Travel Memories with Mintay Papers

Have you had the chance to get your scrappy hands on a Mintay Papers collections lately? Wow, they are amazing! I am playing with the Mintay Papers, Places We Go collection Scrap Shotz sent me and loving it! 

Let’s show off the Mintay Papers goodness here a little and see how long it takes you to pop over to the Scrap Shotz shop for some Mintay of your own.

Use Circles to Create Focus

Right out of the package, I was drawn to this fantastic brick wall background first – does it have anything to do with my father being a bricklayer? Maybe. I knew with such a bold background I would have to create a design that helped bring focus to my photos. This is where circles can do the work for you.

I cut 4 large circle outlines about 10 inches wide, 2 in white to pop a little and 2 in another pattern from the collection. I placed these centre stage on the page, then used the circles not only to bring focus to the centre where my photos would be but also as an anchor. Any other embellishments, photos, etc. could all be placed along the circle.

I focused on a large photo with a smaller to compliment. I backed both in white to match the white circle, added a few layers of coordinator pattern paper behind and popped them up on foam dots. From there I add a few die cuts to the left and the right of the photos. Inspired by the circles, I tucked in that fantastic chippies globe on the left. For balance I added a couple of chippies words on the right as my title. 

Finally for the ‘design rule of three’ I added a small die cut with chippies cluster at the top right. 

To finish it off I added made some “enamel dots” using Nuvo Crystal Drops. HOW TO: a tiny little drop from the bottle on the page. When it looks like a soft ice cream cone shape do not worry. Gently pick up the page and flick the underside where the dot is with your finger – it will flatten out. The bigger the dot you drop then flick, the larger your “enamel dot” will be. Do I have Nuvo Crystal Drops in EVERY colour for this reason, oh yes I do.

Use Triangles to Create Focus

Another design I go for quite often to create focus is a triangle.

HOW TO: Simply take a background paper and cut it into a large triangle. Then you either put it on the top of the page to point down to your photos OR on the bottom to point up to your photos. Often I will use the ‘from the top’ look when it’s a picture of people, but the ‘from the bottom’ when its landscape, hiking, mountains, etc. I also usually cover the point of the triangle, sometimes make it a little off centre and use a multi layered triangle to show off more patterns. Also, if you have a really busy background paper a plainer patterned triangle can calm down the page (like I did here) OR if you have a really plain background and busy pattern triangle can add some pizazz!

For my background, I reached for that amazing floral pattern which is a little busy so I created my triangles use the simpler patterns in the collection. The point is a little off centre and I used 2 layers – seems I was looking for anyway to use that brick wall paper again. 

Once the triangle was on the page, I added my photo first backed with white paper then some patterns from the collection and popped up on foam dots. Then it was just a matter of tucking and layering the die cuts from the collection to the left and right of the photo, and I dropped in a few of the chipboards as well. Similar to the page above, I added some Nuvo Crystal Drop “enamel dots”. Voila.

I will be back to share a few more pages from this collection! If you want to see these and the additional pages I am finishing off on my scrappy desk come to life, we will be featuring some Reels on the Scrap Shotz Instagram.

Thanks for popping by … see you over in the Mintay Papers section of the shop ;)