It's a Kaleidoscope of Color with Vicki Boutin!

Hello Magpies, Rachel here and I am working with the amazing Color Kaleidoscope collection by Vicki Boutin. And what a collection it is, I am IN LOVE! It’s colourful and oh so usable. I was just randomly picking photos out of my photo storage to scrap and it’s working with all of them. I have pretty much ordered the whole collection, the only things I didn’t order were the washi tapes and the stencils. Everything else I have and I love. My favourite pieces are the Mixed Media Backgrounds Paper Pad which I will talk about a bit further on and the Phrase & Icon Puffy Thickers cause they’re so cool! But it’s all awesome, I am totally loving this collection, it’s all fabulous! Grab yourself a cuppa and settle down for a good read today, I have a lot to say about this amazing Color Kaleidoscope collection!
I started work by trying to use some of the background papers to do layouts on. Well, if I’m totally honest, I got my box of stash from Hey Little Magpie and immediately threw together a simple LO on one of the Background Papers. They’re so easy to use! But I decided I should use some of the awesome papers as well cause I am very good at doing white and black cardstock backgrounds and these papers are all so lush, I had to use some. I also need to say here, the single papers and the papers in the 12×12 Paper Pad are exactly the same. I put them side by side and there is absolutely no difference in colours at all. I have been disappointed in some of the 12×12 paper pads in the past, they don’t come up as bright and colourful as buying the single sheets of paper so I generally avoid them. But I took a punt this time and bought extras of my favourite papers as singles and honestly, they are exactly the same and I am not disappointed at all.
So I picked the Kaleidoscope Paper to use first and I really surprised myself. I am not a big patterned paper background kinda girl but I loved all 3 layouts I made using full pattern backgrounds! This paper is so lush, so colourful, it’s very me so I did a LO about me. I also made a small border from black cardstock and then decided to go all out and copy the colours in the paper with Nuvo Crystal Drops around the edge. I tried to match the colour of the paper, beside each colour and used various colours of Nuvos. If you would like to know any of the specific colours, or any other questions about anything on the blog, please ask on our FB Chat & Inspiration Group. We have had to turn comments off here on the blog because of overwhelming spam messages but feel free to pop on the group and post any questions for the DT there, we’re always around to answer.
Next I just layered up things from the various embellishment packs around my photo. I was inspired by the Sticker Book to make a little banner of various bits from the 6×12″ Accent Stickers, the Frames & Ephemera Journalling Die-Cuts and then dotted around some of the silver stars from the Phrase & Icons Chipboard Thickers. My title uses the word big from the Phrase & Icons Puffy Thickers pack and then the word smile is from Jen Hadfield, Along the Way Gold Foam Phrase Thickers.

I’m sharing close up photos this month in case you can’t see all the little details in the main photo. I used foam pads on some of the stickers to raise them up and give them dimension and the little yellow ‘yay’ circle is from the Puffy Stickers pack and they are very usable and cool, some of them are embossed! The black and white striped long banner is in the Frames & Journalling Ephemera Die-Cuts pack and I loved it so much, I traced it on to some similar black & white striped paper and cut out my own. So I have used that over and over again. I love the ‘the best thing about memories is making them sticker’, that is on the 6×12″ Sticker Sheet and I’m sure I could use that over and over again!


Next I chose to use the Chasing Rainbows paper, another super colourful one. I paired it with an old postcard of Auckland I have had for many years. I couldn’t resist the packaging from the Icons Ephemera Die-Cuts pack and used that behind my photo, it’s the piece with florals at the bottom and the yellow dots at the top! I also used various strips I had hanging around, another black and white striped banner I cut myself from the one in the Journalling & Ephemera Die-Cuts pack and various other bits and pieces from that pack too. A couple of bits from the Chipboard Thickers pack, some of the 6×12 Stickers and the woodgrain arrow circle is from the Puffy Stickers pack, it’s embossed, it’s so cool! My title uses some super old Thickers and also the ‘colorful’ word from the Puffy Thickers pack, I know it’s spelt in the American way but it doesn’t bother me too much. I also added a black and white striped border which is a very old Maggie Holmes paper from years ago, I loved it as a border so much I bought like 20 sheets of it and have been hoarding it! That’s what I cut a lot of my black & white banners from, the gutted middles after I’ve made borders with the paper!

I saw a video of Vicki Boutin introducing her collection and she said she had made the front sheet from the stickers to show how we could build them up in clusters. So I built up a cluster of horizontal banners across my page with strips and things.


