Authentique–True Grit

I’m so excited to work with Authentique and Helmar USA together.   I absolutely love Authentique’s paper collections and the fact that they have coordinating tags and journal strips as well as alphabets and mini words.  I journal with mini words all the time and these are probably my favorite.

I chose to use the Journey Collection for this layout for my Helmar USA Design Team post today.  It was not only the perfect color, but had some great tags and journaling strips that were perfectly made for my subject.   My hubby competes in the North American Strongman Competitions and this was a great picture I took of his trainer, Tony Montgomery.   I love this picture because I happened to catch it at the perfect time and in the perfect light.  You can see the determination in his face.  This was part of the Atlas Stones lift.   This concrete stone weighted 390 lb and yes, he did lift this and place it on the stone loader.   I love watching these guys give it their all at the competitions.

When I saw this lovely brushed swirl on this paper, I knew right away that I wanted to play with Helmar Textured Effects on this.   I used a fan brush and bushed this directly on the paper and then let it dry. 

I love how it maintains each brush stroke.   You can also mix this with another paint, ink, glitter, mist, etc, but I kept it plain.  I only wanted a slight sheen and the look of brush strokes on the paper without changing anything of the design itself.

I tried to take the picture so that you could see all the bush strokes.   It really adds that extra something to the whole layout when you can see it in person.

I used Helmar Acid Free Glue along with various sizes and shapes of Helmar Zap Dots to put this whole page together and give layers of dimension.  They come in round and square at 1/4” and 1/2”, and in white, black, or even clear.  I used all on this layout.  Finally, the layout was finished off with a little Black Soot distress ink  around the entire page edge. 

PS.   Here’s a little tip that many of you know, but it might be a light bulb moment for some of you.  Don’t discard the punch-out waste from your ZapDots.   Save them and cut them with scissors and use the pieces.   They are usually hidden anyway and no one would know.   Here you can see I cut off a strip to use on the edges and a piece in the middle.  If you use dimensional adhesive behind a larger piece, don’t forget to add some to the center too, if now, your piece might sag just a bit in the center sometimes.  

If you haven’t worked with any of the papers from Authentique, you really should see the gorgeous papers and color collections they have.   The Helmar USA Team has some amazing projects ready for you this week.   And, if you haven’t tried, Helmar Textured Effects, you truly should.   It is a fun medium to play with.