Paper Amour

Garden Gate Cousins Layout

This Fernbrae 12 x 12 paper "Garden Gate" is one of my favorite Memory Box papers...

I love the flowers and the variegated color running through the background... but today when I pulled it out to use it for a layout, I didn't want the flowers... I wanted to make use of all those fun circles.

Out came my circle punch... after a couple tries, I discovered that the 3/4" circle would punch out just the inside of each circle, making a fun embellishment for a page with a picture of my kids with their cousins.

So I got to work... punching lots of little circles and placing them along the left edge of the page in a random pattern... (Note how I've got circles running off the edge of the page - this is a design trick that helps your pattern look balanced and more random than if all the circles are fully on the page...)

(As always, click on a photo to see a larger version of it.)

I used remaining 'Garden Gate' paper for my photo mat and the mat around my journaling block and then decided to dot my 'i' with a leftover punched circle... this creates the all important visual triangle on my page and leads your eye around the layout...

(Foam letter stickers by American Crafts)

And there you have it - a page VERY different from the original sheet of paper:

...but still utilizing some of the great design elements of the paper to create a completely new look.

How can you use your printed Memory Box papers in a new way this week? Look at the paper from a new perspective - find a way to cut it down and use part of the print - or pull out a punch and see what happens when you punch only parts of the print...

Challenge yourself to think outside the box with your printed papers... you might be surprised with what you come up with!

Four Seasons Eclipse Tree

Whenever I see a tree stamp, I'm drawn to the challenge of using it in all four seasons. The Eclipse Tree stamp is no exception. So with that in mind the other day, I sat down to make some cards. 

I knew I wanted to keep the cards simple... so I decided on a format and used it throughout.

To make each tree, I needed to stamp it three times - once on white, once on brown and once on a color - this varied for each 'season': I did one on Biscotti Granny, one on Biscotti Key Lime, one on a Glitterati 6 x 6 and the last one one Soiree Silver.

Once I had all the images stamped I did the following:

• Trimmed the white trees into rectangles with rounded corners. This is the base layer.
• Used a 1 1/2" circle punch to punch the circle out of the colored/printed papers. This layer goes on top of the white layer, lined up with the stamped lines. Note that the circle punch does not get that outside dashed line - only the solid line of the circle fits, which helps add to the dimension of the project... the bottom layer has the dashed line and the next layer has the solid line.
• Cut out all four brown images so I had just the tree stump. This becomes the top layer of paper.

Here are the four layers shown on the cards...

1. The 'winter' card has just the white rectangle layer.
2. The 'fall' card has the punched circle layer added.
3. The 'spring' card gets the tree stump added.
4. And the 'summer' card is finished, complete with Memory Box pearls.

And here you can see all four cards finished with all four layers...

And there you have it... four simple seasonal tree cards... there are so many possibilites with this formula! Have fun with your tree stamps and see how you can take them through the whole year just by changing up the papers and embellishments you use.

Bookmark fun

 

When I sit down to make something with stamps and I  know I'm going to be cutting out my stamped images, this is how I begin. I stamp lots and lots of images, then pick the best ones to work with... as I've stated before, I'm a beginning stamper, so it takes lots of tries to get the perfect image.

 

Here I've colored the images I want to use... I used Prismacolor colored pencils. Again - I consider myself a beginning colorist... but it sure is fun!

 

After I had my images colored, I cut out the base for my book mark from some Soiree Azalea and Memory Box Iris papers.

 

After detail cutting all the stamped images, I laid them out and adhered them to the blue background piece.

I wanted my penguins to be holding placards, so I stamped the word "READ" and then cut around each letter and matted it with more Azalea paper.

 

Here you can see their little arms after I ran them through my Xyron X to get them good and sticky!

 

And here are my little penguin ladies with their arms attached and their fancy ribbon embellishing the bookmark.

Doesn't this make you want to sit under an umbrella on the beach and read a good novel? It sure does me!!!

The home stretch.

My kids have a day and a half left of school.

It's a late end for school this year, since we had so many snow days and are now making up for them. Somehow it just seems wrong for kids to still be in school when the weather is so perfect outside... 

But I'm gearing up for Wednesday afternoon, when my youngest and I will be home together all afternoon. He gets out of school early, and while his older brother and sister already have plans for that glorious first day of summer, the youngest and I have our own plans.

We'll be making cards and bookmarks with these two penguin sets.  

 

We may even have some fun with this lovely lion set...

It's a first day of summer tradition for us to make bookmarks together... we need something to put in all the books we're planning to read out under the umbrella on our deck, or on the beach, or on a blanket at the park.

Just one and a half more days of crazy busy schedules and end of the year parties and 6th grade promotion receptions and teacher gifts...

Then we'll be getting messy with these fun clear sets.

Come back Thursday to see what we made!

Doin' the Polka

Who doesn't like polka dots?

(Maybe don't answer that if you don't... )

I like 'em. A lot. And I also like using my scraps.

I have a few Memory Box paper scraps laying around, and today I decided to use a bunch of them on my layout for the day.

So I punched a random assortment. No rhyme. No reason. Some prints, some solids. No particular color scheme or plan in mind.

Once I punched them, I began laying them out on a nice crisp white sheet of Bazzill.

And once I had a pleasing pattern, I adhered them to the page.

 (As always, click on a photo to see a larger version)

I've been wanting to scrapbook the story behind these hats for quite awhile... and I thought the colorful polka dots would be a great way to liven up this pretty monotone photo... Winter in Spokane is SO grey - a little color added to a layout about winter hats is a good thing in my book.

I wanted to include journaling on the page, but I didn't want to take away from the polka-dotti-ness of the layout. So I stamped a simple, small title on one of the polka dots and then decided to hide the journaling behind the photo.

I printed the journaling onto some bright white cardstock, then adhered it to a piece of the green I'd punched some polka dots from...

Then, because I wanted to be able to lift the photo to see the journaling, I adhered it to a piece of the same green paper, extending a 1/2 inch flap beyond the left edge of the paper. I folded this flap and adhered it to the journaling piece, creating a little 'booklet'.

I adhered the photo/journaling to the page, then added a tag I'd saved from one of the hats - both as an accent, and to help hold the 'booklet' closed.

And there's my polka-dotty layout.

(If you want more information about Krochet Kids International, who we bought the hats from, you can go here: Krochet Kids)

 

Fun!

My husband is a creature of habit.

Every morning, he has to have his glass of Tropicana. No other orange juice will do, and if we're out, someone has to go to the store to buy more.

So imagine my delight when I saw a magazine advertisement with a huge carton of Tropicana on it.

I immediately cut it out and saved it for a scrapbook page.

I knew the Memory Box Brighter Days paper would accompany my OJ carton perfectly... I cut the top half of the paper along the 'grass line.' I wanted to use a solid for the grassy portion to keep the page from looking too busy. Here is the page with the sky portion adhered to a 12 x 12 sheet of Bazzill Patch.

Then I adhered the OJ carton. Isn't it cute?

 Then I addded a photo mat for a 5 x 7 photo and a title.

This page couldn't have been any more simple. But it tells the story... and that's what it's all about, isn't it? 

Now I just need to get a good shot of my husband with his morning glass of OJ...

That's going to be the hardest part of this sweet page!