A Scrapbook Circle Kit Page -- What Do You Do With "That" Paper?

OK, we are back on the subject of kit clubs and talking a little bit about what you do when you get "that" paper.  You know the one, the paper that is just well, designed differently, or designed with perhaps an assortment of colors that don't work with your photos. 

I received just this sort of paper (Simple Stories, Reset Girl collection) in my October Scrapbook Circle kit.  While the colors worked on the paper, they just did not go well with any photo I dropped on top of it.  The design itself was very strong and downplaying any of the colors just wasn't going to work.  So what do you do?

Well, step one would be to turn the that paper over and see if the "B" side is more to your liking.  Often I prefer the "B" side.  But sometimes even the using the other side isn't going to work out very well either.  In my case, I had an almost identical pattern on another sheet of the kit paper.  So, on to step two; which would be to check the kit club for their ideas and see how their design team treated it.  Which is where I started...  one designer had cut off a section of the paper and... wait!  Stop right there!  Cut off a section of the paper?!  Duh!

I sliced off the sections of color that did not work for me, in this case that was a whopping three of the five sections of the paper.  I replaced only one of the sections, by tracing and cutting it out of another piece with a more appropriate color for my layout.    And not to worry, I'll use the reserved pieces I cut off on another page!

While I liked this better than the colors I had cut off, it still didn't look quite right so I added a strip of black and white chevron pattern.  Ahhhhh, much better.  Did a bunch of messy outlining around each color section and the perimeter of the page and went to work layering up papers under my superhero's photo.

Layered up some cut pieces of patterned papers (and the little yellow striped bag that some of our goodies came packaged in), as well as a gray piece from my stash which I crumpled up and smoothed back out (to add volume and a bit of height without having to use pop dots). 

Another dilemma came up at this point because this was the first kit I'd received that did not include an alphabet of any kind.  We did get a set of Thickers that contained various words that given the appropriate photo, could be used as titles and I did used one of these along with some of my own Thickers alphas to create my title.  The plus signs were part of the Thickers set and the gold stars were included, along with some pretty sequins which again, I'll likely use on another layout. 

I added a tab from my stash and a red painted heart, splattered a bit of black ink and placed my journaling along the diagonal lines of the printed papers.

So happy to have used a paper that at first look, I thought I'd be putting into my stash rather than using!

The moral of this story...don't give up right way on what might be a difficult paper to use.  Take another look at it to see what doesn't work for you.  Try the "B" side, check out the kit club's blog to see how their design team used the paper.  And, while you might not fully use their idea, it may inspire a method for using that problem paper.

Now to use that "other" piece...

Cheryl