A Different Look

Believe it or not, this page was crafted using the same Scraptastic kit that produced the layout in yesterday's blog post. I love the very different looks I can get with one kit. Here I left out everything that had red in it (even cutting the My Mind's Eye plaid so that the red stripe was absent). The result is a very calming color scheme and perfect for these beach pics of my youngest son. The candid photo on top tickles me. After a wet morning in the gulf, he's probably licking the salt off his lips!

As you can see, I'm still having fun with banners. This time I combined tickets cut from the patterned paper with various banner shapes and adhered them to baker's twine before attaching to the page.

Yes, now I'm remembering that white sand, clear water, salt air, and the sound of the surf. Is it only April? Summer is too far away!

Layered Paper Flowers

Every one of Scraptastic's Great Adventure kits include several shapes from an October Afternoon Sasparilla "flower sack" pack. There are stars, circles and flower shapes in complimentary patterns and colors. The fact that they come in different sizes makes them great for piling on top of each other to create a layered embellishment. Layer three or more shapes, in succeedingly smaller sizes, one on top the other. Finish off with a button or brad and you have a layered paper flower!

Before layering the papers for the flower on my page, I inked then slightly and curled the edges of the two bottom layers. This helped the papers to stand out against each other and gave my flower added dimension. After adhering my flower layers to each other, I punched holes corresponding to those on the button, threaded and tied it on with a bit of twine.

These kinds of flowers are a favorite of mine because they are fun, whimsical, and not too girly for boy layouts. My particular shapes were already cut, but they could be made to match any project from patterned papers you have on hand. I love do-it-yourself embellishments!

Ride 'Em Cowboy

I love how certain companies repeat the same colors over and over in their various collections. It makes it so easy to combine papers on a layout...like the one below. That green on the border page is identical to the green in the Sasparilla collection and both are from October Afternoon. This was particularly fortuitous since I was getting low on my Sasparilla papers and with my patterned paper obsession, couldn't imagine using regular (gasp!) cardstock to border my page. It's a little busy, but I like it like that!

 

Several stickers and the brown leather patterned paper are courtesy of my stash, holdouts from an old Flair collection. Love how they combine as well!

 

Hopefully the page is so fun and colorful you don't notice that the horse's head is missing! I was in the backyard with the rest of the kids, probably taking pictures of something else, and missed Kevin's pony ride. I didn't get pictures of him on the horse, and was thankful that someone else had taken a few photos for me. Unfortunately none of them had much of the horse in them!Tee-hee.

Be Jealous!

Every year around this time, Louisiana strawberries are in season, and boy are they delicious! Sorry California...yours might be bigger, but these are so juicy, flavorful and sweet. They really are the best! My husband brought this box back from Pontchatoula, home of the Louisiana Strawberry Festival. Yeah, he's the best too. These ripe berries were picked that very morning.

 A couple of years ago I bought a scrapbook paper collection that included strawberries in some of the prints. I hoped to create a layout about all the yummy things we do with these strawberries: delectable in strawberry shortcake, fresh with a sprinkling of sugar, and delicious in smoothies. But every year I get busy washing and preparing them, freezing some for smoothies, etc. and before you know it they're gone. And then I realize I haven't taken a picture of the berries or a single smoothie! This time as soon as these babies entered the house, I got out my camera.

 

OK kids, now you can eat them.

Memory Collector

I fell in love with the American Crafts Dear Lizzy collection, but was worried that I'd have nothing to scrap with the pretty pastels. Most of my photos were boys, travel, beach, anything but girly. I'm always behind the camera and rarely in front! But I had forgotten about this silly little picture, taken in a mirror a couple of years ago. There it was, sitting in an envelope, waiting for these very papers.

  

Somewhat addicted to the cute mason jars printed on one of the patterned papers, I had already used one on a previous layout to "hold" confetti. Still I couldn't resist using another one of those adorable jars. This time it holds my little title, my very tiny title. I had no other letters that looked right, and these old Basic Grey stickers were the perfect color, if but a bit small. I think it works.

 

Girly colors, flowery papers, and even bling! I was using everything pretty on this utterly feminine page, and had a nice pastel colored ribbon that was begging to be put to use. But where and how? In the end I decided to try my hand at a ribbon "yo-yo" and it wasn't as difficult as I imagined. I had no idea how much ribbon was needed so I cut a rather long piece and began stitching along one side gathering it up as I went. The ribbon curled up naturally and when it began to turn back upon itself, I added a few more stitches, cut the ribbon, and stitched the pieces together. Easy-peasy! I think I've found another use for my ribbon stash!

So now I've scrapped a prom pic and one of myself with these gorgeous papers. What can I do next?

In The Zone

Whew...I've been in the zone lately...completely focused on the funtastic papers in Scraptastic's April kit, Great Adventures. So far I've completed three pages and am amazed at the different looks that can be created from one coordinated kit. The page I am featuring today, Zone Team, uses a cool chevron paper from American Crafts. I cut out a couple of zig-zag chevron strips and separated them from each other with a carefully spaced row of vertical cardstock strips on which I placed my title. Wow! Instead of getting lost in all that color, those letters really pop!

Everything on the page (except for the addition of a swimming brad) is from the April kit. Remember that little hole I punched in the red cardstock (see yesterday's post)? It's completely covered up.

Here's a little trick that I do to make ordinary stickers look more dimensional. I like to layer them, but first I back each sticker with cardstock cut slightly smaller than the original. I arrange them overlapping here and there and use pop dots to lift some up over others for even more dimension. I love the layered look, and with the plethora of stickers in the American Crafts' Remarks sticker book that came with this Scraptastic kit, you can layer to your heart's content.

How do you use stickers on your projects?

A Hoarder's Show Featuring Craft Rooms!

That's my prediction for 2015! Can you just imagine?!

Check this out! See if you recognize the realistic prediction amid the silly, funny, and far-fetched ones: I Predict!

It seemed unthinkable ten years ago, but is now very much within reach. Can this be the beginning of the end? Will you help?

And about that Hoarder's Show. It might just be a feasible idea! What do you think?