Diversity within a Kit Club -- No, Not the Political Kind!!

I am NOT talking diversity, as in ethnicity here folks!  I am talking about how many looks or types of pages can be easily made from one kit! 

Here, my Scrapbook Circle kit provided me with a nice vintage vibe for an old photo of my parents, circa 1948. 

I just loved the feel of those peach and pink florals on that green background...combine that with a touch of black and white and a bit more peach.... oooooh yummy! 

Before I did anything, I decided approximately where my photo was going to go and used water plus spray mist on cellophane  technique for added some areas of color.  Not a lot, just a bit of peachy pinky color that would peek out from under my photo.  And once that was done, I added a few splatters of peachy pink too! 

The photo itself was layered with crumpled tracing paper (my substitute for vellum, since I am out), a scrap of some light green patterned paper (that I had tested my little sewing machine out on), and a slim strip of the striped paper. 

I hand cut the border pieces since I wanted a slightly irregular edge on them, layered them up and curled and bent the edges.  Then added the striped piece (truly they are piece-s just spliced together)  and fussy cut a few floral bunches to use as supporting embellishments and to tie the border into the photo portion of the page. 

Took the opportunity to use a few of the chipboard pieces included in the kit down the left side of the photo. 

Once the photo was in place, it was easy to line up a few of the chipboard pieces.  But now I was stymied as for a title...I decided to use the smile chipboard piece as the title, so it went to the top of the stack!  I did have to alter it slightly, it came with the hashtag symbol and this being a much more vintage page...the hashtag was just not appropriate.  I just trimmed that off and lightly sanded the edge. 

This page came together pretty quickly.  The papers coordinated beautifully and the page design is just a matter of border pieces, so I was done in no time!   The border at the top was cut by hand again to allow for a slightly irregular edge and after bending up the edges, all I added was a doily piece and a few small fussy cut flowers. 

Other than my tracing paper, I used a few enamel dots from my stash and that odd piece of green patterned paper--not even sure you can see it.  And I still have another piece or two (or three) of paper yet to be used, more chipboard pieces, sequins and other goodies.  So far, this kit has provided me with a back to school page, a baby page, my little superhero page and now a vintage vibe page.  I'm thinking the diversity here is pretty good, huh?! 

Experiment with a test kit or two...see what kind of "diversity" you can achieve! 

have a great and scrappy day!
Cheryl

Learning to Overcome Embellishment Phobia -- a Scrapbook Circle Layout

I said, I am embellishment challenged.  I love them...I just don't tend to use lots of them on a page, at one time, together even.  I think I've been this way ever since I read a post on the old Two Peas board that someone said that pages with lots of embellishments,  "looked like someone had vomited embellishments all over a page". That's just gross.  And it was one of those statements that someone makes who is looking to provoke...but it was such a gross thing to say, it's stuck with me for y.e.a.r.s. 

But I have made it a mission lately to overcome this phobia or weirdness of mine and learn to use all these lovely things that arrive in our kits. 

I used a page from Jennifer McCurtrey on the Scrapbook Blog as my inspiration!

http://www.scrapbookcircle.com/blog

There's really not much to talk about...it was really was such a simple matter to sit and piece these pretty little chipboard pieces together, kind of like a scrapbook puzzle!  So here's some close ups. 

Not quite sure how often I will use this particular technique, but it sure did make a dent in my embellishments! 

The items I used from outside the kit are the scraps I cut the photo corner triangles from and the floral gems (gosh I've been hoarding those for years, glad to see some on a page finally!). 

I will probably always struggle a bit with using lots of embellishment pieces on a page, but I'm working on it!  And enjoying it! 

best,
Cheryl

Ha Ha! Learning to Make the Most of a Kit!! -- Citrus Twist September Kit

The Citrus Twist kit I received (#1 of my 2 kit test)  was heavy on embellishment, lean on papers.  Compared to other kit clubs so far, that is.  This kit contained full packs of chipboard stickers, wood veneer, ephemera pack, as well as an alphabet, a stamp set, enamel dots, and cut-a-parts.  Wowzers.  And me not being a huge embellish-er...  So I set to work to learn the skill of embellishing -- heavily, without having the resulting page look as though someone just dumped a whole pack of embellishments and glued 'em where they landed! 

Before I could begin my quest to conquer embellishments (quest/phobia, take your pick!), I had to choose a paper.  The pieces I had left from the kit were full of yellow, lots and lots of yellow and that was just not gonna work.  I chose to make my own by using three different colors of Heidi Swapp texture medium.  This went relatively quickly just be squirting the three colors down both the top and bottom of a plain white cardstock and then using an old credit card, scraping them from one side to the other.  Loved the result metallic sheen and the texture this created.  

Next, I tried to determine where I might want some splatters and went with placing them at the top rich and bottom right of the page.  I wanted to get the gold ink dripped on and allow it to dry before I started monkeying around with papers and smudged those pretty little golden drops!  After the paper was dry, all four sides got trimmed down a smidge and roughed up a bit with my Heidi Swapp paper distress tool. 

Now for the photo.  Since I was dead-set on using this photo of my granddaughter, I first tried multiple layers of pink and pink patterned papers from the kit....too much.  Finally determined I would use several layers of crumpled and flattened tracing paper (I'm out of vellum and tracing paper makes a good substitute!).   When I laid the photo bundle in place on the page, it was apparent that I needed to add some foam dots to even the height a bit, and I also opted to tuck in another kind of large wood veneer heart.  You really only see a tiny bit of it and that's OK with me because it's one of those gem stone cut looking things and I'm not truly partial to that particular design.  Using it this way allowed just a touch of the wood veneer to peek out, it evened out that corner of the photo bundle (height wise I mean) and I used up another embellishment! 

