Dandelion Wishes

Happy Friday eve everyone. We recently experienced severe flooding in our area and thankfully even though our street flooded, we only had water coming up our driveway just a bit.  It was a little odd to see kayakers floating in front of my house (see photo at the bottom of this post.

We're still getting a lot of rain here and they say April showers bring May flowers so I though I'd put a little SPRING in your step (care of my Gossamer Blue April kit and add-ons)...

Once I selected the photos I wanted, I designed the rest of the layout around the title. Usually my title is one of the last things I think about but for this, it was the first.

I created the word "dandelion" in Silhouette Studio using a free font I downloaded from the Internet called Modesty. For the larger WISHES word, I used the Shattered Alpha cut file from Just Nick Studio and then backed it with coordinating papers.

With such a large, bold title, I decided to keep the rest of the layout a little more siple than I usually do, adding a few frames, rub-ons, chipboard and a little splatter mist.

Thanks for stopping by today. How do you feel about bold title?

Here's the photo I mentioned above. The flooding was much worse just down the street and sadly, many neighbors' houses were flooded. It came up REALLY fast. We were actually trapped in our neighborhood for a couple of days.  You can't see the sidewalk on this side of the street anymore but this kayaker didn't seem to mind one bit.

Smile

Hello friends.  For this month's Pattern Play on the Gossamer Blue blog I'm showing you how much fun it is to mix and match pattern papers from different collections to create a cool background.

How-to:

• Cut paper in varying widths x 12" strips.  I used about 11 different patterns.  
• Place the first strip at a diagonal as far down to the middle of the page as possible, making sure the paper touches the top right and left bottom of the page, flush to the edge.  
• Place the next paper strip over that 1st layer, leaving some of the first layer exposed.  
• Repeat until you get to the top corner.  
• Add a corner piece to the top or just continue with the layers.
• Repeat at the bottom of your page in the opposite corner.

• Place pieces of ephemera, stickers, tags, etc in some of the layers.
• Stitch each layer to the page. Use a variety of stitches for added interest.
• Add your photo, title and journaling, along with any additional stickers, mist, etc.

Thanks for stopping by today.  Leave me a comment and let me know if this is something you would try.

Capture Beauty

Hello friends! Pinkfresh / JustNick are doing a team-up and I couldn't be more excited to be selected to participate.  I absolutely adore Pinkfresh's flair for design so I was elated to get to work with the Life Noted collection.

I love the pre-printed divided page design on this paper. It took care of my background design work.

And yay for the lovely spring colors. I decided to mix the spring-like patterns with the Just Nick Studio Delicate Florals cut file, backing with fun designs from the collection. To do this, I cut the flowers using my Silhouette CAMEO and then used water colors to add a splash of color. Then I hand traced and cut pieces that I wanted for the flowers and adhered them to the back of each petal / leaf. Then I added zig zag stitching over each stem and lastly, I added a few rubber circles to the center of the ones that needed a middle.

Make sure to head over to the Just Nick Studio blog and the Pinkfresh blog to see how her creative team integrated JustNick's files into their creative process. I think they are also doing a giveaway or two. :)

10 wishes for you + Digital Cut File Tutorial

It's numbers week over on Shimelle's blog.  It's a big deal when it comes to turning double digits so I decided to go big with this layout.

I have a couple of goals with this layout: 1. document how my little girl still makes wishes even though she was turning 10 and 2. include a space to include either 10 things she's into or a space for me to write my thoughts, wishes and feelings for this little girl.  

How to:

• Using my Silhouette software, I mocked up the size and placement of the numbers and words to make sure that I could get the numbers as large as possible.  

• I used a font that has the middle of the "0" cut out but you could also cut your photo and place it on top.  

• Measure the part of the cut that your photo will be used in and then print your to that size. 

• Place the cut paper over the photo and line it up how you want. 

• Place the negative cut in it's spot. 

•  Remove the positive cut, careful not to move the photo or the negative cut.

•  Trim around the edge of the negative cut, leaving enough room around the edge to adhere it to the positive cut. I cut mine with ! 1/4" border.

• Add adhesive to the edge and place the positive cut pack over the top. Perfect placement every time!
• I then cut little strips of paper and added them to the outside edge, overlapping here and there. 
• Once that was all complete, I stitched them to the paper.  
• The next step was to cut the title and add confetti, using pattern paper circles and mist.  
• Last but not least, I added journaling strips to the section of the "0" that is opposite the photo.  

Once everything else was done, I added the rest of the title to the page using foam adhesive.

Now I just have to decide if I write my wished for her or if I quiz her about her wishes and dreams for her future.

Daddy is a daughter's first love

When I think of girls, or at least my littlest girl, I think of flowers and frills so I thought it would be fitting today to talk to you about "dressing" up your page to tell the whole story.  Take a look at the page and I'll walk you through my design and thought process. This can also be found on Shimelle.com today.

When thinking through this page and the photos I wanted to scrap, which feature my youngest daughter dressed to the nines and her daddy in a top hat and ready for the ball, I knew I wanted to create a background that helped tell the story of them going to a daddy daughter dance.  I chose a cut file that featured floral designs that all had a similar geometric shape.  I cut them out of white cardstock and set out to find colors that complimented their attire.  After carefully selecting 4 different patterns, I traced the perimeters of the flowers and then hand cut the pattern paper so that it could be placed behind each of the large floral cuts.  It seems like quite the daunting task but it's really not so bad, since the cuts do't have to be perfect.  You just need enough so that you can adhere them to the back of the flower cuts.

Once the flowers were all filled in, I stitched the large die to another piece of white cardstock.  I stitched around the edges but I may go back and stitch around some of the flowers for a little more added interest.

The next task was to determine where to place the photos.  I started out by overlapping the photos and keeping them together but it just wasn't working for me so I separated them and went to work with layering.  I absolutely love to layer.  I think it helps draw attention tot he photos.  Some of the ways I like to layer are: adding 3 - 4 pieces of pattern paper behind the photo, adding a frame (die cut or chipboard), adding tags and other ephemera and of course stickers. In addition, I will add staples and foam adhesive to make the bits pop a little more. And of course, you want to layer a little bit over the photos, careful not to cover up anything important or distract from the photo. I'm pretty sure I ended up using all of these ideas on these photos.  Yep, I just checked and I did.

Of course no layout would be complete without a title and journaling.  I decided to make good use of the large flower at the top right of the page for the title.  I love the quote that a daddy is a daughter's first love so I used a condensed version of that and used a combo of alphas, placing the individual alphas on the outside and inside curve and completing the title using the lovely script word.  I also added a little sub title in the upper left near the photo to document why they were all dolled up.  Last but not least, the journaling and date is tucked behind the bottom photo. It reads, "You, Rheagan and daddy love going to the daddy daughter dance every year. I love the pre-dance prep, from finding the perfect dress, shoes and accessories to helping with hair, nails and make-up.  Y'all have so much fun doing carriage rides, crafts, flipbooks, having dinner and of course...dancing!"

Hopefully the one thing you will take away from today is to try to look for different ideas on how to tell the full story through all the design elements on your page, not just with your photos.  Thanks for stopping by today!