Paper Amour

Fun with 'Seed Stems'

I am a scrapbooker.

Which means I may own some stamps. Because lots of scrapbook stores carry stamps, and they're pretty.

But do not let my possession of stamps or stamping paraphenalia fool you.

I am NOT a stamper.

So when I get a box of goodies from Memory Box and it includes stamps, I'm always both thrilled and intimidated.

• Thrilled because I love new supplies - and I love Dave's designs - and who couldn't love birds and lions and penguins and flowers and clear sets and wood mounts?
• Intimidated because stamping is REALLY not my strong suit - and I know Dave wants me to DO something with all the goodies he sends.

Imagine my surprise then, when I pulled out the "Seed Stems" clear set and started playing.

This is one REALLY fun set of stamps. The possibilities are nearly endless as you combine layers and stamp little images over big ones and add stems and leaves...

I can tell this is going to be one of my all time favorite sets.

Here are a few of the things I made in just one short sitting...

 

 

Oh yeah - this is a new favorite for sure...

"Love this man" layout

Somewhere, at some point in my life, I saw a scrapbook page with an accordion folded heart border.

It was charming and sweet and had that wonderful handmade quality I find so inviting.

So I decided to copy it. And I had the perfect picture to use - one taken of my husband and I a little over a year ago on an outing to the park.

I grabbed some papers that coordinated with my photo - Brandywine 12 x 12 Picnic Basket and some matching 8 1/2 x 11 solids...

I began by cutting a 2 x 10" strip of Paprika, then scoring it every two inches.

(As always, click on each photo to see a larger view...)

 After scoring, I accordion folded the strip and drew a heart on the white side. I carefully cut around the heart, leaving the folded edges intact.

And when I unfolded it, I had my heart border!

Next I played with the solid papers to find the best mat colors...

and then once the mats were cut, I started looking at the overall design of the page.

I decided the straight edges were a little too harsh (no surprise there, given my affection for scallops!)

So out came the scissors and I freehand cut a rough scallop border on the Picnic Basket print. Notice the penwork as well. I love the rough look of hand-drawn lines...

A little stamping with the Tweet Bird (E1263) and Curly Q (B1241) stamps, a little border of Picnic Basket,a black Bazzill background, and a title and I can almost call this layout done.

I added some ribbons for embellishment and adhered a recent entry from my personal blog about my husband to the back of the layout.

Voila! A very quick layout honoring the love of my life.

Leafy Tree - Spring Card

One of my favorite Sparkly Bird Bonanza images is the leafy tree.

This is a stamp with so much possibility...

This week I was inspired to create a card with this lovely image.

I began by stamping the image on both some white cardstock and a piece from the Glitterati 6 x 6 paper pack.

I very carefully colored in the teeny tiny branches of the tree stamped on white with a Light Walnut Copic marker.

Then I very carefully cut each of the leaves (or sets of leaves) out of the Glitterati paper.

Then I very carefully adhered the leaves to the tree stamped on white.

(Are you sensing a theme here? These teeny tiny, fine lined stamps require a teeny tiny bit of patience and a lot of 'very carefully' - but the end result is so gratifying, it's worth the effort!)

Here's my card.

 Of course I added some Jewels -Grass was the perfect color for my leafy tree.

Although it's hard to view here, I love how the extra layer of paper added with the Glitterati leaves adds just the slightest bit of dimension to the card... it's subtle, but interesting.

I'm going to be using this stamp a ton. Guaranteed.

"Sweet Baby" Woodland Springtime book

I plan to give this book to a friend who just had a baby... along with the book I will include an afternoon of picture taking - hanging out with the new mom and capturing photos of the new life they are sharing as a family. I took lots of pictures when my babies were little, but feel like I missed out on getting good shots of our routine. Baths, snuggling, diapers, feedings... I want to let this new mom relax and just hang out with them for a couple hours. I'll take pictures of it all - and then, she can put her favorites in her book. Now there's a personalized gift!

