A few fun techniques.

I've spent the last week playing, off and on, with this layout of our new pet, Quill. I thought I'd take pictures while I was playing so I could show you what I did.

1. First I'll show you the frame I cut out for my main photo. This is fun and easy and totally unique to you. Flip the paper over to the backside, place your photo in the middle of it for the size, and draw a frame. I drew wonky scallops. Next time I think I'll try points or brackets might like kind of neat.

You can see I pretty much freehand cut it ~ didn't even follow my lines.

Here it is when I flipped it over to the right side.
Oops. I should have cut off the manufacturers strip before cutting. I'm not worried. I'll cover any white spots with embellishments.

And here's our cute Quill matted on his fun frame.

2. For my title I started with bare chipboard. This alpha is one by Maya Roads. I found a scripty stamp in my stash, my favourite ink (Pinecone by Tsukineko) and gold Glimmer Mist.

I stamped my images randomly across the letters.

Then I sprayed them with gold Glimmer Mist. When you shake your Glimmer Mist bottle up make sure you don't shake too hard. Follow this link to see a video tutorial on how to use Glimmer Mist.

As a final step I ran my pinecone inkpad around the edges of the letters.

3. My last technique is a money saver. Who doesn't like that?
You know the backing you pull off the self adhesive embellishments? You can use that as an embellishment too. So don't toss it in the garbage. Save it. I used the backing from Prima's brown felt branch on this layout. I sprayed it with green Maya Mist and then turquoise Glimmer Mist.
It curls when it's wet, so I put it under my cutting mat for a while before glueing it to my page.

Here's the finished layout with all my fun pieces. Take a closer look at my layout next time you're in the store. Photos don't always show to the best advantage.
And if you try any of these tips be sure to let us see.