2:00 a.m.

2:00 am. When was the last time you stayed up till 2:00 am? Are you able to stay up till 2:00 am? I didn't think I was capable of staying up this late anymore, but last night, I finally retreated from my desk at around 2:00am to go to bed. I gave myself permission to spend some late evening hours scrapbooking. I spent the earlier part of the evening working. I recently accepted a new position with Crate Paper. I can't share the full details just yet, but I'm excited for change. I'll share a little bit more about that later. So, after enlisting in a few hours of work, it felt appropriate to sit and create late into the evening. I pulled out some Prima product along with some Amy Butler stickers, and the new Fancy Pant's transparent die-cuts. I kept it simple. One pattern piece of paper, a couple photos, and one small section of embellishments. I also went with soft, muted colors; Mint Green, Yellow, and Bird's Egg Blue. Here's a close-up of the layout:

Most of the layouts I create have at least one or two flowers on them. Flowers lend texture and dimension to a page. They can be used in a multitude of ways and can be further embellished with buttons, rhinestones, ink, paint, rub-ons, and more. They're extremely versatile in nature. At Winter CHA, 2008, Prima released these gorgeous, silk flowers called "Belle Fleurs". I've been using them a lot lately on my projects (including on that mini album I just posted a few weeks ago). They're shiny and have a nice reflective quality about them. They combine well with matte paper flowers and rhinestones.  I combined the silk flowers above with a light green paper flower and a fabric rhinestone embellished brad. I surrounded it with white rhinestone swirls and a few other embellishments.

There's been one technique I've been wanting to try these last few weeks. It's a simple graphic design technique where two elements of the same color are combined to create a design. Above, I combined two pieces of ivory cardstock and sat them side by side on the layout. Even though they're identical in color, because one sits higher than the other, they feel separate. This technique is  a crisp, clean & subtle way to create layers on a layout . This same technique can be applied with letters, flowers, borders, shapes, and more.

On the Prima Blog, you'll find a host of beautiful Mother's Day cards on display. You can see them Here. I contributed a card to the collection. I've posted it below:

Thank you to everyone that left me a link to their favorite inspirational blog (or their own blog). I've been looking at them today and adding new blogs to my faves list.  Feel free to keep sharing. :)