Creative Souls - Another BG Layout

My photo printers are both busted. I was saddened by the demise of my Selphy, though I think the 4 years that I've had it had been worth the price I paid for it. Now my Epson Stylus R290 is a different matter. It's only 15 months old and simply saying it cannot be fixed is unacceptable. Anyway, I called Epson and I was told that they still have parts to fix it. So hopefully, it would still have more years of use before it dies a natural death.

Anyway, the lack of home photo printing capability made me restless so I embarked on a photo hunt. I found a few at home and it led me to a scrapping frenzy. I have a photo of myself scrapping at home with three of my colleagues. The photo was taken from above and it shows our beautiful mess of a table. It inspired me to create a layout packed with color. And what better paper to use than Basic Grey's June Bug! So here it is!


I really love the colors of the June Bug line. However, I still have difficulty using bold and bright patters on a layout. So as usual, I had to break down the papers into smaller pieces. This time, it's flowers! I cut out flower patterns from the papers. And I also made flowers from punched circles. Here's a closer look.


Materials: Papers - Basic Grey June Bug (Kaleidoscope, RicRac, Fresco); Fabric Paper – MAMBI; Rub-Ons and Bling – Basic Grey Bling It On; Pearl – Basic Grey Opaline; Chipboard Stickers – Chatterbox

All of the materials listed above are available at My little Attic.

And here's how I created the layout:

1. Cut RicRac paper to 6 x 12. Cut the remaining RicRac paper to 5 x 12. Tear about 1.5 inches from the edge of the smaller paper. Adhere the smaller paper on the left edge of the 6x 12 paper with the yellow side up.
2. Adhere photo on the center of the RicRac paper, making sure that the upper left corner does not have any adhesive.
3. Cut a small rectangle, about 3.5” x 4”, of the Kaleidoscope paper. Insert in the upper left corner of the photo. Adhere the photo to the journaling card, and adhere the journaling card to the base. Clip a small piece of ticket to the photo.
4. Stamp sentiment on the lower-right portion of the yellow paper.
5. Cut flowers from the Fresco paper and adhere on the page.
6. Punch two large, three medium and three small circles from the Kaleidoscope paper. Spray with water. When soft, crumple and fold edges. Apply chalk ink on the edges and dry with a heat gun. To make the flower, layer the circles from smallest to largest and adhere with glue. Put pearl on the center of the flower. Adhere the flower to the page.
7. Embellish with rub-ons, bling and chipboard stickers.
8. Adhere the title.

Happy scrapping everyone!

MLA Layouts

Now that the news is out, I'd like to share some of the layouts I submitted to MLA. These are posted at the MLA blog, along with the project details. I just want to show a bit more behind the scenes photos and thoughts about these layouts.

This one started with the photo. I love the photo and I thought the Marakech line is perfect for this. I wanted to keep the overall look simple so I opted for a dark background which isn't so busy. Then I just added a splash of color, a bit of stamping and some dimension through the layered elements. I added the buttons on top of the chipboards and I thought they really made a big difference.

Here's a closer look. The word "unforgettable" was stamped and heat embossed.

And here's a closer look at the layered elements. That's a button on top of a chipboard on patterned paper.

This second layout also started with the photo. I desaturated the photo so that there's only that bit of yellow showing through from the camera strap. Because it was desturated, it can work with any patterned paper. I chose to work with blue since the photo was taken in summer, by the pool. More layered elements on this layout. Can you spot them?

More stamping too! The word "adventure" was framed with a label chipboard which I painted with crackle paint.

Look at those cracks!
But my favorite part of this layout are the dots of Stickles all over the page.

Finally, this box has been sitting on my scrap table for months. I painted the edges red and covered it with scraps from my two layouts. Here it is when it was still naked...

...and all dressed up!

Here's a view of the cover. The flower stem was first "painted" with Mod Podge and then sprayed with a shimmer mist. I love how it turned out.

And here's a closer view of the gorgeous flowers.

There's more where these came from so stay tuned. And, before I end this post, I just want to declare...

...I'm BG-challenged no more! Oh yeah!