Predictably rash…

Months ago when Shopkeeper Gal announced that she was having to close my nearest bricks and mortar craft shop, I sort of went into stocking up mode. It wasn’t a panic per se, but I do like to see and touch before I buy, so I was buying small wedges of 12x12 papers, especially the plain colours, at every visit. I also bought some quite grungy paper designs too. A whole pad of brick backgrounds, 2 each of 12 designs..who know there were so many brick types/colours! And a whole pad of weathered wooden board backgrounds.  These pads were probably a rash purchase. OK, they were a rash purchase. I have pulled both out to hold a photo against one or other design about a kerjillion times whilst prepping for crops, and each time have frightened myself with its -  well, ‘there-ness’. It’s very in your face isn’t it, a brick wall or a sanded floor!

I really had to force myself to start using them, after all, I’ve got enough paper to last until my untimely death at about 110 years old, and despite the fear of them, I must have brought them with the intention of using them, huh! So I started easy, with these chibi pictures rather than real life. Helped a bit, I must say. I grunged them a little bit with black ink and stamps and put scruffy embellishments on. One page down. And so, now to the floors…

Scary again if you ask me. Thank goodness for that part of my brain that, as I’ve mounted the photo and rearranged it a thousand times makes me get sick of myself and the dithering, so then I can reach for a few scraps and make it happen. I can’t say make it work, because many will think it doesn’t, but it’s all a bit subjective isn’t it, this cutting and sticking game.

So now each pad only has 23 sheets in, and I’ve broken the spell of being scared. Except that I made these layouts last October and if they didn’t have a lid on the box, the pads would be dusty……I may resort to taking photos of strange things that might deliberately go on such backgrounds. Yeah right, just as I managed to get Mr Dunnit and Miss Dunnit to co-ordinate their clothes colours when we were on holidays and looking particularly photogenic!