This week we take a look at the thoroughly talented Kathie Link. She is one of those artists whose work is difficult to pigeon-hole into a satisfactory label, in the end we settled on ‘Playful’. Last week we saw Janine bringing ‘shabby chic’ into a new scrapbooking decade (and we’ll be sharing your entries soon!), so paper-piecing often has a tacky, dated connotation. The paper piecing creations that Kathie produces however, are fun, imaginative and contemporary. Her combination of pre-made and hand-cut elements creates a playful style that is truly her own.
We would love you to join in and emulate Kathie’s fabulous style – email your ‘playful’ layouts to [email protected] by next Wednesday 11th May for a chance to win a prize pack full of playful goodies!
Read on for more of an insight into her wonderful style – and take the challenge – see how ‘playful’ you can be!
Kathie’s style is probably best described as Playful. Her layouts burst with colour and fun. Often they’re whimsical. Sometimes they’re scenic. Quirky elements dance across her pages. Kathie chooses the elements on her page carefully to assist the message she seeks to convey. She frequently employs paper piecing techniques to make unique accents or scenes that relate to the story she’s telling.
In her layout “So Silly”, a rainbow of bright colours from BasicGrey’s Life of the Party range flash across the page to create an instant feeling of playfulness. (Of course, the sense of play is assisted greatly by the fact that her subject is a delightfully mischievous five year old boy wearing a Spiderman top and wearing a play doctor’s kit on his head!)
Playfulness here is achieved by allowing the embellishments to dance across and amongst Kathie’s photos. And Kathie employs a favourite trick to inject even more fun into the page – she throws in the unexpected.... such as the monsters from Sassafras’s Monstrosity line that play hide and seek around the BasicGrey elements.
Kathie’s next layout “Trains” is a more subdued example of playfulness. Here, she’s employed whimsical imagery to convey a sense of fun. There are many scrapbooking products these days that incorporate delightful imagery in all manner of themes. In this layout Kathie used Crate Paper’s Neighbourhood collection which contains gorgeous chipboard embellishments.
Floating clouds and pennant banners fluttering in the breeze work beautifully to create a sense of play. So do delightful little gelato coloured townhouses, trees with striped trunks, and cute picket fences. The scene that Kathie pieces together continues the cute country railway image from her focal photo off onto the page.
Another scrapper who excels at designing playful pages is Kaori Watanabe, from Hokkaido in Northern Japan. Kaori has a talent for designing layouts that are totally playful whilst being superbly elegant. We are so excited to have Kaori join in with us and share two of her gorgeous layouts this week.
Kaori’s layout “Your Smile” features her signature style of threading her elements across the page in a delightfully carefree manner. They seem almost unconstrained as they dance across the page. The use of a kraft background and the large stencilled numbers allow her play freely with floral elements and butterflies on this boy’s page, without it ever in danger of becoming overly feminine.
In her layout “Delight”, Kaori demonstrates her mastery with mists and stencils to create a colourful background for her page. Her playful style shows up in the fun smattering of petals across the page, the sewn butterfly trail, and even the way her title dances off towards the edge of the page.
The Playful scrapbooking style is fun and carefree. It can be whimsical. It can be cute. It can even be elegant, as Kaori demonstrates here. Butterflies, clouds, pennant banners, grasses and trees, houses and fences all work wonderfully on layouts with a playful style. Allow the elements to dance across the page and give a sense of movement. Create little scenes with them. Be mischievous and add a touch of the unexpected.
