C'mon

OK, this layout is probably 4 to 5 years in the making. Literally. When I first joined the design team of a local scrapbook store, which is now closed (sad), we had a crop. It was the first one I went to. I had purchased some kit and brought it with me. I started this layout at this crop but never finished it. What I had done that day was the background papers, the painted chipboard swirls adhered and tied with the ribbon, and the pink photo mat pocket with photo adhered. That's it. I knew at some point I wanted to add some journaling and tuck it in the pocket, but for YEARS it sat in a plastic bag.

Well I finally challenged myself to finish it. I added the juornaling piece and topped it with a decorative edge punched piece. Added the cute little stickers including the arrow point down to indicate there's something in there. I also added the title, frame, decorative pins, and flowers.

Sitting Up

Another layout that I am not super thrilled with but glad I got it done nonetheless.

That little flower on the side is not hard to do at all. I am sure the technique has been around for a while but I saw it demoed here.

Baby You're A Star

I am noticing that most of my favorite layouts I have created recently tend to be those on a white or cream background. Interesting. This layout is no exception. My oldest was star of the week at her preschool. We did not get the poster back where she lists her favorite things and goals so I wanted to document it her on this layout. I am so pleased with how it turned out. Againa I used the AccuCut chipboard templates I made for myself at a LSS to do the antique frame pieces on the background.

Due to all of her silly poses, I simply overlapped all of the photos to create one long line of pictures.

And because the word "star" never would have fit in the title, I simply cut out a star with a friend's diecut machine and added some Stickles to the outer edges. I used a sheet of American Crafts journaling stickers for my notes and popped them up with pop dots. The butterfly is Jenni Bowlin and I have no idea where the heart stick pin came from. A miscellaneou kit treasure I am sure.

So Different

A cute little layout I whipped up the other day using a 6x6 paper . And darnit all if I can't remember who makes it. I imagine it's a fairly recent release as I bought from a LSS right before Easter 2011. But all of my Google searches come up negative and of course I tossed the cover sheet to the pack. Sorry about that.

One of the sheets has these glitter embellished tags. I hand cut them out, staggered them on my layout, and added my journaling to them.

This piece of cardstock has some beautiful embossing on it.

Echo Park Love

So Echo Park is a really neat up and coming scrapbook company. With each release, I think I fall more and more in love with their product. I had the privilege to be at CHA and see this line called "Little Girl" and put it on my keep-an-eye-out-list. About a month ago I heard an episode of Paperclipping Roundtable (love this weekly podcast!) and one of the guests selected this line called "Dots and Stripes Candy Shoppe" as her pick of the week. Ironically, a guest the very next week picked it as well. When I Googled it, I think I began to drool. I need to assess my scrapbooking budget very soon.

Anyways, several weeks ago I got my hands on the Life Documented 12x12 Collection Kit by Echo Park. I was totally drawn to the vibrant colors with yet an aged look. And I loved that the focus of this line was about memory keeping/recording. Lots of journaling spots, date stickers, quotes about life, etc.

So when I happened upon this contest, so to speak, on Echo Park's blog, I knew I had to get busy. And it wasn't hard at all. I dug through my photo collection with no real picture or direction in mind. Just a mission to create three layouts. Below is what I came up with. And at this moment I would like to thank my husband for putting up with my absence over the weekend as I retreated to my scrapbook room.

DADDY, HELP layout


This layout came together fairly quickly. I selected one of the 12x12 patterned pieces as my background. Then filed through all of the other patterned papers and cut out sentiments they had preprinted for me. The pink "life documented" piece, the green "today" bingo card, and the green and orange journaling pieces were all part of larger pieces of 12x12 paper. Every other accent is a sticker. I inked all the paper pieces, adhered them down, added the stickers and there you go.

This shot shows a little of the dimension I added with popdots. I matted that heart sticker with brown cardstock and then popped up the “100% real” sticker.


Supplies:
From the Life Documented Collection
Background piece – 100% real life
Pink “life documented” piece – 4x4 quotes & 6x8 photo mat elements
Green “today” bingo card – 4x6 vertical journaling card elements
Green journaling tag – flash cards
Orange journaling tag - 4x6 monthly journaling card elements #2
from sticker sheet: brown swirls, polka dot heart, green and orange label stickers, “100% real”, rectangular heart, and letters.
Other
Brown cardstock mat for heart – Bazzill

LOVE YOU layout


This layout uses Echo Park's "A Walk In the Life" collection. I trimmed the floral bakground 12x12 piece down to 11x11 and stitched it to a white cardstock background. Then I was pleasantly surprised to find that Echo Park has partnered with Silhouette America and they are now carrying several designs that I can cut out with my electronic die cutting machine (Silhouette). Sweet! So I chose the clouds and the antique frame pieces to cut. Then I simply layered everyting, adhered it all, stuck my photos on top and began to embellish. The "love you" and journaling piece are again part of a larger 12x12 sheet that I cut out by hand. I rounded the corners of each piece. Finally I went to my flower stash and stacked a bunch together with a brad.

