Meow

Hello friends! I hope you are having a good weekend so far. Today I thought I would share a layout of my cat Sheldon that I created for my design team project that is on the blog today at A Flair For Buttons.

For my layout, I used a 6 X 6 paper pad from Doodlebug Designs and a heart paper punch and punched out several hearts in five colors. With my watercolors, I painted five colors coordinating with the paper hearts on white cardstock. Once the background paint dried, I placed the paper hearts onto the background paper in columns and machine the paper hearts down with my Stitch Happy Sewing Machine and some aqua twine from We R Memory Keepers. I love my new little sewing machine. As you may notice, I stacked two punched heart shapes on the second last row from the bottom to give the layout a little more interest and dimension.

Embellishing was kept to a minimum as I wanted the background and photo to be the focal points of my layout. I used some ephemera, wood shapes and a flair button from the Got Cat Flair set at A Flair For Buttons.

I finished the layout with some enamel dots and splattered some white paint onto the layout.

I hope you enjoyed my layout. Be sure and check out the A Flair For Buttons shop for hundreds more flair buttons. Let me warn you, they are very addictive.

Have a good day!

Flair Used On Layout

Got Cat Flair

Havin' A Ball

Hello friends! I thought I would share another summer layout that I have created for design team work at A Flair For Buttons.

I really had fun with this layout. I began with a cut file designed by Stacie Dietz for Paper Issues and used my sketch pens and my Silhouette Cameo to trace around the design and then I hand stitched with embroidery floss. After the stitching was completed, I watercolored with some distress inks that I stamped on a craft mat and spritzed with some water and applied with a water brush to the flowers and leaves in colors that coordinated with my patterned papers and stickers from the Summer Fun Collection by Simple Stories. As you can see I added several phrase stickers from the the collection's sticker sheet and fussy cut the title and beach ball to create my title. Since I don't do Project Life projects, I like to use the 3X4 cards for other uses such as fussy cutting them and using them for titles, diecuts or words

Embellishing is my favorite part of the process. I always grab for my flair buttons from A Flair For Buttons to see if any of the flair will work for my layouts. For this layout, I chose a flair button from the Fun Flair 1 set, one from the Say Hello To Summer set and one from the Inspirational Word 4 set and placed them in a visual triangle to draw the eyes around the entire layout. Here are a few more closeups:

This layout was a little time consuming, but I like to sit on my deck with a nice cold drink on a hot summer's day and stitch to my heart's content.

I hope you are inspired to handstitch, use watercolors and add flair buttons to a layout. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Flair Used On Layout

Fun Flair 1

Say Hello To Summer

Inspirational Words 4

Mom You Are Loved

Hello friends! Today I wanted to share a layout that I created for Just Nick Digital Cut Files of my mom.  She loves flowers and the color purple so I knew the Floral Ring 2 cut file and the Mom cut file would be perfect to use on this layout.

There is a lot of hand stitching on my layout. I love the homemade feel it gives the layout. I used purple, light pink, dark pink, yellow and green embroidery floss to stitch the flowers, leave and around the ring and then I watercolored inside the flowers, leaves and ring. The white card stock background was created with the packaging technique to give it some more splashes of color.

The Mom cut file was cut on my Silhouette Cameo onto plaid patterned paper from Lawn Fawn. It needed some more dimension so I added some very thin strips of foam adhesive tape that I cut out with my scissors and stuck it to the backside of the title. I added a piece of white card stock that I trimmed with my scissors slightly larger than my die cut title and then stuck it down. The mini black alpha stickers from Pretty Little Studio were added below the cut title to complete the title. To make sure they stayed put, I thought I would machine stitch them down.  

To embellish the layout, I used a flair button and a label from Pretty Little Studio, and some enamel dots from Pinkfresh Studio. The last step I trimmed the white card stock background down to 11 inches by 11 inches and stuck it down to the plaid patterned paper and machine stitched a 1/4 inch from the outside edge of the page with pink thread.

