Introducing…Camp Stoneybrook!

Love nature? Feel more at home in the great outdoors than trapped inside the house on a rainy day? Enjoy getting down and dirty during camping trips and enjoying the fresh mountain air during hiking adventures?

Then we bet you’re looking at our newest digi collection and drooling over the laidback, all-natural outdoorsy colours and delectable co-ordinating holiday-imspired elements!

And while Camp Stoneybrook is obviously perfect for camping photos and pics from your most recent getaway, some members of our digital CT have used the collection in an entirely different way to demonstrate other outdoor adventures.

Chrissy’s animated Camp Stoneybrook layout is the perfect example of how simple techniques can be used to produce a very enticing and effective layout.

She simply created a duplicate of the photo, which shows her daughter, Amy, and Amy’s best friend, Rebecca, wandering through a field, and changed the blending mode of the lower one to soft light.

She used the magnetic lassoo tool on the upper photo to extract the girls and the path from the image, then added stitching and a brad in the top right-hand corner to depict a shining sun looking down on the girls.

It makes us think of Dorothy on the yellow brick road in “The Wizard of Oz”, with Amy and Rebecca walking on a path surrounded by shadowy trees and fields. We really like the way Chrissy has used Photoshop to make the path “pop” off the page and become the focus of the layout, while using brushes and journaling to detail the story and provide some interest to the distant background. How very cute AND creative!

In the minimalist category, we don’t think Katharyn can be beat – her very simple layout uses plenty of Camp Stoneybrook’s cutesy brushes to highlight the natural aspect of her layout.

Kathryn said she loves the textures in the collection’s mega kit, which remind her of all the outdoor activities her family enjoys, so she wanted to create the same rough and textural feel in her layout by using each element haphazardly.

“I did this by stamping off-centre in my little square grids, using messy stitching and not quite lining my photos up with the cut pieces of patterned paper,” she said.

“I copied the boxes, erased the words inside them and replaced them with various brushes from the kit.

“I’m really happy with the green textured paper so I made sure to feature it in a big way. It makes me want to reach out and feel it, just like we were touching and feeling bugs and grubs and dried leaves on this day that we walked around the lake together. Of course, there were a few quarrels and squeals along the way, so my journalling reflects that too – got to keep it real!”

We have to say, we’re digging the green paper too, as well as the wonky stitching and the splash of blue between photos – this layout really does have a rough-and-ready feel about it and we, for one, think that’s a good thing in this instance!

We’ll be bringing you more of the CT’s Camp Stoneybrook layouts on Wednesday, so keep an eye out for more fun layouts and another batch of happy holiday photos!