In this shot you can see how I popped up the front cloud.


Supplies:
From A Walk In the Park collection
Yellow paper – Element Card Paper
Green paper – Playful Stripes
Turquoise paper – Blissful Day Border
Daisy Background paper – Mother Nature
“Love you” and journal tag – Element Card Paper
Other
White cardstock – Bazzill
Flowers – Prima, Petaloo, and Queen & Co.
Brad – misc.

LIFE IS SWEET layout


This is the most favorite layout I did of the three!

To start out, I used an old Heidi Swapp mask and Glimmer Misted that pink heart onto some cream cardstock. I then hand cut the pennant border pieces out of a 12x12 patterned paper sheet along with the "life is sweet" piece. I rounded the corners of that piece, added some turquoise stitching underneath the sentiment and then traced a line of glue around the pink frame and added some sparkly pink glitter. While that was drying, I went to the sticker sheet that came in the kit and selected words that would compliment my journaling. In order to get the journaling to look right, I used a light pencil first. Then I went over it again with my black pen and erased the pencil lines. This allowed me to make sure I left enough room for my sticker words. I also used that long scalloped border piece from the sticker sheet and backed it with a pink piece of cardstock. Once all the paper pieces were put on I found some coordinating buttons, threaded them with embroidery floss and slapped them on. As you now know, not a ton of product was used, but I think it all came together to create a big impact.


Supplies:
From Life Documented collection
“life is sweet” piece – 4x4 quotes and 6x8 photo mat elements
Pennant pieces – Life Is Good
From sticker sheet – words, scalloped border, and heart under pink button
Other
Pink cardstock – Bazzill
Cream cardstock background – Bazzill
Buttons – misc
Embroidery floss – misc
Glitter – Mark Enterprises
Pink Mist – Glimmer Mist

Happy Home

This layout I don't feel to great about but I am glad I scrapbooked the picture and the journaling. It uses Echo Park products from their Life Is Good line.




It's hard to see in this picture but I popped the houses up with popdots. The crystal swirls are from ZVA Creative or Prima. I can't exactly recall now but both companies carry beautiful crystal swirl embellishments.

Big Girl Panties

I love this layout!!! and it was so simple. I used the background piece of patterned paper from Ym Mind's Eye and basically popped a few dimensional items on top of the already printed designs.

Can you believe those photos came from my old 3G iphone? I love them so much!

Poachlay

Here's a layout I did featuring my oldest daughter's obsession with Chipotle. It's her all time favorite place to eat. She's loved since she was two years old.



I am kind of thinking I should outline the title letters in a brown pen to make them pop a bit more.

Lucky Me

Here's another layout I did at scrap weekend.

I love all the shaped pieces of patterned paper out there on the market. But more often than not, I can't bring myself to buy them. Want to know how I got that scalloped background piece? I didn't buy it like that? It came as a square 12x12 piece in one of the kits I ordered. My local scrapbook store has an AccuCut machine with all sorts of large scale dies that you can use. AccuCut will cut through thick chipboard. So what I did was take 12x12 pieces of thick chipboard and run all of my favorite dies through them. Now I have a stack full of templates that I can trace onto my regular old patterned paper at any time.

Some Scrappy Goodness

Last month I snuck away to what I call Scrap Weekend with some wonderfully talented scrabooker friends. I love these trips. So much so that I have tweaked my schedule and done a lot of eyelash batting at my husband to be able to do it again in September. Yay!

I always come home and think I am going to add the dates to the layouts and then submit them for publishing. But that never happens. In addition, I can hardly remember the products I have used on the layouts so I would be dead in the water even if they liked something.

So for the past month, they've sat in a paper bag and I am finally getting around to posting them here.

Here's the 1st one. And since I like to see my blog look different as often as possible, I'll post all of the others in the days to come. :)


"Best iPhone Photo"

The "iPhone" letters were actually bright pink, but I used a Jenni Bowlin paint dabber in Malted Milk to change the color. The little letters are from Cosmo Cricket.

A close up shot of some of my dimension. The flower is made up of a canvas print tag (I believe the middle has some pale teal and salmon pink sentiment on it). Then the brown plaid part is fabric tape (by e2Daily) that I made by beginning on the outer edge of the flower and folding and sticking as I curled around towards the center. Then I threaded the green button with some twine and stuck it in the center of the flower. Super easy!