Great Aussie Bloke - With Imaginarium Designs!

This month the theme over at Imaginarium Designs is "Masculine". For a start this theme totally stumped me!! Firstly I had no photos printed out of just men/boys. Dear hubby hates being in photos at the best of times so usually it's just me and the girls - easy! but after searching through all my phones/cameras etc I found this one. It was perfect!! It is of John and my dad sitting in dads new/old Model A Ford that he had just purchased for restoration (he actually has many Model A's already - car, ute, truck ... the list goes on). The expressions on their faces are relaxed, happy and natural ... love it!!

I thought I would share a bit of a step by step on how I create.  

Once I have selected my photo and a selection of chipboard to use I lay it out on my white page and rearrange until I'm happy with the basic layout. Then I take a photo with my phone so I can remember where everything went. 

Then I work on my background. I wanted to watercolour it with a grungy feel. I used my Prima Watercolor Confections "Decadent Pies" and chose 3 colours - brown green and blue. I firstly used these colours and a "Painting with plastic" technique that I often use on my backgrounds. Then I added more watery splats of the same colours. I just love these paints they are so beautiful and creamy and vibrant yet in a pan paint style for ease of use. 

While waiting for my background to dry I paint my chipboard. I used a Prima silver acrylic for the honeycomb chipboard and a black Dylusions paint for the title. 

When everything is dry I lay the honeycomb back out and adhere to the page. Then I add the photo and other papers and embellishments. 

Here is my finished page - I love how it turned out! 

I added a woodgrain patterned paper as a mat under my photo and a strip at the bottom of the page. 

Such a great Aussie title :)

I love how vibrant the paint splatters turned out in contrast to the painting with plastic technique.

I've used a paper strip and some paper tags to embellish the top of the page.

Some twine, an old style flair and paper tickets are perfect masculine embellishments.

I added some stamps from an October Afternoon roller stamp. Perfect for a grunge look and these words were perfect for this photo!

Imaginarium Designs chipboard I've used includes 

Great Aussie Bloke : Code IDP0162

honeycomb 6x6 : code IDS0054

All of my photos have been printed on an Epson XP-600. 
Thanks so much for stopping by

Crafty Hugs xx
Karyn