Mix It Up - Different Collections!

Hi there! Its Lisa-Jane here today with a confession... I'm addicted to patterned paper!  

At the moment I am rather enamoured with Crate Paper and I can tell you that having a bit of a love affair with one particular company can really expand your options when you are making layouts. Because of the printing processes that the companies use, you'll often find that the colours are very similar across collections. I have an album in the making where I am using entirely October Afternoon products from about 10 different collections because they all go so well together and I am really finding that the same is true for Crate Paper.

Take this layout for example: beachy photos made me reach again for The Pier Collection which I am still loving to bits. But I really wanted to bring out the red in that pretty watery floral paper and the red chevron in the collection was too big for what I had in mind.  Instead I reached for a rather unusual option - Bundled Up, the recent Christmas collection! The little red triangles on the cream background were a perfect foil to the prettier piece and the subtle aquas on the reverse went really well too.

I used a few of the Splash Cut Outs, some Simple Stories Homespun alpha stickers and some American Crafts rose trim and everything came together very quickly.

For this next layout I used The Pier again but this time I wanted to really home in on the textures and colours in the photo.  I instantly reached for that glorious turquoise distressed wood paper 'Found' from Maggie Holmes Flea Market as well as adding in a couple of smaller pieces from the Flea Market 6x6 paper pad. 

 Some of the stickers here are from The Pier and I also managed to use a few more of my Simple Stories Homespun stickers too because the layout was about a family of stones that we hid in a crevice on the beach. I definitely made the most of the alpha sheets that came with Homespun as you'll see from another post coming soon!

This final layout merged The Pier with Maggie Holmes Flea Market AND Bundled Up for a very pretty subtle feel. I mounted the Bundled Up ledger paper onto pink Bazzil cardstock, added a strip of Flea Market washed out woodgrain, topped that with some floral from the Flea Market 6x6 pad and then added a couple of scallop border pieces from The Pier to highlight the aqua tones. 

I die cut the title and made the banner from the 6x6 pad too because the smaller print is perfect for these little areas. This gave me lots of room on the ledger paper to tell my story about a picnic we had there a couple of days after the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers. The photo may be from Christmas but it doesn't stop me scrapping a memory from the past which I don't have a photo of.

Mixing up collections like this gives your layouts a little spark of difference and can really extend the life of those ranges that you might normally only think of for their specific theme. Picking out the colours you want to use and choosing your papers accordingly can really open up new possibilities of coordinating patterns and shows that you really can combine beach and Christmas papers with more generic styles. 

What collections would you use together? We'd love to see!

Bye for now, Lisa-Jane

xx

You can find the Crate Paper products in the S J Crafts Shop by clicking here .... and some of them are REDUCED in the Spring Sale!!

Lisa-Jane blogs lots of scrapbook pages and life stories at her blog Inside My Head - stop by and say hello!

Flip Books!

Hello all, Jenny here!

Today I have something to show which really took me out of my comfort zone. Sarah recently received the new Teresa Collins Flip Books in stock at S J Crafts and asked the DT if any of us would like to have a go with one. I had already been looking at these and thought they would be fun to play with so I said "Yes!"

 Only then did I realise just how far out of my comfort zone I had taken my self. Now I’m not ashamed to admit that scrapbooking frightens the life out of me - all that space on a 12x12 sheet? No thank you I’d rather stick to my 6x6 cards! 

But these flip books are great - they are all ready for you to decorate, made from thick black card which is a nice and neutral for any colour scheme. They are available in two different sizes and have a clever built in mechanism so that when the tab is pulled the pages "flip over" one by one.

I decided I was going to use mine to record Aimee’s first experience of horse riding. I chose to use the Glitz Wild & Free papers as some of the papers had horses on and the rest had lovely bold patterns which went with my photos. I didn't mount any of my papers as the black pages looked perfect as a background for the papers, plus it helped not to make the book too thick so the flipping action still worked. Embellishment wise I used some washi tape, some Studio Calico wood grain enamel dots, punched flowers and some chipboard shapes which I coloured with my promarkers and ink pads. 

I'll warn you that the rest of this post is quite picture heavy ... I wanted to show you each page ... if you have any questions please ask by leaving a comment! 

Front Cover:

Inside Front Cover:

Page 1:

Page 2:

Page 3: 

Page 4:

Page 5:

Page 6:

Page 7:

Page 8:

Page 9:

Pages 10 & 11:

Pull Out Page:

 For those of you that have seen my blog will know I generally make cards but I hope this demonstrates that anyone can try scrapbooking using these flip books .... they really are a great way to record those precious memories! 

Don’t forget Annie from the Design Team also posted her flip book including a fab video, you can find her post here.

Jenny makes beautiful projects and shares them on her blog Dragonllew's Spot, check it out and be inspired!

One Step Further ... Stitching and Stamping!

Hello all, it's Louise here today! 

I want to show you something that's bright, that's fun, that's funky. It's Amy Tangerine's Plus One Collection!

A wonderful collection that I have really enjoyed using. Today I'd like to share with you how I've used Amy Tangerines Plus One Collection to build two layouts, adding stamping and hand stitching for texture, dimension and interest...

I had a handful of photos at the ready and eventually decided to go with three smaller photos. I roughly placed them on white card stock:

I flipped through Amy Tangerine's 6x6 paper pad umpteen times. All the papers are wonderful and any would have worked with a grid format I'd decided upon. Eventually I cut into two of the patterned papers and cut out a small word card and picture card. These were placed on the layout with the stitched feather tag.

Have you seen Amy Tangerines Plus One die cut tags? Some of them have holes in them for you to add stitching. A very clever idea, it means you can adapt them to suit your colour scheme, adding a dash of colour and texture at the same time!