For the cover, I took the same pattern I used throughout the book - stamped image on a white circle, backed by a solid scalloped circle - and mixed it up just a bit, using a print for the scalloped circle instead of a solid - then mixed it up again for the large title circle, where instead of a stamped image, I filled the space in with letter stickers. I added some jewels and pearls ('cause what's a Memory Box project without those gems?) and tied a bunch of coordinating ribbons to the book rings.

 (Click on the image to make it nice and big!)

And there you have it. A sweet little book full of sweet Memory Box images and papers for a sweet new baby girl.

Have a great weekend!

 

Woodland Springtime book - the inner pages

Since I plan to use this book as a gift, I wanted to keep it simple and not overwhelm the pages with too much embellishment. I see lots of mini-books that are so covered with 'stuff' that there's little to no room for photos or journaling. I don't want my recipient to feel that - so my plan from the beginning for this book was to come up with a simple, classic design that will really highlight the photos that go into the book.

With that in mind - I decided to carry a small strip of each print over to the right side of each layout. I punched each 1" strip with a handy dandy scallop punch (Martha Stewart). Here are the inside pages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love how the scalloped border pulls each layout together.

I'll show you the cover on Friday... it's the final piece to pull the whole book together into one cohesive project.

Which pages are your favorite?

Woodland Springtime and Butterfield - a perfect match!

I'm not a stamper, exactly.

I own lots of stamps, mind you. But I hardly ever pull them off the shelf to use them. I'm intimidated by the perfect images on the lovely wood - knowing that 9 times out of ten, I can never quite get as good an image when I'm the one stamping. And coloring? Oh forget about it... I've even taken classes from Dave trying to learn - but it's something I've never had the time to improve upon, and I'm usually disappointed with my results.

I use the "I'm a scrapbooker, not a stamper" excuse.

But Memory Box sent me some lovely stamps awhile back... and I figured I ought to do something with them. So because I'm a little intimidated by coloring... (as in, terrified) I decided to keep things simple. I wanted to use the Woodland Springtime images in a 6 x 6 book - and I wanted to combine them with the Butterfield 6 x 6 paper pack to make a gift album. I envision this album being perfect for a baby shower - just a sweet little book into which a new mom could tuck pictures of tiny fingers and tiny toes. The Woodland Springtime images are perfect in this application, I think.

I started with a 7 Gypsies Naked Journal Board Book. Then I selected a Memory Box solid paper to coordinate with each of the Butterfield prints I had chosen for the book.

I covered each page of the album with a paper - putting the print on the left side of each two page spread and the solid on the right.

Then it was time to stamp. I used Brilliance Chocolate to stamp each image onto white paper. I had to add a few other Memory Box images to the Woodland Springtime images so I could use a unique stamp on every page of the album.

Once I had everything stamped, I punched each image out with a circle punch, then set the punched circles onto a scallop punched from the solid colors I used in the book.

A braver soul would probably color those darling images. But I know my limitations. =)

Aren't those scalloped circles just the happiest thing ever? Love them. So sweet for a baby book.

So there you have the very humble beginnings... come back Wednesday to see how all the pages come together and how I embellish the book.

And remember, if you're like me and you're intimidated by stamping, you too can use your stamps! We can do this!

Have a lovely Monday.

Rhubarb Tart and making your own letters!

One year for Christmas, my husband wanted to give me cash. (I REALLY wanted cash because I'd lost weight and all my clothes were too big, but I didn't trust him to pick out my clothes for me, truth be told...)

But he prides himself on clever and unusual gifting. His dilemma was around how to present cash in a way that I wouldn't be expecting it... and as usual, he managed to totally surprise me.

So not only did I have a fun story to tell for this scrapbook page, I actually had some decent pictures of myself to put on the page. Since I am the family photographer, this is unusual for me. (Can anyone relate?) But my husband wanted my reaction to my gift, so he handed the camera to my son - and I ended up with cash in my pocket and some photos of myself! Bonus!

