Hello Pebbles Friends! It’s Leanne here today sharing a layout featuring positive thinking! Or more so, featuring a reminder for me to refocus my energy into having a more positive frame of mind. Today, on World Mental Health Day, there can never be too much encouragement to foster self care. Our lives are constantly busy and our minds and mental health can often be pushed aside for more immediate chores surrounding us. Creating this layout became more of a challenge than I care to admit. One.. it was about me.. And two, making “Lemonade” from “Lemons” isn’t always my go-to attitude. But I am working on my own sense of positive thinking self care.

To recreate this page start with gathering supplies from the Pebbles Inc My Bright Life collection. What could be more perfect than the Lemons patterned paper? Gather also white paint and solid white cardstock.

step 1..

Trim the Sunflower patterned paper to 8.25″x10.75″ and lay flat to prepare surface area for a mixed media applied layer.

Using an old gift card (or same sized piece of cardboard), scrape white acrylic paint where the photo will be positioned. Allow to dry and apply a second layer of paint.

Once the white paint has dried, add a few splashes of black watercolour paint. To prevent the layout from continuing to buckle, adhere to solid white cardstock, which has been trimmed to 8.5″x11″. Carefully machine stitch around the outside edges, flattening the paper as you sew.

step 2..

Fussy cut lemon slice images from the patterned paper. When positioning the images, leave a place to secure the title above the photo. When fussy cutting, I removed the blue background and carefully cut along the outside edge, keeping the white border surrounding the lemon slices.

step 3..

Continue to add more layers of fussy cut images. The larger flower clusters from the Flower Market patterned paper, are perfect to fill gaps and add colour to the relatively neutral palette. Extensions to this embellishment layer also include the dimensional stickers with the “thinking of you” sentiment as a subtitle.

step 4..

The title work features gold foil thickers that sit comfortably in the space provided above the photo. Use a set square ruler to provide a straight guide to lining up the letters.

 

Note that the title doesn’t intrude on the fussy cut layers but rather frames and enhances the subtle message of positive thinking.

step 5..

Finally add your journaling. This can be as in depth as you like or kept very simple. Any private thoughts can be slipped behind the photo or written on the back of your layout. Just remember to be gentle on yourself. Mental health affects many people in many different ways and more often than not people suffer in silence.

Crafting is very therapeutic and a worthwhile endeavour. Perhaps writing down messages to yourself can help challenge a more positive thinking outlook in normal, everyday life. Thanks for visiting..x

supplies:

Lemons My Bright Life Patterned Paper 733860

Flower Market My Bright Life Patterned Paper 733871

Blue Garden My Bright Life Patterned Paper 733877

Sunflower My Bright Life Patterned Paper 733881

Jen Hadfield My Bright Life Dimensional Stickers 733883

American Crafts Foam Alphabet Stickers 733888