Toning down the neon

I have to admit I struggle with neon. I reckon I wore too much of it in the 80's to appreciate it again now. But I hated having that big sheet in the kit and not using it so gave myself a challenge to think creatively.

When I saw the Creative Journal and Pocket Diary kits I realised that the colours would go well with a fun photo I had ready to scrap.

I covered the backing cardstock with two different distress inks, then took out an 8" square from the middle which I was going to use for my title (but didn't!) I cut the green Basic Grey paper down to 11 1/2" per side and inked and distressed the edges.
Then I took some gesso and smeared it over some of the neon cardstock, making sure I kept it quite rough and textured and leaving some hints of the bright colour still visible. When it was dry I used a tree bark mask and sponged the distress inks over the top. I tore the paper and inked the edges and voila - neon I feel comfortable using

I built up layers behind my photo using thin strips of paper (including the bits left over from trimming down the green paper), some of the ribbons and the multi coloured twine. I made sure that I did not add adhesive right to the edge so that I could tuck more things in.

The title was going to be in cream but when I saw that these speech bubbles were the perfect match in terms of colour, I added more of the Project Life alphabet instead.

A few days before I had made a card and had put little dots of liquid pearls onto washi tape. It turns out that when they dry, they do not stick to washi tape and all fell off. But I kept them (why? who knows!) and they filled in a space I didn't like on one of the speech bubbles. Apparently you can get some matte glossy accents which means that your glue overloads are not so visible. I think I had better buy some! (but actually you can't see as much glue in reality)