Zoom Zoom: Negative Punch Tutorial

It’s summer and I am dreaming of the beach!  Until we can get there again, the next best thing is looking at photos from a previous trip.  For this layout, I choose three photos of my son pushing his truck across the shore and the super cute Perfect Summer line from Echo Park. The collection was included as part of the June kit at My Creative Scrapbook. 

I wanted to add a sense of movement to this page and did that two ways: with directional arrows and a trio of circles that go off the edge of the page. I love the scrapbook trend of using the negative of a punch and employed that here. I used the negatives of a large circle punch (a smaller punch and a larger one).

The top layer of this layout is white cardstock.  I punched one large partial circle at the top and two smaller partial circles at the bottom and right side of the cardstock. In each case, I allowed my punch to go off the page. 

The bottom layer of the layout is blue patterned paper from Echo Park.  In between the blue layer and the white layer, I am going to add bits of red woodgrain paper to show in the space created by the circle punches. 

After I've tucked those red pieces into the layout, I added stitching along the edges to give the negative punches a little extra depth.

Now I have the base for my layout. 

I tend to create this way: from the outside in.  I almost always decide upon the base of my layout and make it first, then fill the rest of the layout with stuff in the middle.  Many artists work the opposite way; they start with the focal point and work their way out.  Here, I have placed the photos more or less where they will be when the layout is complete. Then I am ready to embellish the page. 

 

Here’s a close-up of the finished layout. You can see I have filled in the layout with bits of stickers and patterned paper but the red circles remain a dominant design element. I love the fun pop of color they provide.

At the top of the page, I added some stickers in the large circle, off-center, to bring more color into the layout. 

A final look at the whole page, cropped a little tightly. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'll be back on Monday with another project. Have a great weekend.