The Story of my Heart

When I first started scrapping, cards were something I would make all the time. Then I decided it was all too hard because it required a vastly different style and technique from creating layouts. So I stopped making them for a year or two. But now I've come full circle again, and sometimes people would be mistaken for thinking mine was a cardmaking blog.

The main reason for my change of heart is because I realised that making cards isn't different from making layouts at all. It's just on a smaller canvas and usually doesn't require a photo. The same papers, techniques, design principles and products can be used just as easily, and in fact, I find it the easiest if I go on and create a card the minute I've finished with my page. I can essentially copy what I've just put together and use up my scraps at the same time!

Following on from my "Crazy Like" layout I put together this card with all very similar elements from the Carta Bella Hello Again collection I got from Paper Stories. It features the same gesso/stencil/mist technique that I showed you in my video, it's got the same layers hand-cut banners, a few stickers from the Elements sheet and a gorgeous Flair button from Ormolu.

So if you find it difficult to switch to cardmaking then try just copying your last page! It makes it super-easy to create a reasonable stash of cards for any occasion :-)

The Story of Thick & Thin

With more than enough leftover supplies from the Carta Bella Hello Again collection from the Paper Stories shop I went ahead and made another layout. Remember how I said at the beginning that I thought perhaps the black paper would make an interesting background? Well I couldn't get that thought out of my head, so this is what I did....

Contrasting against the black & white background I wanted lots of bright coloured papers (all my 'scraps') and I used up quite a few of the Element Stickers too. I thought I better stick to a black & white photo with all that going on and even though this one is pretty ordinary in quality it makes up for it in sentiment.

The photo shows me with 2 of my colleagues. We were all posted to work at the same hospital around about the same time. There's been lots of ups and downs over these last 3 years but I can always count on these girls for support, and that means the world to me. The title of my layout "Through Thick and Thin" reflects that idea.

There was a sticker in the Elements sheet that read 'thank you for being a friend' and it worked perfectly here, and even one of the Ormolu Flair Buttons had a cross on it which reminds me of hospitals so it also found a home on this layout. I think it's great when your embellishments are pretty, but I think it's even more awesome when they help symoblise the overall theme.

The Story of Crazy Like

Two Things.....
1. Have you entered my JBS September Spring Giveaway yet? There's still a couple of days to enter!
2. I've got a new(ish) video up on YouTube about the making of this layout.. let me share it with you :-)

I've got some cute kids right?.... but man do they do some crazy stuff sometimes! At this point I'm finding the simplest day-to-day activities and things they say is the best fodder for layout topics. It doesn't always have to be about the big events. So I took this quote from my daughter and based my whole page around it. She looked at this photo of herself in her pretty new dress riding on the back of a tricycle and exclaimed "that's not very lady-like... that's crazy-like", which totally made me giggle out loud!

My page focuses on the pretty papers in the Carta Bella Hello Again collection which are available at Paper Stories. In fact, I've hardly used any other embellishments. But what I have used are a lot of background mixed-media products and techniques and it's this process that I wanted to highlight in my video.

I know the idea of adding things like gesso, mists, Gelatos and Twinkling H2O's to your page sounds a bit foreign and scary to some of you, whilst others will embrace the idea whole-heartedly and might just want some fresh inspiration. I think these wet mediums are awesome for adding another layer of depth and dimension and you can still add all your paper layers over the top like I have.

My video speeds through fairly quickly (otherwise it would take forever in real time!) so if there's anything you didn't quite catch or any questions about what I've used or what I've done feel free to leave them in the comments and I'll get back to you ASAP.

The Story of Name Calling

I can honestly tell you I've been having such a fun time creating with the Hello Again collection from Carta Bella that's currently available in the Paper Stories store. I'm not sure that I had used Carta Bella before the lovely Georgia sent me this kit, and maybe you're in the same boat? Let me tell you the quality of these papers is fabulous! Do you remember the old Crate Paper, or the older My Mind's Eye papers that were thick and soft and velvety? That's what these are like.

For this first layout I've limited myself to only using the yellow, pink and black papers. When I'm faced with an entire collection I find it a little daunting to know where to start. For example, there's way too many fun tags and stickers to choose from! But if I make up a colour scheme to follow it helps me make choices about which ones to use.

I started my layout by cutting out a bunch of hearts into my background paper with my Silhouette. I backed it with a contrasting colour and made sure to stick some foam tape in between the layers to give it some depth and dimension. That's a little technique I've been playing around with lately and I'm really loving the results. I've made another page using this style but it's been picked up for publication by Scrapbook Trends (yep - shameless name dropping here!)

And of course, the cut-out hearts don't go to waste because I've used some here, and the rest ended up on my next layout! I've just doodled around them a bit with black and white pens.

Because most of the decoration on this page was done with the hearts I didn't need a lot more embellishments, but I've layered up some of the Element Stickers plus the Label and Flair from Ormolu which match perfectly. The title stickers also worked well as they continued on with the black & white theme. You can find these JBS stickers in the shop too (on sale!!)

This layout is all about the day my youngest finally called her sister by her proper name. You know how young kids tend to turn long difficult names into funny little abbreviations? Well it's taken my almost-4-year-old that long to be able to call her sister 'Bethany'. Mostly she calls her 'Bebesh'. It's partly our fault too of course, as we rarely call her Bethany either. She's got about a million little nicknames that we call her instead. It's just a family moment in our everyday lives that seems worth documenting :-)