Catch Up
I'm sitting here with a cup of warm, spicy apple cider and realizing that I haven't updated my blog in quite a few days. Believe me, I've not forgotten about this place. I've been dedicating my day hours to something I'll share a little later on. These last few evenings, I've been hanging out with Ethan, working on scrapbook projects, and getting some much needed rest. I have two piles of product waiting to be used for class projects. I'll start that tomorrow. I plan to spend a lot of time in my studio over the next couple of weeks. Really want to get the class projects done and sent out to California. Here's some of what I have to work with:
Turns out, there's a new kitty in town. Didn't know she was with us until last week when I found her hanging out on my front porch with some of the other neighborly cats. We're enjoying her company, though I don't think she's enjoying ours so much. Laugh. Caught a few photos of her during one of her visits. She's so prrrrretty!
I'm liking all the woodgrain pattern paper out there right now. The one I used for this layout is from Cosmo Cricket, but October Afternoon and Tinkering Ink also have some fun woodgrain papers I've picked up. Tinkering Ink's woodgrain pattern paper is printed on actual "kraft" paper. It's very cool and unlike anything I've seen before. It's part of their "green" environmentally friendly paper campaign. There's sort of a playful, silliness factor to woodgrain paper that makes it a great option for mixing with bright colors and all things nature friendly.
I raised the top border using pop-dots. I could of easily glued it down with regular adhesive, but I thought it might be kind of fun to raise it off the page a little bit. It actually turned out to be a great base for applying a title to the page. I slightly inserted the letters into the border so that the letters would look more even. This particular alpha set (Doodlebug) is made of various size letters and getting the letters to look even and straight wasn't easy. Thankfully, I had the border to use as "cover".
There's one scrapbook supply item I have a lot of, but rarely use on layouts; paper flowers. My Mind's Eye releases new die-cut flowers with each of their new lines. I usually hit up one of their product stands at my local scrapbook store and search out their flowers. I have a weakness for flowers, especially red ones. The problem for me ends up being that I have too many of these flowers to use and I'm not always sure what to do with them. They're often oversized and one dimensional. Sometimes, I'll mix them with other flowers and throw on a button & rhinestone. It's rare that I'll use them "plain" or as is. This time, I actually used them "as is", but decided to cut one in half because it was large in size. I used the flowers to anchor the left, upper corner of the layout. I gave one of the flowers a little dimension by combining two of the same style flowers together, one on top of the other. There's still a lot I want to try using these kinds of flowers. If you have ideas, I would love to hear them. Post a comment below :)
A lot of mix & match possibilities here. Most of these are MME, though a few are from Making Memories and another from Amy Butler.
I found these about six months ago at a local scrapbook shop while in Upper Minnesota last Summer. These are great for combining with flowers. Sometimes, I'll cut up the leaves to better fit the flower size I'm using or when I only need one or two leaves for smaller flowers. You can mix them up and combine different size leaves on a single blossom. You can also layer them on top of each other to create a multi-leaf look. Spruce them up with green glitter or Tattered Angel glitter spray for a sparkle effect. There available in dark green and light green (shown above).
The next post will share the first sneak peak of one of the class projects I'll be working on this week. I was hoping to have it posted today, but alas, the postman was off on Monday. Gotta love Columbus Day. It shall have to wait until next time. Have a wonderful day you guys!
