Friday, February 19, 2016

5 Days

When I received a very modest package filled with a some of my favorite pieces from a few of the new scrapbooking releases, I couldn't wait to sit down and create.

I was immediately drawn to all the pretty papers from Shimelle's Starshine Collection. I think what I love most about her new collection is all the gorgeous pink and coral toned papers!

After choosing the perfect picture, I set out to select my papers. I used three papers from the Starshine Collection, one from Maggie Holmes Bloom Collection, and an old one from October Afternoon Girl Talk Collection.
When I first started to plan my page I knew I wanted to use the gorgeous floral paper from Starshine as my background, the text paper from Bloom as a layer and black cardstock to mount my page and mat my picture.

From there, I selected two more patterned papers to go with my large layers and one cut apart paper from Starshine to use as embellishments.
For my main cluster I chose a few of my favorite phrases/words from the cut apart sheet. I liked them not only for what they said, but their color too. I also cut a 3x4 card from the yellow October Afternoon paper to house my journaling.

Some items from my stash also made it on to the page: chipboard floral from Crate Paper Craft Market, gold foiled heart die cuts from We R Memory Keepers Crush, and a Valentine's tag from Crate Paper Kiss Kiss.
My layers are sitting on top of two manufacturing strips from the Starshine papers that brought in more of the floral and navy blue found in the collection. The coral striped paper is from the cut apart paper. Oh how I loved using all those cut aparts!

After getting all my layers how I wanted them, I decided I needed to add a circular element. In came my scalloped punch to the rescue! It helped give me a place to anchor my title.

For the cluster at the top of the page, I added a couple more phrases from the cut apart paper and layered them on top of the gold heart washi tape, which also made a small appearance in the main cluster.
You can also see I added a couple little snippets of the two manufacturer strips that were also in my main cluster. I found the flair buttons from Starshine so cute and thought it made the perfect circular addition to the cluster. Enamel dots were my finishing touches added to both clusters!

Overall my layout turned out to be quite simple in embellishing. I didn't want to overwhelm the page and take away from my picture and story.

The story behind my picture is quite simple. I wanted to document that just five days earlier we had gotten married at City Hall, and now we were becoming Godparents. It had been quite an exciting week for us. So much to celebrate!

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Fiber Family

I decided to spend our negative degree weather day inside scrapbooking. To me the chilly weather just gave me an excellent excuse to spend time at my craft desk guilt free. A winning situation if you ask me!

I have a serious backlog of untouched scrapbooking kits and one of my goals for this wonderfully long weekend, was to break into one of them.

My kit of choice was November's Clique Kit which featured We R Memory Keepers Wildflower collection. When I first saw this collection I loved it immediately, even though it's not typically my style.

It didn't take me long to choose a picture that I felt went well with the collection. I chose it specifically because of all the wonderful colors displayed in our handknit items we are wearing. The orange, green, blue and pink colors are all found in the papers.
Even though there is a lot going on in this spread, I feel you don't loose focus on the picture itself.

To achieve this, I specifically matted my picture in the same card stock (from my stash) as my page border and placed the picture on top of the gorgeous blue and white patterned paper. I then added a slight mint green border (from my stash) on either side to further breakup the picture from the dark floral background paper.
Even  though this picture was taken in the middle of a Fall October afternoon, I knew I wanted to fussy cut the floral from the "Wildflowers" patterned paper. I dread fussy cutting, simply because I think I'm not very good at it, but the end result always makes me happy I took the time to do it.
For my cluster to the right, I rummaged through my Project Life cards and found this 4x6 card in the "Vintage Travel" collection to be my base.

I knew I wanted to add a little something around the fussy cut flower at the top right of the photo and the Pink Paislee gold frame was perfect.

I included a couple of Martha Stewart floral stickers from my stash to add a different texture to the spread behind the floral die cut. Adding a little gold glitter washi tape, the "Life is an Adventure" flair badge and a few additional die cuts from the collection, helped bring everything together.

For the title, I used a combination of the block alpha letters from the Wildflower sticker sheet included in the kit and Amy Tangerine's foam thickers in Kal Barteski from my stash.

Overall, I am really pleased with how everything came together!