huge trend in both scrapbooking and home decor right now, and I was excited to try some of it out for myself. I stopped and took a few photos of the various steps along the way showing how this page came together from start to finish, just to give a little peek into my scrapbooking process. :)

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

I went the DIY chalkboard route with my page, and the starting point was inspired by how Wilna Furstenburg has used Martha Stewart Chalkboard Paint on a few of her layouts (you can see one here, and there's another in her Art Class at Two Peas). I kicked things off by painting a big square of the chalkboard paint in the middle of a piece of Brown Sugar cardstock by American Crafts, and then I cut the cardstock down a bit and distressed the edges.

After I adhered the painted cardstock to a full 12x12 sheet of patterned paper as a border/background, I pulled out several of the embellishment packs from Crate Paper's Close Knit collection. Normally I start a layout with the photo arrangement first, but this time around I was more excited to get some chipboard and die cuts on the page. After a few minutes of looking through pieces and moving things around, I came up with this arrangement:

I went ahead and got the title going, too, especially since the woodgrain Thickers I wanted to use were a little larger than normal and my title was also slightly longer- I wanted to make sure it would fit!

The photos I wanted to use for this page were from Thanksgiving last year, and I actually hadn't printed any of them yet. To help determine what size to print the photos, I pulled out a few scrap pieces of white cardstock that I keep cut down to the common sizes that I use for photos and tried a few different arrangements before deciding on this configuration:

Having those sizes predetermined made it easy to just print out my photos and put them in place! I also took a few minutes to stitch around the outside of the cardstock mat at this point.

Next it was time to add the "chalk" portion of the chalkboard effect, and the white Ultra Fine point Sharpie Paint Pen that I used worked perfectly over the black paint! I used it to add my journaling and also to outline around the embellishments.

I added a few wood veneer pieces as finishing touches and also outlined them with the white pen.

And with that, the layout was done!

To be honest, this layout had been rattling around in my head for several weeks before Crate Paper assigned the chalkboard theme to the design team. I find Wilna's videos so inspiring that I want to immediately start scrapping and try whatever artsy technique she's showing, and it's so fun to be able to take her techniques and apply them to my own style. She's hinted that she has an Art Class 2 workshop coming out next month, and I can't wait to try it!