Family

Let me start by saying I cannot believe tomorrow is Friday.  I have been on "vacation" this week enjoying my daughter who is on spring break from school.  It has absolutely flown by and I can't believe that it's almost over.  I'm going to miss having all of this time to hang with the kiddo and immerse myself in scrapbooking fun.

One of my favorite things to scrap is my family.  Candid shots are my fave.  When I came across Ashley Horton's layout "Life," I knew I had found the perfect design to showcase this snapshot. The half circle paper scraps, the bold title, and the arrows were right up my alley. I do not often borrow from other designs, beyond the occasional sketch, but Ashley's work was so spot on for what I had in mind for this picture, I knew this would be the exception. While this layout doesn't do the original justice, I love it just the same. I took some elements from her page and changed them a bit, working with Heidi Swapp chipboard, some stitching, some Little Yellow Bicycle embellies, and some Oh Snap Project Life papers. The result feels perfect to me.
Here is the finished product, and below are some close-ups of the details I put into the page.

I penciled the sketch of an arrow then filled it in with black embroidery floss.  Love the way it looks with the chipboard hearts in the middle.  Below it is a stamped heart arrow, which I went over with a black marker to deepen the shade.

More stitching below the photo with two strips of paper, cut at the ends to resemble ribbons.

A hand-cut, double-layered heart with a Heidi Swapp arrow perfectly covered an "oopsie" in the lower left corner.

I should also mention that I am currently loving using the left-over vellum paper-tear strips as borders...I used them both above and below this photo...in honor of scrap my mama never taught me BUT would be proud of...I try to use every bit of product in my stash.  Because my mama did in fact teach me that there's a place for everything.  In this case, there's even a place for the paper tear strips from a wire ringed vellum paper pad. 

Thanks for looking!

Pshht!

A little humor for the day. Happy Wednesday!

mon petit artiste...working with acrylics!

Want to add some texture and oomph to your layout?  Grab a basic primary color kit of acrylic paints and go to town!  This layout had very few materials...some acrylic paint, a button, letters, one little piece of cardstock to frame the main photo, and a vellum quote (which can be tricky to work with since you can see the adhesive through the vellum...not a problem when you use the paint underneath it as the adhesive!).  

Enjoy!

So Silly!

Cracked another case file over at CSI.  Did a bright, fun, whimsical layout that had me smiling the whole time I was putting it together.  Here it is and read on for how I put it together.

Started off with some acrylic paint on the background...added some water to make it a bit more workable and tapped my brush with my finger to get the "dots."

Then I rounded up some ribbons and paper scraps to make the base under the picture and grabbed my new Sew Easy to bring in some stitching.

I had been dying to use my new 7 Gypsies hot air balloon stamp so I took the girl from my Recollections Girl and a Poodle paper, fussy cut it, colored the girl (she was pastel) to better fit my primary color theme, cut off the umbrella and replaced it with the hot air balloon, which I colored and added some rickrack to.the balloon.  Love the way it came out!

 Used rub-ons for my title and layered them over the paper.  

Then it was time for some detail work.  Hand cut some clouds from a writing pad, inked them with sky blue, added some American Craft wood buttons and (thanks to a great suggestion by my neighbor) added my journaling to the paper ribbons on the upper left.  

Added some pop up adhesive behind the hot air balloon and the photo and whipped out my trusty gel pen to add some doodle touches.  Love this page.  Makes me happy!  Thanks for looking!

Setting eyelets

Happy Monday everyone! As promised, here is a quick video tutorial on how to set eyelets. The ways to use eyelets are endless.  You can use eyelets on tags, to anchor ribbon or fiber, or just to add a decorative touch of dimension to your pages.  Here I used them to draw the focus to the photo.

And here's a great little tutorial on how to use them.  Enjoy!