Slowly (as I am a very slow scrapper) I added some more patterned paper pieces, wanting to fill in all the gaps I used Amy Tangerine's remark accents and sticker sheet and puffy stickers (my new addiction) and a fabric brad.

At this point I am only placing papers and stickers onto my page. Nothing will be stuck down until I am happy that everything is in the right place...

 You can see how the layout is coming together. I left a hole in the middle and decided to add a hand stitched heart using a template I have had in a draw for far too many years:

At this point I took a photo with my mobile phone. Mainly so that when I stuck all the pieces down I had something to refer back to....if needed (who am I kidding...I know I'll forget where everything goes), especially knowing that I'd be removing all the elements to add some Mr Huey Mist.

Before adding the mist..I went one step further and took out two roller stamps (like this one), adding rows of stars and hearts in places that I thought needed some added interest. I love how adding a stamp to a layout can give it a new look:

Clearing the page I used a mist  to add a few splashes to the stamped areas.

This is how my layout looks now. Everything is stuck down and a date stamp has been added. The feather has been stitched using pink cotton to blend with the other pink elements:

Hmmm....I wasn't happy though, my layout didn't feel finished.

I wonder how many of you have had that feeling from time to time?! 

Now, when I use stamps on a layout I tend to use them on the background paper/cardstock, as I have done this time. There are times when I use stamps to make my own embellishments and this is what I decided to do to finish off my layout.

Using a flower stamp I stamped directly onto a Amy Tangerine's paper and cut the flowers out. The paper has as Ombre effect and this stood out on the finished flower.  I hope from these photos you can see how this flower came together. Three Dimensional tape was used between each layer of the flower.

Still....my layout lacked something and that's when I decided to add some more little flowers, making them in the same way as the big one. All they needed was a pearl gem in the middle to finish them off.

I used a triangle stamp in the same way to make some tiny tiny bunting. 

Finally I was happy, taking this layout one step further with stamps and stitching has definitely made this layout for me. Would you agree?

 Here are some close up's so you can see some more of the details.

 

 Inspired yet to dust off your stamps and stitching templates?

If you are still unsure please carry on further and check out my second layout. Still using the fabulous Amy Tangerine Plus One collection. This layout will sit with the one I've just created as the photos were from the same evening and tell an Instagram selfie story.

I started in the same way. I picked some 6x6 Amy Tangerine papers and decided on a title using a tag from Amy Tangerines Die cut tags. To tie this page to the previous one I stitched another heart and freehand stitched the word "forever" this was after I used a roll stamp, to add some stamped hearts, stars and arrows.

I printed out the word and used a poky tool to make evenly spaced holes.

 

 Some more patterned papers pieces were added to the page.

I loved the flowers so much from the last layout that I made them again along with an Instagrammed stamp to create the arrow. 

The flowers and Amy Tangerines sticker sheet and puffy stickers were placed on the layout.

My layout is busy, fun, funky and bright. I liked it..so I got ready to stick everything down.

 The fabric black X brad looked wonderful on the top right corner. The orange bottom button didn't feel right. So after making a few minor changes, adding a black camera badge instead of the orange one, adding another printed word and to finish off with some of Studio Calico Stars.... I was happy that my busy layout was finished.

Here are some close up photos so you can see more of the details.

It's your turn now...

• How do you feel about stamping on your projects?  I use stamps time and time again on my projects. When you cannot find the right embellishment of paper try pulling out your stamps. I bet you have something that will fit the occasion.

• How do you feel about stitching on your projects? Maybe you have a stitching template hiding away somewhere ...pull it out and use it. You'll be surprised how much you like it!

• Finally Amy Tangerine's Plus One Collection. What do you think? Is it bright, fun and funky enough for you. Please leave us a comment and link if you have/will purchase this collection and create with it.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you have enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed creating it. Louise x x x

Louise is a busy Mum of three boys and she blogs her wonderful crafts at Boys, Bugs, and Beautiful Buttons!

Very Versatile Vellum

Hello everyone, Jemma here today with my first official DT post!

The *star* of the supplies that I received in my DT package from SJ Crafts really has to be this sheet of starry vellum from Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection. It is just so versatile!

I've already used it to add interest and tone down some brightly coloured stripes on this page:

Which I made for the March Photo Inspiration Challenge ... there's still time to enter and have a chance of a prize too! 

I knew it would also be great to use for a home-made pocket for extra photographs ...

... and for a cute little tag for pulling the photos out of the pocket too.  I couldn't resist using the vellum for another tag tie elsewhere on my page:

I've squeezed in 10 mini photos (and 4 more in the vellum pocket) but, having trimmed them down a little from the original 3x4, I realised that the cute polaroid frame in the Boys Rule journalling cards pack no longer fitted.  No problem though because I used it as a template to make my own vellum frames:

The wonderful thing with a vellum frame is that you can still see the edges of the photo.  The even better thing about making your own frames is that you can have more than one!

That's the left hand side of my double page spread.  Can you spot another use of the starry vellum?

And here's the right hand side.  A busy, busy pair of pages for a character-full few days in Florida in 2004.  Using the pocket also allowed me to hide the two photos containing green costumed creatures as there's no green in the papers I've used (Arcade and Champ):

The addition of wooden elements, stickers and journalling cards added to the business so I had to doodle around the title letters cut from Rad to help them stand out a little more.

I count 5 uses of the vellum ... but my mind is still buzzing with a couple more ... and there's still a small square of my original sheet left, so I'm off to play!

Bye for now, Jemma x

Jemma is one of our newest DT members and she blogs projects full of fabulous ideas at Just Jimjams - please stop by and say hi!