Christmas in July

I do so appreciate a good Christmas in July challenge.  For some reason, I don’t like to scrap Christmas layouts in the winter.  Let the temperature hit 90 degrees, and suddenly I am in the mood for the green and red of the holidays.  Fa la la la…

In this case, I was challenged to work from a sketch that was a bit unlike my normal layout.  The photo placement is not something I would have considered on my own.  I don’t think I have ever scrapped photos on a diagonal like this.  Sometimes it pays to stretch yourself.  Honestly, I very much like the final result.

Most of you know that I tend to use a lot of scraps on my layouts.  This time, I pulled mostly uncut papers.  I just didn’t have scraps in the colors I wanted for this page.  I was going for the greens and brick red that are found in the photos.  So I went through a stack of older papers, and found what I needed for the background along with the two large blocks in the middle.  The photo mats were cut from Photo Play’s Luke 2 6×6 pad.  I added one more tiny layer behind each mat from my scraps.  (You know I had to fit a scrap in there somewhere!)

Finding embellishments was a challenge as well.  Again, most of my embellishments were not the correct color.  Luckily, I had the reindeer diecut in my stash.  It did a nice job of filling space and connecting the photos.  I couldn’t find anything else that would work well, so I decided to pull some neutral pieces.  Wood veneers, gold sequins, and some naked chipboard snowflakes fit the bill quite well.

The naked chipboard snowflakes didn’t turn out exactly like I wanted.  I planned on coloring the chipboard with Tim Holtz’s Bundled Sage distress inks.  Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t find that pad anywhere in all of my mess supplies.  Instead, I used Peeled Paint.  It was a bit darker than I was going for, but I thought it would be fine.  Then I used some clear thick embossing powder to make the snowflakes shiny.  Somehow that made the snowflakes look black.  If I ever use this technique again, I will make sure my ink is lighter than what I want as my final result.

There’s still a week left in July!  Anyone else want to get into the Christmas spirit?  Why not make a holiday layout or some cards?  Oh, I think cards are next!

New Supplies

Do you remember how fun it was to get new school supplies when you were in school?  There was nothing better than picking out the newest style of Trapper Keeper.  (Yes, I am fully aware that I am giving away my age.)  Now that I am a teacher, the shine has worn off a bit.  (No one wants to see back to school commercials the week after school gets out!)  I think it may be even worse for parents.

Today I feel that same sort of excitement when new scrappy supplies arrive at the door.  The most fun for me is that I have often forgotten what I ordered.  There is a wonderful company that will hold your order until you’ve met their $100 threshold for free shipping.  So, over the course of many months, I order here and there until finally the package gets shipped.  It’s always a wonderful surprise.  This does mean that I may not be scrapping with the newest collections, but let’s be real.  Most of my scrapping uses older supplies.  What’s a few months when I usually scrap with things that are many years old?

Here are a few of my new acquisitions.

Echo Park seemed to catch my fancy for this order.  In this case, I am preparing for a Disney trip.  You know, in case you couldn’t guess by these 2 Disney themed collections.  The first is in classic Disney colors.  I like that the color scheme is pretty versatile.  Chances are, I will be using the B sides that are a bit less busy.

The second collection has an Alice in Wonderland theme.  I honestly put these in my cart, took them out, put them in, took them out… You get the picture.  The colors aren’t quite me and the papers are *extremely* busy.  So in this case I only ordered a few papers and then the matching solids.  I am hoping that the solids will help break up and tone down all of that pattern.  After ordering it, I realized that now I HAVE to meet Alice during our trip.  What good does Alice paper do if you don’t actually meet Alice?  Oh, the sacrifices I make!

Sticking with the Echo Park lines, I also picked up just a bit of the “Just Married” collection.  Really it is only this beautiful floral and some solids.  That light blue solid is from a different collection, but I kept it together just in case I choose to use it on the same layout.  I really love that sweet floral.

This is a mishmash of various cat papers.  When half of your layouts involve cats, well, you buy cat papers.  That top paper just makes me grin.  I am a big fan of whatever genius decided to put glasses on cats.  Are those cateye glasses?  I love it.

Lastly, I have these Kaisercraft papers.  The top and bottom papers are from the same collection.  The two in the middle are from 2 additional collections.  Dear manufacturers, I love when you do this.  When you repeat colors in various collections, I can mix and match to my heart’s content.  I will definitely be using the pink wood grain with at least one of the holiday papers.

There was a lot more in my box of heavenly goodness.  Many of the papers are stand alones.  I often purchase something that I love and then see what in my stash will go with it once it arrives.  At this point, there is always something in my stash that will work.  Perhaps I need to stop shopping.

Paper Inspiration

Do you ever sort through your paper and find something you just simply must use right this moment?  In all honesty, I have so much paper at this point that I forget what I have.  So when I ran across this multi-color raindrop paper by Pink Paislee, I was inspired.  It is just too cute to sit in a file any longer.  Then I spent a little time pulling some matching papers from my stash.  It wasn’t too hard to find pink, yellow, green, and orange papers to go with it.  Sadly, the green paper didn’t make the cut this time.

Once it was time to create the design, I turned to another muse, an online class.  After watching a video, I took one of the pages and put my own spin on it.  I focused on having an area of embellishment at the top and bottom, and then a small one next to the title.  The embellishment was kept quite simple because the paper is so busy!

Though I don’t often reach for chipboard embellishments these days, I knew I had some pieces that would match the color scheme.  Those “Adorable” and “You & Me” pieces were just perfect for these photos!  I mean, really, both that little girl and her great grandpa are adorable.  I also picked out the chevrons to point at the title.  A few brads, three puffy asterisks, and some die cut circles finished off the page.

I did want this page to include journaling.  I couldn’t find a way to insert a block of writing that would look right.  So, in this case, the journaling is on the back.  Another way I could have included journaling would be to  create a pocket behind the yellow polka dot paper.  I could have placed a pull out journal card there, with a small tab that stuck out.  Of course, I didn’t think about any of this until everything was all glued down.  *Sigh*  Isn’t that always the way?

My challenge for you is to thumb through your papers and find a piece that speaks to you… Something that calls out to be removed from your stacks and onto a page.  Use that paper as the beginning of your next fabulous layout!