This next layout, I am not kidding you, I threw it together in like 30 minutes tops! This collection works so well for any photo, seriously! I was just grabbing any photo out of my photo box and I could make it work no problem. This random photo of cherry blossom worked perfectly on the Look Up paper. I layered some of the bits and bobs from the Frames & Journalling Ephemera pack around and tucked little tags and banners behind the photo. The amazing silver & black arrow and the flag banner above the photo are from the Chipboard Thickers and the title is from the Puffy Thickers. I added one of the stickers from the Sticker Book at the top, some of the 6×12″ Stickers and Puffy Stickers too.

Look how well the ‘make good use of today’ from the Chipboard Thickers pack, fits on top of the kraft banner with the white outline, which is from the Frames & Journalling Ephemera Die-Cuts pack. This whole collection has been so well thought out by Vicki Boutin and it all fits together so well. I can not praise her enough, thank you for such a wonderful collection Vicki!


Ok, so now I’m going to talk about my favourite piece in this Color Kaleidoscope collection, the 12×12″ Mixed Media Backgrounds Paper Pad, I LOVE IT! Seriously, it’s the best thing ever in my book. I will do many more layouts using the backgrounds for my second blog post in March which is on the 16th. But here’s one for a taster this month cause I had to talk about the pad. Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s not a paper pad at all, it’s very cool  textured cardstock with the mixed media backgrounds that Vicki Boutin created herself, printed on there. They look so realistic it’s not funny. They’re so easy to use as well, just throw some stuff on and it’s done. I can’t recommend the Backgrounds Pad highly enough, there’s 3 sheets of each background in the pad so you don’t have to be shy in using them, you have 2 more! And if you don’t want 3 of each you could always split the cost with friends and have a sheet of each pattern.
So I started with a sheet of the Backgrounds Pad here and turned it upside down cause I’m a rebel like that. After all, I have 2 more sheets of this pattern to use the other way around right! I layered up some bits from the ephemera packs and the title is from the Puffy Thickers pack. Then I used various other stickers and puffy stickers and I was done. It came together so quickly, as have all the layouts I’ve done on the backgrounds, I love them so much!

Look at those cute little chipboard words and the lush striped arrow as well as that super cute yellow circle with pink heart, they’re all from the Chipboard Thickers pack and the cute camera, bird and floral stickers from the 6×12″ Sticker sheet. And the black circle frame is from the Frames & Journalling Ephemera pack


Then there’s the Color Kaleidoscope Watercolour Markers. I had to have those too. I know they’re a bit on the spendy side but I reached a weightloss goal and decided to treat myself to them, I thought I deserved them! They are a dye based marker and Vicki Boutin has done a couple of videos on her FB groups to show how to use them and they’re worth having a look at. I have been trying a few techniques and I am hoping I will come up with some more layouts using them for my second post this month but I don’t want to promise anything!
I had an idea to make this background while lying in bed one night. I wanted to fussy cut the hearts from the Paper Hearts paper and have the same colours as the hearts, behind them. So I set about masking off areas with washi tape and using my markers to make stripes. I did this one first and it got quite messy, I had fingerprints everywhere and I messed up my colour order by mistake too.

So I did a second page and was much tidier this time and got my colours right. So I cut out some hearts and put them where I had envisigned and yeah, that didn’t work as well as I expected! So I flagged the hearts and ended up using some of them on a page I’ll share on the 16th.

Once I had my background done, I didn’t want to add too much to it and cover it, so I didn’t! I built my title up from old Thickers and then cut an arrow out of striped paper and layered the green puffy arrow from the Puffy Thickers pack. I used a couple of pieces from the Chipboard Thickers and some of the Puffy Stickers too.

I am very glad I got the Watercolour Markers, they are so bright and vivid and look amazing! I did try using them to stamp on one of the sheets from the Backgrounds Pad and that wasn’t as successful for me. But using them on some of the Vicki Boutin 12×12 Foundations Mixed Media Paper which I had applied Gesso to, works perfectly and produces the lovely water spots when you drizzle water over the top. I am hoping to get some more time to experiment more and I shall share anything else I come up with on the 16th.

 
I can’t praise Vicki Boutin and her Color Kaleidoscope collection enough, it’s so lush, colourful and just usable for all sorts of photos. I am so in love and will be stockpiling a lot of this to use in the years to come, I LOVE IT! See you again on the 16th Magpies, have a great month!

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