Do your own embellishments - Week #45

Hi Ladies.. Thanksgiving is almost here and I would like to share my Thankful & Blessed Layout for this week and show you how easy is to make our own embellishments!!!

Sometimes we have a lot a papers and we realize they are so busy to use in our projects and maybe they are waiting in our stash for months and sometimes years for the perfect project....So I decided to use my old papers.. and this piece of paper is perfect for my Layout!!!

This piece of paper is so busy to use alone but I fussy cut the leaves using my marvelous Westcott scissors and they will be perfect to embellish my layout.

Did you heard about Scrap Free Scrapbooking?? Well Jennifer Priest come up with a great idea to Scrapbook Free! don't you like the idea to Scrapbook with the papers and embellishments we have and don't spend money? well she has a lot of tips and templates that she develop to scrapbook without scraps!! YES>>> No Scraps!!! yey!!!!

Using my brand NEW Trim Air - Westcott Rotary Paper Trimmer and using Scrap Free Scrapbook ideas I start cutting my paper!

Once I cut all my pieces I use my Xyron Mega Runner.. another gadget I love!

I use two pictures I don't really like to journal.. I'm more into titles and photos some times I love clean and simple and today is one of those days!

Another embellish I did was the title.. I use my electronic cutter .. you can use also dies.. the thing is we need to use what we have!!!!

This Layout is so simple but I like the results..

To finish .. I add some tags I had also from my stash and voila!! One Layout with out using anything new!! I'm so thankful and blessed to have a lot in my stash and I'm decided to use it using all the Tips from the book "Scrap Free Scrapbooking" isn't a good idea?

If you want to buy this book use code MAGDA to save $3.99 at checkout.

TUTORIAL!!

Supplies used:

Westcott Brand - Titanium Non Stick Scissors

Westcott Brand - Rotary Paper Trimmer

Westcott Brand - Self Healing Mat

Xyron Mega Runner

Silhouette Cameo Electronic Paper Trimmer

Cardstock and papers from my stash

Thanks for your sweet comments and don't forget to come next Tuesday for another Layout-A-Week!!!

Make the Most of Your Scrapbook Paper and Bling- Week #44

The upcoming Black Friday sales serve as a reminder for me. I have a lot of stuff in my scrapbook stash. If I see a good deal, I have a tendency to give in, especially if it is papercraft related. In years past, one of those impulse purchases involved bling. A lot of Bling...the kind that makes nice decorative 12 x 12 inch long borders. I love to use decorative jewels on my scrapbook layouts but often I find that I use them best in moderation. The long strips of bling sat unused until recently.

Chances are good that if you are hitting up sales for the best value, you are also very budget conscious when it comes to using your supplies (I know I am). Today's layout is in many ways quite minimalist.We are going to complete it with just 1 full 12 x 12 sheet of patterned paper (should be a double sided print), a scrap of patterned paper, a small bit of vellum, some bling and a few embellishments.

After selecting your photos, cut down that scrap piece of patterned paper into a square that accommodates them with a little room to add items along one side. This type of layout works well with multiple 3 x 4 inch photos or instax prints. Adhere that square scrap of paper to the B side of your 12 x 12 paper.

Carefully cut it out using a craft knife and leaving a thin edge along the side to provide a matte for your patterned paper scrap. Flip it over and adhere it so that it covers the hole.

If there are gaps (which happens to me because I cut unevenly), adhere your patterned paper block to a sheet of cardstock, leaving space for a thin edge. You can do this multiple times to add more layers if you desire. Place your photos and begin adding your embellishments. I chose to add a strip of vellum and some washi tape to visually anchor the photos onto the block.

I like bling but a full 12 x 12 inch strip is just too much for me. I often cut these longer strips apart. In this case, I cut just a few bits of these chevron bling strips to add to the layout. Long before I bought sheets of pearls and enamel dots, I would buy these strips of bling and sometimes full bling shapes on sale to cut apart for use as accents. You can easily cut a large strip or just one single jewel to use on your layouts.If the glue on the back falls off when you cut the shape or strip apart, use a tiny dot of liquid adhesive on the back of the jewel.

