Tuesdays Title - Handcutting Is Easy

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines weekend.  My husband had to work, so we’re celebrating with a weekend out of town next weekend, but I had a very special little Valentine - a four year old who loves chocolate, posing for me, and blowing kisses…

For this layout, I wanted to do a handcut title.  I wrote the word “kiss” on patterned paper, then cut out around my pencil lines. I used a small piece of Love Potion from the Cupid line for the title, because I had a scrap of it.  After I had the word cut out, I erased my pencil lines and adhered it to the bottom portion of my layout.  Be very careful not to tear your word when adhering, as some parts of your word may be very thin.

To add even more detail, I added machine stitching over my letters.  This took a lot of patience and caution, to be sure that I didn’t stitch off of my letters.  I went at a super slow space and did close stitches in narrow places.  I imagine this might be a little less complicated if you handstitched, just a little more time involved.

Everything here is Pink Paislee except for the black square letters.  I love that each of the lines are versatile and can be mixed for any theme or type of project.

Patterned Papers: Love Potion, Dream Big, Be Free, Think Big, Honey Bee, Front Porch; Other products used: Ribbon Pleats; Bella Brads; Cupid Press Ons.

Have a wonderful week!

Monochromatic Monday

Hello all!!  Can I just say.. it is such a treat to be back this year as a part of this amazing team!

Along with several new and awesome designers, we also have some new themes for the blog this year.. Monday being “Monochromatic Monday’s” - which means using papers and embellishments that are all in the same color group.

For this layout, I chose to pull shades of blue from a few of the lines.  I used the cream back side of the Dream Big paper from 365 Degrees as my base, then layered on Daydream, then Imagine, the light teal.  After I had the two layers, I added some punched circles, inked with blue, from one my most favorite patterns in the 365 collection,  Think Big.  That teal blue paper just makes me smile!

Before adding my photos and embellishments, I did a simple stitch around my layers, using dark blue embroidery floss.

I added some layers of dark teal punched strips from the back side of Flower Garden, from the Bayberry Cottage collection, and a few pearl accents along the bottom.  I also added a strip of the Teal paper tape, a strip of words that I misted, and a borderline clear sticker.

The label sticker is from on of the sticker books that were released with the Winsome Collection last winter.  A few more punched circles as accents, a Bella brad, and some of the new Expressions alphabet letters finish off my page.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and make sure to watch for all of these great products and more coming to stores in March!

Frame Your Photos

I’ve seen a lot of people creating frames for their photos on layouts recently, so today I wanted to share with you a layout that I created using the Mistletoe, & Co. line.  I cut the scalloped border from the die cut paper, Reindeer Games, then printed off several photos to fill in the space.  It took a little bit of patience to fill the half circle in without covering up parts of my pictures, but if you print off a few extras, you’re sure to make them fit.

The pictures I used here were from a VERY unusual snow storm that we had in Louisiana last year.  We never get snow, so it was a nice surprise that morning when we were able to watch the ground get covered in a thick white blanket.

All of the papers here are from the Mistletoe, & Co line as well as the Punchout, Canvas Patch, and Clear Border Sticker.  The chipboard alphabet are from the Winsome Collection.

Have a wonderful week and hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Manic Monday-Mixing Patterned Papers

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend!  Today I’m going to share with you a layout that I created using several different patterned papers from the CHA Summer Release.  I love how versatile each of the collections are and how you can use them for everyday projects.  When I pulled out my papers and was trying to decide where to start with this layout, I accidentally laid out the aqua blue Cupid paper, Bow and Arrow, on top of the orange polka dotted Eclipse paper from the Twilight collection, and I loved the aqua and blue combo, so I added some black and cream from different collections and loved the end result.

For the background, I chose the backside of the Love Potion paper from the Cupid collection.  I then added a wide strip of the black dotted paper (back side of Nightfall from Twilight) that was the same width as my photo.

At the bottom of my photo, I added a strip of the front side of the Nightfall paper and some hand cut scallops from the same paper that ran along the edge. So, while this paper may have a Halloween or spooky feel to it, I was still able to use many parts from it to create an everyday layout.

To finish my layout off, I tucked some punched circles, made from the Eclipse patterned paper, underneath the left side of the black dotted paper and used 12 inch strips of paper from the Cupid, Twilight, and Amber Road collections along the sides of my photo.

I had a few extra punched circles, so I flipped them over to use as circle accents on my layout, and to house some fortunes and a flower embellishment that was made with ribbon, a chipboard button from the Winsome collection and a brad from the Mistletoe and Co. collection.  The title letters are also chipboard letters from the Winsome collection.

Don’t be afraid of using themed papers for your everyday layouts!

Have a good week!

Friday Feelings - Ordinary

This is a layout that I created using the Amber Road collection.  I love how versatile this collection is and that it can be used for non-fall related projects.

I don’t have many photos of my husband and I and I find that 99% of my layouts and projects focus on my son, so I wanted to create a fun and quick layout about my husband and how much I appreciate him.

I used the Fall Festival patterned paper to create a base for my photo. I cut the paper into fours, and then trimmed it up a bit and seamed it back together to create basically the same shape as the original die cut, only smaller.

My journaling focuses on how much I love and appreciate him every ordinary day.  It’s about how simple the snapshot is and what all I see in him as a person.  It’s not often that I include a lot of journaling on my pages, but it was nice getting these thoughts documented to look back on.

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

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