Mother Daughter Layout

I am more of a scrapbooker than a stamper, but I wanted to take an opportunity to show that stamps aren't JUST for cards. You can use them in your scrapbook too!

Our family took a cruise two years ago, and we enjoy getting professional pictures taken by their staff. (This is typically some of the only photos of ME, since I'm usually the one with the camera!) As we're coming up to Mother's Day, I thought this picture of me with my daughter would be appropriate.

This is a large 8x10 picture, so I didn't want to overwhelm it with lots of fancy papers. I started with a plain white piece of cardstock, and dressed it up with Inkadinkadoo Sketchy Flourishes stamps. I used an embossing ink, like the Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad and stamped the image on my page. Next, I sprinkled an ample amount of Ranger Super Fine Embossing Powder over the stamped image. Once the image is covered in powder, gently lift the paper, and lightly tap the paper to get rid of the excess powder. I have a tidy tray that works WONDERS in helping me collect all the excess powder, and funnels it back into the container!  Definitely a must have for anyone who uses glitter or embossing powder!  Finally, using a heat tool such as the Heat It Craft Tool, warm up the stamped and powdered image on the paper. It's important not to get too close to the paper with the heat gun or your paper will discolor! It's amazing to see that embossing powder turn into a shiny stamped image. Don't keep the heat gun on too long, or it will actually over melt the embossing powder. I did two images in black, and a third image with some red glittery embossing powder from my stash.

I actually did make a mistake - and had a fourth image embossed - but it didn't turn out at all...so instead of starting over, I artfully hid that corner with paper! I used a black Bazzill corner, and topped that with a piece of American Crafts Foil Cardstock.

To finish this off, I made a title on my Gypsy, using one of my new favorite fonts from Quarter Note. I welded the words Mother and Daughter, and cut each of these on more metallic cardstock in silver and red.  Welding is so easy with the Gypsy!  It was no problem to weld the word "Daughter" vertically instead of horizontally.  Also - this font makes the prettiest script I've ever used on my Cricut - and it cuts wonderfully!

I am really pleased with the way this simple layout turned out. Hopefully, my daughter will treasure it for a long time!

New Two-Page Layout

I was lucky enough to attend a weekend crop last weekend, and I was able to get 19 pages done in 2 days!  Now that may not sound like much to some of you...but I put a lot of thought and effort into each of my pages, so I was pretty pleased with my totals.  Plus, I got lots of chatty time with my big sis, made some new friends, and got to have a bed to myself without DH and the fur-friends! 

Here is one of my two-page layouts, using my Cricut and my Gypsy.

The page base is a tan Bazzill cardstock, and I added some printed paper from my stash to fill the bottom of the page, and the top and center stripes. My photos were mounted on a coordinating sage cardstock.

After I laid out the photos, it was time to add the title and embellishments. On my Gypsy, I used the bracket from the Disney - Hannah Montana cartridge, and welded it to a simple rectangle from George & Basic Shapes, to give it a more solid shape. I cut two of these brackets in the same paper as the top stripe. Since the trees in the photographs was lacking most of its leaves, I selected one of the bare trees from Paper Doll Dress Up. I cut that in a chocolate brown, but it didn't stand out against my printed paper enough, so I cut a large circle from the same shade of paper as my base pages. The Peek-A-Boo title was welded from the Quarter Note cartridge. If you are looking for a nice script font that welds together easily, this is the cartridge to do it! I used my Zig Glue pen to glue the title to the page. I added a journaling box to balance out the layout, and used the bracket cutouts to highlight both the title and the journaling box.  I used some neutral buttons, held down with glue dots, to give some dimension to the second page.

To make the brackets appear as if they were sewn on the page, I used a brown Sharpie to draw stitch marks on each of them. I also outlined each of the brackets with the same marker, after they were adhered to the page. Finally, to bring more continuity to the page, I wanted to place a dotted line along the sides and bottom of each page. I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, and I didn't want my dots to appear too haphazard, so I pulled out my Tim Holtz ruler, which has awesome holes evenly spaced all the way down the ruler. Using a paper piercer, I lightly pierced every other hole all the way around the pages. Then I went back afterwards with marker and placed a dot on each of my piercing marks.  It was tedious work, but I think it really made the pages look more interesting!

Cricut Cartridges:
Paper Doll Dress Up
George & Basic Shapes
Disney - Hannah Montana
Quarter Note