For this page, I decided to use the Rhubarb Tart Trellis paper. I get tired of doing Christmas pages in traditional colors and motifs - so while the Trellis paper has reds and greens, it's predominantly a floral that certainly doesn't scream Christmas. For heaven's sake - it doesn't even whisperChristmas! But I knew it would be a great fit for this layout. It will look great in my album next to more traditional Christmas papers without being all covered with candy canes and santas.

I wanted to use the Trellis paper both as a background and as the paper for my hand-cut title. In order to get the most out of my paper (who else hates waste?) I decided to cut the center out of my paper. This way I can use the outside edges as the background and the middle for the letters and once the page is assembled, no one will know!

I wanted a nice 2" frame to work with as my background. To achieve this, I laid the 12 x 12 paper in my trimmer with the left corner lined up at the 10" measurement on the trimmer's ruler. Then, I placed the blade at the 2" measurement on the ruler it slides along.

Then I slid the blade, cutting the paper until I got to the 10" mark, then stopping. Then, I took the paper out and turned it 45 degrees and repeating the same cut on every side. When you've done this four times, the center 8" of the paper will come out and you're left with a perfect 2" frame!

I set the frame aside to use later and took the center. Using a .08 fine tip black marker, I wrote out nice big block letters on the Trellis paper.

I purposefully went over my lines a couple of times. This gives a sketchy, hand-drawn look and makes it clear that I'm not going for perfection here... I want it to look a tad elementary.

I cut out what I could with my detail scissors...

 Then pulled out the cutting mat and exacto blade for the centers.

Now it's time to lay my photos out on the page and play with the overall design.

Here's where I pulled the 2" frame back out. I cut a piece of Hillary Bazzill into a 10 3/4" square and laid that on top of the frame. See how it looks just like there's a whole sheet of Trellis back there behind the Bazzill? It's our secret that the whole inside chunk of that paper just became my letters and my journaling block!

Once all the photos, letters and jounaling block were adhered, I embellished the page with some ribbon and a strip of Rhubarb Tart 'Sugar Rush' paper. I love detail cutting around circle designs to get a scalloped border...

Here's my journaling:

See how I added some sketchy lines around the journaling block and the edge of the Bazzill? It carries that hand-drawn theme through the whole design...

 And the completed page...

Fernbrae Card

As my blog name indicates, I'm a paper lover.

I LOVE to combine papers in projects - and Memory Box makes it so easy with their 6 x 6 paper packs. In each paper pack, you get a beautiful assortment of coordinating papers that makes pulling together a quick card or scrapbook layout SO easy.

Today I pulled out the Fernbrae pack and decided to make a card.

Supplies used:

1 3/8" square punch, 1" flower punch, 1/4" circle punch, Memory Box Paprika and Meadow 8 1/2 x 11" paper, and foam tape.

 I began by punching nine squares from nine different prints and laying them out in a grid.

Then I punched nine flowers out of the same nine prints. I wanted each flower to have a hole in the center, so I punched the hole first with my 1/4" hole punch, then viewed the hole through the back of my flower punch so I could be sure it was centered. This is MUCH easier than punching the flower first and then trying to hold onto it while you center and punch the small hole.

I adhered the squares to a 4 1/2" square of paprika paper, then mounted it to a 5" square card I made from meadow paper.

Originally, I thought maybe I would mix up the prints and put the flowers on a different printed background square...

But after seeing it, I thought perhaps it would look better to keep the flower on it's matching printed square.

Ah yes, I liked that much better.

I mounted each flower to it's square with foam tape. Yes, it's a teeny bit tedious, but worth the effort, for sure.

After mounting all the flowers, the card was finished.

Isn't that just simple and sweet?

I may just need to send this to someone special for Mother's Day!

And the winner is...

Well, what can I say?

If only one person enters my contest, there's not a lot of trouble figuring out who's going to win.

My little brain didn't need a random generator for this one!

Lenore - email Dave at memoryboxco@comcast.net with your address and he'll get your prize out to you ASAP.

Congratulations! And thanks for entering!