Add your title and then add the journaling to the scrapbook layout. I like to use journaling strips because they add an extra layer to the page while also using up scraps. The size of the title and the amount of journaling I did on this page helped me determine just how much extra embellishing I wanted to add. Both took up a lot of real estate on this page. Given that I also used quite a busy patterned paper and bright colors, I chose to keep embellishments minimal and in a fairly neutral color.

Do you love bling? Or do you prefer something less shiny on your layouts?

About this layout: We recently moved overseas to the United Arab Emirates. I wanted to document our temporary living accommodations in the hotel while also conveying how thankful I am for them.

Supplies Used: 

Patterned Paper: Bella Blvd.

Letters: Lillybee Designs

Tape: My Mind's Eye

Cork: Shimelle

Jewels: Duck Brand, Freckled Fawn

Vellum: Studio Calico

Visit me at MyScrapbookEvolution.com

Paper Strips For Quick & Easy Scrapbook Pages - Week #42

Halloween is over, and the candy has been eaten. Here in the U.S., that means our thoughts are now turning to turkey and stuffing!

Thanksgiving means family gatherings for most of us, which means lots of photos of course. I still have lots of photos that haven't been scrapped from when my daughter was small and the demands of motherhood limited my creative time. It's my goal to get some of these in albums! For this layout I dug out photos from her second Thanksgiving, when she was 18 months old.

We don't tend to think of our paper trimmer as a primary creative tool. Instead, we see it as a utilitarian support tool. But one of my favorite techniques for creating quick and simple pages is to use paper strips. Strips let you get a taste of a pattern without it overwhelming a page, and it also lets you add multiple colors to a page in only a small area.  This entire layout is created pretty much with only a paper trimmer. 

While the strips look random, their placement is actually very carefully determined. How do you decide where to put the strips? In this layout, the photos were placed first when planning the layout, and then the plaid and green strips were placed to ground them. then the blue strip was used to ground the title chipboard piece. 

I find that 5/8" is usually a perfect width for paper strips on most layouts, and this Westcott trimmer makes it super easy to cut them. The edge of the metal base on the right side of the blade in the photo below is 5/8". There's no squinting at small marks or measuring needed - just line your paper up with that edge and trim! 

Besides the trimmer, the only other tool that I used on this layout is a set of food planner stamps by Clearly Kelly. Many planner stamps are also perfect for pocket scrapbook and event pages. After all, if you think about it, planner stamps are designed to record in our planners the things that we are taking photos of! Their small size makes them particularly suited to using on pocket cards, like this one from the Pumpkin Spice collection kit that I added to my layout as a journaling block.

Chalk ink like this Colorbox archival one (in Chestnut Roan) gives a matte finish that is a great match to the finish on quality papers like these Simple Stories ones. Thanks to the chalk ink, the stamp looks like it is part of the original paper design.

Strips don't always have to be paper, either. At the bottom of the page I mixed in some sticker pieces to the strip design. Some word strips combined to form a longer strip underneath the "thankful" title, making the title blog a bit more bulky and inserting a few more colors into that area of the layout. Then the journaling card was grounded using a patterned border sticker that matched an element on the top of the card.

Strip layouts are extra easy to do when you start by using a coordinated collection pack. You know then that no matter what you choose from the stack, it will match. And sometimes that leads you down unexpected paths.

I used to only buy open stock paper so that I could "cherry pick" collections and only buy the sheets that I was sure that I absolutely loved. If I had done that, I would have passed by that plaid in the top strip because, well, as a child of the 70's I became somewhat traumatized by bad plaid experiences (and have the pictures to prove it) - especially brown plaid. But since it was in the collection pack, I was willing to give it a try...and I'll admit, I love the results!

If you don't have the exact elements on my supply list, you can substitute letter stickers or a die cut element for the title, and a punched or die cut element for the sticker on the top left. Get out your trimmer and start cutting!

Supplies:

• Simple Stories Pumpkin Spice collection kit
• Simple Stories Pumpkin Spice Chipboard
• Simple Stories Pumpkin Spice Simple Basics paper kit
• Colorbox Chalk Archival ink in Chestnut Roan
• Kelly's Food Planner stamps by Clearly Kelly for Hero Arts stamps
• Westcott Titanium Bonded 12" Multipurpose Trimmer
• Black pen