I really enjoyed the process of this layout. It truly looks better in person than it does in a photo. Don't forget to check out the Just Nick shop for these cut files and hundreds more.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous day!

Cut Files Used On My Layout:

Floral Ring 2

Mom

Create A Title With Paper Strips And Watercolors - My Creative Scrapbook

Hello friends! Today I would like to share a tutorial with the May Creative Kit on how to create an extra large title on a layout using an electronic die cutting machine, watercolor paints and paper strips.

My Creative Scrapbook May 2017 Creative Kit

You will need the following supplies:

Basic Supplies

12X12 sheet of white card stock

Black fine line marker

Clear gesso

Electronic die cutting machine (I have a Silhouette Cameo)

Foam adhesive tape

Paper trimmer

Pencil

Ruler

Scissors

Sewing machine (optional)

Small glue dots

Tape runner adhesive (I used my Scotch ATG gun)

Photos (I used two)

Water

Watercolor paint set (mine is a very inexpensive set from Michael's)

White acrylic paint

Wide bristle paintbrush

Kit Supplies - (from the May Creative Kit)

Easter buttons 

Patterned papers

Phrase stickers 

Pink alpha stickers 

Puffy stickers 

Stickers (from the sticker sheet)

Download the May cut file, that is included with the kit, and trace it on your die cutting machine software. Type out the words "Easter Memories" and enlarge the words making sure to add some space between the word "Easter" and the word "Memories" so that two small photos can be added later. Cut it out on white card stock with the electronic die cutting machine. 

With the cut out title is still on the cutting mat, take the wide bristle paintbrush, and the clear gesso and paint the gesso around each letter and let dry. 

Take the watercolors, dipped with water,  and paint around each letter alternating colors. For my layout I used green, blue, yellow, pink and peach. Let dry.

Take the white acrylic paint and a little water to thin out the paint and dip the paint onto the paint brush and flick some of the paint onto the watercolored background. Let dry.

Turn the white card stock background over so it is wrong side up.

Cut several paper strips, with a paper trimmer, from the scraps of patterned paper in the May Creative Kit about 1/2 inch wide by about 3 inches long making sure that the paper strips are long enough to cover the back side of each letter and still have enough space to adhere the paper strips to the wrong side of the white card stock. Be sure to alternate colors.

When all the paper strips are adhered to the wrong side, flip the white card stock right side up and with the black fine line marker and a ruler, draw around each letter. This will make the letters stand out more.

Add photos to the space in between the word "Easter" and the word "Memories". Adhere.

Add the pink alpha stickers in between the two photos making the word "family". Add a flower puffy sticker to dot the "i" and a pink heart sticker. Machine stitch through the pink alpha stickers to ensure they stay in place.

Place the dark pink "happy" phrase sticker to the top left hand corner of the layout above the letter 

"E".

Place the mint green phrase sticker "blessed" below the left photo and center it.

Place the light pink phrase sticker "happy day" under the right photo and center it.

Cut a 1/2 inch wide by 12 inches wide paper strip from the multi-colored striped paper. Machine stitch.

From the sticker sheet of the May Creative Kit, use one of the egg stickers as a template, trace around it with a pencil and fussy cut out two more egg shapes.

Fussy cut a small pink egg from the egg patterned paper.

Fussy cut three butterflies from the butterfly patterned paper. One will be placed near the bottom right hand corner, one will be on the left side of the left photo and one will be on the right side of the right photo.

Cluster the two large fussy cut eggs and the small fussy cut eggs and pop up the small egg with foam adhesive. Add to the bottom right side of the page and tuck into the multicolored striped paper strip. 

Add the date with the black fine line marker.

Add the bunny, egg and chick shaped buttons to the center of the A, O and both R's in the title. Adhere with glue dots.

The layout is now complete.

The paper strip technique is a great way to use up the scraps of paper from the kit and the watercolors accentuate the title even more.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you give this technique a try with your paper scraps.