Creative Forum Discussion: Week of July 6-12!

[stefdesign]

Welcome to this week's creative scrapping discussion! This is a place where we can talk about the process of scrapbooking, and share ideas, layouts, suggestions and support. Please note that this is a commercial-free zone. Please do not link or share stores, kits, or websites to promote the purchase of any product. Links to tutorials or helps are welcome, but if they require a subscription or purchase, then they are a no-no.

Feel free to link to a layout, or insert an image. Remember that links take people elsewhere, and sometimes it's hard to get them back, so inserting your images is preferred.

Let's be kind and supportive, but if help is requested, let's share generously. Opinions valued!

[stefdesign]

This week's discussion is one about technique, and the technique I've chosen is GRUNGE! So, do you grunge up your layouts? If you like to add a little worn, weathered or messy look to your otherwise pristine embellishments and photos, how do you do it? With overlays? Brushes? Pre-grunged elements? Do you use the burn tool? Photo filters? Blending modes? I'd love to see the different ways you choose to give your layouts a bit of added dirt, grime, grunge, rust, weathering, or mess. I think it will be fun also, to see the types of layouts you choose to grunge up... are your layouts specifically about something old, weathered or messy? Or is it for your 'boy' layouts? Or do you choose this technique for heritage layouts, or, just for fun?

Please take a minute to tell what is grungy, how you achieved the look, and why you chose to add some grunginess to your layout(s).

For those who never add anything slightly messy or dirty to your layouts, maybe it would be fun to see what you could do with a grungy challenge!

[stefdesign]

I use several techniques to achieve a grungy look on my layouts, I'll ad a couple here.

For the layout below, I used blending modes & darkening techniques to blend & grunge up the background city silhouette. I blended a photo of some rusty stairs in with the cityscape to give it a grubby look. The title was "Gritty City, Pretty City", so I wanted to contrast the beautiful trees, plants and flowers with the more rough looking buildings.



I used the layout below on last week's challenge, but I thought it worked for this: I simply used a photo of some old, rusty metal to mimic the look of the worn, vintage train engine, to create frames & rivets.



For this layout, I created a black vignette, then used a brush as an eraser (using a brush I made from some dry brush strokes) to 'rough up' the edges of the vignette, to give it an aged look:

[wanda]

You do grunge so well, Stef! I don't do grunge at all.
I am not good enough with PSE to do it. I am terrible with blend modes and overlays, not very good with brushes, etc etc.

[TracyMHunt]

I don't do Grunge often but I really admire the look of other scrappers who do. Here's one that I did using masks to blend the multiple photos and grungy papers as overlays. Also a lot of fiddling with the blending styles in PSE.



This guy was pretty grungy or I guess Full of Character would be a nicer thing to say.


the corrugated background is a paper I placed on top then erased from his face.

On this next one I did a little grunging on the photo because it was not the best quality to begin with but I really wanted to tell the story.



I guess I grunge more than I thought I did.

Fun thread. I'm looking forward to seeing other's.

[stefdesign]

I love your examples, Tracy! Each one is so unique! I really love the old musician one- what a character!

How did you create the grunged look on the last one? Is it an overlay?

[DeannaJ]

Stef, yours are marvelous--especially the American one. Very lovely.
Tracy loved the old gentleman best!!

When I was a paper scrapper, I used a lot of grunge--ink, sprays, glitter splotches. wrinkled and inked backgrounds. So with that in my background, I do use grunge a bit in my digi, but not as much as with paper. (or as some would call it--REAL Scrapbooking) hehe!! hate that when I hear it!!

I mainly use grungy looking papers already done up for me from a kit. Torn looking papers, wrinkled looking papers, brushes behind my photos--coffee stains brushes--
Sometimes I change the color by using the brushes as a clipping mask with a paper. That is about as crafty as I get. I should really learn to use pse tools more than I do. I put some textures on something a few times to make it look grungy, but can't find it here in this gallery. I don't put everything here as the gallery has a 5 per day limit--and some days (even though I don't scrap 5 pages a day, I'll have more CT pages that I do during the week that has to be posted on a certain day) So not all of them get here. This one is a combination of a paper that started out grungy and a brush behind the photo. It was supposed to give the illusion of her blowing the dandelion fluffs all over the place.

I guess this one really isn't grunge--but I used the net element and the splashes to grunge the background a bit and add to the watery feeling of the layout.

for this one I clipped the photo to a mask and also used stain to circle to highlight the journaling, and some grungy painty brushes in the background of this BOY layout! These boys usually provide their own grunge!!--love them!!

I don't usually use WHITE SPACE layouts--with the one tiny photo--but I wanted her smile to be the focus of the layout. I used a happy colorful brush in the background, but the paper is a little grungy and has some creases in it.

This one was a grungy looking background that I also added more brushes to it.

I grunged this one up from the middle!!

[TracyMHunt]

Originally Posted by stefdesign

I love your examples, Tracy! Each one is so unique! I really love the old musician one- what a character!

How did you create the grunged look on the last one? Is it an overlay?

Thanks Stef I really loved that old guy too and the fact that I was so bold with my camera around my neck! In the last layout I used a BG paper from that kit as an over lay. I do that a lot just by playing with the layer styles and the opacity.


Deanna**** I love that crop of the boys shoes in your masked photo! OMG I really love the unique prospective!

[AliSarah]

I don't grunge... I do design with a little bit of grunge, but it seems that once the paper is done, that's the end of my work with grunge...

** Challenge Accepted!! **

I will grunge something! I just have no idea what yet, lol...

Huggles!!
~Sarah~

[stefdesign]

AliSarah- cant wait to see what you come up with for your grungy challenge!