Take In the Sunshine

Have you been catching a theme since my month hiatus from blogging? I've pretty much been just creating for classes for my LSS, which is super great because I get to play with all the new pretty papers. 

This one features BasicGrey Fresh Cut. The store's had a rash of people asking for layout classes and since most prefer double pages I have been trying really.really.hard to give them what they want! The problem I faced with this BG pack, and another I'm working with right now is that they don't have two of the same anything in the packs so I'm adding some neutrals so that I can pull all the same colors across the page. 

Now, here's the start of some close ups. I'll start with the layouts not side by side. Is it just me or are white background pages really hard to photograph?!

Then the real details: 

I'm in love with the way I managed to splatter on this spread. Mists still scare me a bit but this time I think I got the flick down nicely!

I may be obsessed with my Amy Tangerine stitching templates lately. No surprise there given how much I like stitching on my layouts anyway! Hopefully some of my students will catch the bug and Dala will order even more templates than she has already. Bwahahaha. 

What do you do when a paper pack needs some bling but you don't want rhinestones? You heat emboss wood veneers, naturally. Seriously, that's the most time consuming element in the whole class because the heat gun kept blowing the shapes away so I had to hold them down with a paper piercer and do one at a time.

Supplies:

BasicGrey Fresh Cut

Studio Calico wood veneers

Pigment Ink

Gold Zing! embossing powder

Amy Tangerine stitching templates

Studio Calico mists

Stash embroidery floss

Egg Hunt

Dala and I had a crazy plan a few weeks before National Scrapbook Day, I would create a few easy layouts that we would pre-cut and kit up and have stations in the store for participants to put together in a snap. So I took home a pile of random loose papers that had haunted the store for a while and set to work. Because of the nature of the papers chosen (ones that had multiples that she wanted to clear through) I know brands but not paper names or lines, sorry guys.

And check out my way fun usage of my pony beads/enamel dots. I sort of thought they were perfect with the plasticity of the eggs. 

A little twine looping and curling never hurt either. Though I'd love to figure out an easy way to give directions for that one!

I don't know if this is normal or not, but my students on NSD thought it was unusual to incorporate the transparency into the bottom layers and have photos on top like I've done. What can I say? I like to make them think outside the box. ;)

Supplies:

Jenni Bowlin green, yellow, and birds papers

Fancy Pants transparency

White cardstock, stash

Heidi Swap mistable tags

Faber Castell gelatoes

Blue pigment ink

WRMK twine

Glossy Accents

Pony Beads

Page Maps sketch

I C U

I'm back with another installment in layouts for my paint dauber class at my LSS. This one I used the daubers and a lot of mist to create that colorful background that I then covered with a Silhouette Studio cut file and my usual style of photos and embellishments. 

I only used two colors of daubers - a yellow and a bluish green and blended them with mist both on my kraft mat before applying the paper to the colors and then misting some on the page after. Repeat and allow to dry.

Clearly, my blade is dying because I had to hand trim these circles out. That's the reason why a third of the shape is still solid, I got to lazy!

And one last close up of that background. Fun, right!?!

Possibilities

I took some time on National Scrapbook Day to make some "for fun" layouts to meet a couple of challenges that were being hosted online. Not often I get to dig into my own stash to create these days and it was kind of nice. 

I used the Studio Calico Challenges NSD 1 (color scheme) and 2 (unused stamp) and Scrapbooksteals MWM Daisy 2 sketch as inspiration for this layout. 

Gold embossed wood veneers, sequins, and stitching, OH MY!

Supplies:

MME All is Bright, Find Your Wings and Fly papers

Crate Paper buttons

MME brad

Echo Park Reflections

Studio Calico Ampersand wood veneers

Teresa Collins sequins

Webster's Pages lace

Amy Tangerine Stitching template

gold embroidery floss, stash

Tim Holtz stamp

Walnut Stain Distress Ink

Play is Serious Business

Hey! I'm back, sort of, it's a long personal story (involving hubby having surgery/recovery, extra hours at work, and chasing little people) but let's just say that while I was MIA from the blog world I was still creating, still teaching, and have several posts I'm working up to show off some of what I was doing. 

This one is actually a little bit older, I don't remember when I created it but it was definitely around February and I just realized that I'd never shared it. I probably never would have remembered except that I was looking for the layout's title so I could pull the photo for instructions for a class and realized I'd never shared. Shame on me. 

This class at my LSS will feature uses for paint daubers, this is a really basic idea but paired with these papers the rainbow palate packs a lot of punch!

Supplies used: Tim Holtz Distress Paint Daubers, MME Record It! Lost and Found brads and paper, Metal number and paper clip are stash. 

Graduation double page layout

I don't often make double page layouts, but a lot of customers have been talking about how that's mostly what they create at home so I thought I'd try my hand at one for an upcoming class using KaiserCraft Art of Life and Graphic 45 chipboard flowers to add spots of color to the otherwise neutral paper. I also decided to toss in some chevron washi from We R Memory Keepers. 

So because it is hard to see all those details on the two page photo, here are close ups of each side of the spread: left and then right.

Oh the fussy cutting on this one - it is actually the most time consuming aspect of the entire layout. I'm sure explaining how to sew on the paper and make that crinkle edge will be new for some of my class but it soooo makes the page in my opinion. 

The right side came together faster since it's really just a line of photos with a couple of flowers. And I had to include that one photo of my bestie who'd flown in after her own graduation to be with my family at mine before we took a little road trip to the coast. 

I hadn't used those Graphic 45 flowers before, when I looked at the packs I'd always assumed they were stickers. Turns out they are double sided cardstock! The pack had two different flower types and I only used one type, the more daisy types. I inked and curled the edges with my fingers to give them a little depth. A few flowers are popped up with foam adhesive to add extra dimension.

Rainy Graduation

Anyone who has seen me make a mini album knows that I LOVE adding in pockets and flaps so when it was time to make a sample for my LSS using gradation pics (high school) that needed more than one page and a lot of explanation it only seemed logical that I would create a sort of mini album within the page. 

I added a photo to the inside of my graduation announcement, hidden photo number one. But wait! There's more. 

I needed this second hidden portion because I really wanted the body of the layout to be about the love my family and friends showed by sitting in the rain for me. At the same time I wanted to document some of the excitement that surrounded the ceremony - the principal got a lot of community backlash for forcing minors to have pat downs (no cell phones, beach balls, keys, etc.), plus with all that rain our families were subjected to sitting through tornado warnings and lightning, and if we'd chosen not to walk she was going to withhold our diplomas. It was important, it was covered in the local newspaper AND a part of the editorials for months, but while it is part of the story I didn't want it to take center stage. I'm still deciding how I want to embellish that left hand side of the page, sort of empty but I don't know what it needs. 

Anyway, so back to the front of the layout, I liked the idea of including some memorabilia on the layout - my announcement and tassel and needed a way to work them in cohesively. I again turned to Page Maps for a solution and used a sketch from page 36. 

I loved how many photos that sketch let me work into the page. I really tried to scan and alter mom's original photos but correcting that rainy weather and mom's point and shoot was beyond my skill set so I just drew right on the photo!

I should note that the papers are all from Jenni Bowlin but I have no idea what line - they were something that the LSS has had hanging around for a long time and she wanted to see if we could use up.