If I'm not scrapbooking I'm thinking about scrapbooking!
It doesn’t feel much like fall yet in Austin, Texas, so I have to get my cozy feelings from a mug of pumpkin spice tea spiked with pumpkin spice creamer. Here’s to the first taste of pumpkin flavor in the fall. Yum-tastic!
I followed this ScrapMuch? September 11 sketch and used papers from the 6×6 Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go pad.
Our cat Tristan is just a hoot. He’s happy and so expressive. This photograph is not the first time I’ve seen him throw himself down in this joyful position. He always does it when he’s in a great mood and has just received lots of love (like here). Or when he’s happily warming himself in front of a heater in the winter.
I swear: just looking at him makes me happy.
I was inspired by the following sketch from Let’s Get Sketchy. The products I used are a smattering from Crate Paper “Notes & Things,” Amy Tangerine “Yes, Please” and We R Memory Keepers “Chalkboard.” The flair is from Studio Calico. I designed and cut the title with my Silhouette.
I’m so excited about today’s project because 1) I tried something new and 2) liked how it turned out, so 3) I want to share the idea with you! Do you remember doing string art projects as a kid? That’s what I incorporated on my layout as a frame for my small photo of Grandma helping me kiss my brand new brother in January 1968. Mom says I called him “B” (for baby).
This idea came to me because of a sketch (as most of my scrappy ideas do). I was referencing this My Scraps and More sketch below, and I started thinking about how I wanted to create the central “tic-tac-toe” area of the page. I ticked off my options (get it?): strips of patterned paper, strips of washi tape, strips of ribbon, lines of stitching. Lines of stitching made me picture creating an elaborate hand stitched grid area to frame the photo. And then it hit me: string art!
I went to Pinterest and perused other artists’ string art in search of some ideas for making a square frame (as represented in the sketch). After successfully incorporating this technique into my page design, I thought I should share my process in case you like the look as much as I do.
After deciding to make the string art area take up 8×8 inches in the center of the 12×12 page, I created a quick template for myself in my Silhouette Designer software. If you have a Silhouette and want to recreate this, draw an 8×8 square, center it on the page, open the rhinestones window and follow the settings below. If you don’t have a cutting machine, just measure and mark equidistant holes (perhaps 1/2 inch apart) with a ruler.
I cut out my simple template on a scrap piece of paper, lined it up over my background paper and poked the holes. Then the fun began!
I double matted the 3×3 photo with white cardstock and patterned paper so it would pop better off the background. Then I mounted that onto another pattern that was 6.25 square. Following the numbering system in the diagram below (up at 1, down at 2, up at 3, down at 4, etc.), I stitched away with two colors of embroidery thread to create the four corners of my square frame.
I do hope this tutorial was helpful to you. If you decide to try this technique on a page, I would LOVE to see it, so please come back and leave me a comment on this post. I will leave you kindly comments in return, I promise!
This is a photo of our sweetheart, Liam, at three months of age. How about that bold stare? He still has those amazing baby blue eyes.
I created this layout to participate in a monochromatic/ombre challenge at A Cherry on Top, in which they required the use of only one color (other than black and white) in at least three shades. No other colors (except in your photos) was allowed. That is not as easy as it may sound! I found my papers in 6×6 paper pads by American Crafts, BasicGrey and My Mind’s Eye. I created the title with a free cut file that I offered on my blog a few weeks ago. Here it is again, in case you missed it.
We all have certain techniques that especially catch our eye when they’re used on a layout, and for me paper folding is one of them.
I seem unable to pass up a closer look at a page with folds! So to add a little extra dimension and personality to my page I incorporated a faux quilting folding technique into my design. If you want to see more details about creating this look, I have a tutorial in an older post for a layout that uses the same technique.
For my 11th birthday in 1977 Mom and Dad let me have a slumber party with a few friends: Jill Trzaska, Renee Poplik and Margaret Wissman. One of my fun memories from this night is when we performed a song-and-dance routine for my family (bottom photo). We called ourselves “The Oreos” because of the plastic Oreo party favor necklaces we all wore. Pretty clever, eh?
The products on this page all came from the November Back Porch Memories kit and are from American Crafts’ “Shimelle” line. I created the title on the Silhouette and designed it to incorporate the record die cut from the kit as the O.
Note: I’m submitting this to the Paper Issues “Let’s Get This Party Star-ted and Par-ty Hear-ty” link party.
