May Sketch And Giveaway

Hello friends! Happy Wednesday. There is a new sketch for May at My Creative Sketches, which is the sketch website for My Creative Scrapbook.

I created a design team layout with the May Creative Kit for My Creative Scrapbook

May 2017 Creative Kit

Here is my layout with the May Creative Kit and the above sketch.

There is a new sketch and giveaway every month.  Pam, the owner of My Creative Scrapbook kit club has put together this prize:

To be eligible for the prize, create a layout with the May Sketch. It will be a random draw and you can enter as many times as you wish. All the details are here. 

Thanks for stopping by. Have yourself a lovely day!

Easter Family Memories

Hello friends! I hope you had a good weekend and were able to spend some time doing what you love and if you are a scrapbooker, I hope you were able to partake in some of the International Scrapbook Day festivities that were happening everywhere.

Today I wanted to share another layout from the May Creative Kit at My Creative Scrapbook.

For this particular layout, I used the negative of the Alphabet Cut File, a download that is included in the May kits. I cut this large title out on my electronic die cutting machine on a 12X12 piece of textured white card stock and using the negative part of the cut file to create an extra layout.

I added some clear gesso around each large alpha, let it dry and then watercolored around the edge of each alpha with coordinating watercolors in pink, yellow, peach, teal, green and pink. 

With my paper trimmer, I cut lots and lots of paper strips and glued them down onto the backside of the large letters making sure that there were no two papers the same beside each other. 

Once all the large alphas were done, I drew around each letter with a ruler and a fine tip black marker to make the letters of the title stand out even more.

To add the white paint splatters, I covered up the photo with a piece of scrap paper and flicked some watered down white acrylic paint with a paint brush onto the layout to give it more texture and interest.

To make some extra embellishments for this page, I fussy cut some flowers, butterflies and eggs from some of the papers included in the kit. 

The adorable bunny, chick and egg buttons that were included in the kit were placed on the center of some of the large alphas. These were glued down with some glue dots.

Puffy stickers and a  pink heart shaped sticker from the pink alpha sticker sheet were added.

The word "family" was added just above the word "memories" and then I machine stitched it down with some pink thread. When different mediums such as gesso, inks and paints are used I find that stickers don't seem to adhere well and stay put so I often stitch them down to make sure that they aren't going anywhere.

There are some really cute phrase stickers included in the kit that come in mint, light pink and dark pink that I added to the layout.

Here are some more closeups

Well there you have it. A layout using the negative piece of a cut file to create a large title that is watercolored and backed with lots and lots of leftover paper strips.

I hope you are inspired to give this technique a try. It's a great way to stretch a cut file and your kit further.

Be sure and check out all the details on how you can purchase your own kit from My Creative Scrapbook. There are four kits each month so there is always one that will suit your style. Happy scrapping!

Spring Makes Me Happy!

Happy International Scrapbook Day! The first Saturday of May is officially recognized as International Scrapbook Day and this special day is celebrated by scrapbookers all over the world. There are plenty of crops, challenges and prizes. I hope all of you paper crafters worldwide have a chance to participate in all the happenings and challenges that are taking place today. I can't wait to get busy creating and entering a few challenges!

I thought I would share another layout that I created with the May Creative Kit at My Creative Scrapbook. This layout was one of my favorites out of the six layouts that I created with this kit. I have a thing for layouts that have circles or are circular.

For my layout I took three dinner plates in large, medium, and small from my kitchen and beginning with the largest plate, I centered it on the piece of 12X12 white card stock and went ahead and traced around it with a pencil. I then put the medium dinner plate, that was slightly smaller, placed it inside the large circle, centered it and traced it with a pencil. Then I took the smallest dinner plate and centered it in the medium circle and traced it with a pencil.  You should have three circles that almost look like a target. You could also do this with your Silhouette Cameo by drawing three circles in Silhouette Studio and sketching it with a sketch pen or pencil.

I used a piece of packaging (cellophane) that I had from the kit and with my watercolor paints and some water I "stamped" with the packaging and dabbed the white cardstock with some pink, green, yellow and teal mixed with a bit of white to tone the colors down and soften it. Once it was dry I added my title and fussy cut some feather shapes from the feather patterned paper that came in the kit. I machine stitched twice around the large circle with pink thread to secure my title and then layered some more flower stickers on top.



On the middle circle, I machine stitched twice around with pink thread and fussy cut some butterflies from the butterfly patterned paper and added some dimension by popping them up with foam adhesive tape.

On the smallest circle, I fussy cut a lot of the feathers from the feather patterned paper in the kit and adhered them with some a little temporary adhesive so I could get the placement the way I wanted it and then machine stitched them twice with pink thread. 

When the three circles were stitched, I took a white eraser and erased the pencil lines so that the stitching would only be visible.  I then cut one of the tags "Happy Spring" from the sheet with the tags and used some pink ribbon from the kit and adhered it to the right side of my photo. I went ahead and fussy cut three butterflies and added them to the middle circle.  With the puffy stickers in the kit, I added some small flower puffy stickers to the top left and bottom right corner of the photo. To complete the layout I machine stitched about 1/4 inch from the outside edge of the cardstock with pink thread.

This is the beautiful kit that I used to create this layout.  It is the May Creative Kit with papers and stickers from the Hello Spring Collection by American Crafts, puffy stickers from We R Memory Keepers, chipboard alphas from American Crafts, phrase stickers from Pebbles, Easter buttons from Doodlebug Designs and some pink alpha stickers from Doodlebug Designs.

Be sure and pop by the blog at My Creative Scrapbook and order your May kits today before they are gone. 

I hope you are inspired to create a circular layout. Happy scrapping!

It's Reveal Day At My Creative Scrapbook

Hello friends! It's reveal day at My Creative Scrapbook and what a fabulous reveal it is! Be sure and order yours today here before they are gone. They are surely going to sell out quickly because they are all so gorgeous.  Here they are:

May Main Kit

May Creative Kit

May LE Kit

May Album Kit

I created six layouts with the fabulous May Creative Kit. I LOVED creating with this kit. It is totally my colors and style. The patterned papers are all from the American Crafts Hello Spring Collection. Here is one of my layouts with this kit:

There is a LOT of fussy cutting on this layout. 

1. To create this layout I began by adding clear gesso onto the white cardstock and when it was dry I splattered the white card stock with white acrylic paint thinned down with a touch of water and a paint brush. I watercolored with yellow, orange, pink, green and teal. 
2. Once it was dry, I trimmed the white card stock to 10 inches wide by 12 inches long and backed it with a sheet of the floral paper above and then machine stitched it on both sides with pink thread.  
3. After I matted the photo, I machine stitched around the mat and placed it on the white cardstock. 
4. Next came all the embellishing. I placed my fussy cut eggs (for these I used one of the egg stickers from the sticker sheet as a template, traced around it, and cut out the shape on several sheets of patterned paper), flowers and butterflies around the photo trying to layer and alternate the shapes. I also added some dimensional foam tape that I adhered to the back of the shapes to give the shapes more layering and dimension. 
5. Finally I added some stickers from the kit that I popped up with foam tape as well and added the dot stickers around the page.

Also, an extra tip I have is when I add patterned paper behind the white card stock on my layouts, I try to conserve my patterned paper so I can stretch the kit further so I usually use my circle cutter and cut out a large circle and use it for another project. You would never know because nobody sees the backside of the layout and I hate to waste such gorgeous paper. 

Thanks for staying with me here to the end of my blog post. Be sure and order your kits before they are out of stock. They go fast and also check out the design team gallery for inspiration on all four of the kits.

Check back later this month as I share five more layouts from this kit.  Have an awesome day!