 

I used quite a few of the wood veneer pack on this page and still have some left!  I also used one of the ephemera pieces and added one of my own doilies.  My mission was to learn how to use embellishments as effectively as pieces of paper.  So I decided to treat them as layering pieces on this page and layered the floral wood veneer, a leaf veneer piece under the corner of the photo and layered a wood veneer heart on top.  I also tucked in one of the rose ephemera die cuts and the smile piece as well. 

I also created a simple cluster at the top of the page by using another wood veneer floral piece and a section of a doily (used another piece of the same paper doily among the photo layers).  I'm not even sure this qualifies as a true cluster since there are only two pieces, but hey that's what I'm calling it! 

I used one of the veneer pieces as a title for the page, the "love you" was one of my favorite pieces.  I wanted it to be prominent as the title but also kind of be connected to the veneer cluster at the corner of the photo, so I placed it such that it almost touches the floral piece, but is just a hair away. 

The trimmed down and treated paper was placed on another piece from my I don't think I'm gonna use it for anything pile...I liked the color of the border of this paper and that was about all, so it was perfect to use under my painted page!  

Overall, I am really happy with this page.  I successfully used a bunch of embellishments, created a background paper that has great texture and yet appears soft and not over worked and was able to finally scrap this photo of my granddaughter that has kept popping up on my desk for weeks now!! 

Mission completed!  Am I completely comfortable with using a lot of embellishments on a page.  No, not yet anyway.  It will be an ongoing learning process.  And that's OK with me too!  It was fun to do; I like the challenge of working with materials I am not completely comfortable with. 

So what are you uncomfortable working with?  Try making it your mission to work those materials into a page.  Focus on one aspect, one product type and work with it in a familiar way.  You might find you've got a knack for it!

happy scrappin' all
Cheryl

Still Christmas at My House = Another Christmas Page!

So, yeah.  I am still scrapping Christmas.  I do not scrap chronologically, at all.  If you've read my blog before, you know I jump from years and years (and years) ago to current photos with no real rhyme or reason.  It just depends on what appeals to me at the moment.  So I go with it. 

This page is again about our Christmas cookie baking adventures.  I love to get the grandkids involved.  They "helped" roll the Chocolate Crinkle cookies in powdered sugar, hence the white hands!  And you know what, they did a really good job!!  I so want them to remember these times spent together.  I want to remember the look on Jackson's face when he came into the kitchen, saw his sister helping to roll the chocolate cookies into little balls and proclaimed he could help too.  Until he saw his sisters hands all covered in sticky chocolate dough.  Then he wrinkled his face up and said... "Oh, no.  I don' wanna do tha-a-t.  She's all doo-ty."  So we switched to rolling the cookies in powdered sugar. 

The page is a mish mash of Echo Park (the background sheet), Pink Paislee holiday pad (the stripes used to border the page and for the layers under the photos), and Crate (the large cluster of ephemera to the side of the photos).  I had made a bunch of these cluster things several months ago (see my October 25 post http://cheryl-husmann.blogspot.com/2014_10_01_archive.html ) after watching a video where this gal went through a pile of scraps and packaged ephemera, stapled little stacks of it together. 

Tucked in a piece of a doily, added a tab at the top of the photo block, and my title and journaling.   Oh, yeah...and sequins!!!   It's a Christmas layout...gotta add some sparkle! 

sparkle on everyone!
Cheryl

Stuff, Lots and Lots of Stuff (ephemera, stickers, and embellishments, oh my)

OK, so some scrappers can define their "style" by  describing themselves as a simple scrapper, or a minimalist, or being all about the patterned paper, or some such description.  But a defined style, me?  mmm, yeah, no. 

 As much as I jump around from subject to subject and year to year. I also seem unable to remain within one "style" of scrapping.  I can be perfectly enamored with lots of white space and minimal embellishments one week and the next be over the top for sticking on a stack of embellishments.  (Which is where we are at today; stuff, lots and lots of stuff.) 

When I saw some a couple of packs of very dimensional birthday embellishments at Michaels, I just loved them and snatched them right up. As it turns out, the paper rosettes, title banner, party hat and happy birthday sticker (part of the two different embellishment packs I grabbed) were re-branded Recollections, but are in fact part of the Party Day Maggie Holmes collection (no wonder I loved them).  I already had the ephemera pack (snared at Hobby Lobby weeks and weeks earlier) and sometime later I lucked into finding the Party Day paper pad on clearance. 

Now, with all this Party Day stuff collected I sat down to make Bella's party page.  Used two different background pieces, the diagonal red and pink stripe and the grid paper.  Prior to this I had stacked up and stapled together little piles of the flat ephemera, so I just tucked a couple of the piles in and around the photos.   I added the rosette and the party hat and then the banner title, which kind of gave me fits.  I mean that part should have been easy, peas-y.  But the title looked flat, so I cut out an extra sunburst layer for each of the letters and popped every other one up.  The sticker letters are from Echo Park, Little Girl sticker sheet and I think the party, play-fun day piece is from Heidi Swapp, but otherwise everything is Party Day.   

Where am I going with all this?  Well, there is a lotta, lotta of stuff on this page, lots more than I usually use.  So just when I think I have myself figured out style-wise, um, not so much.  I guess we'll just go with it and see where we end up. 

see where you end up, surprise!
Cheryl