Laura Achilles created this adorable layout about her "mountain girls" and shows how sometimes a stamp can actually add to the story. From Laura: "I loved adding the deer stamp to my layout. I imagined that there was truly a deer just hanging out just outside the range of the photo. Probably not, but he is on my layout!"
Laura Achilles made this layout about her daughter. She loves to add stamping to her layouts, but sometimes a small addition is just right. Laura said "Stamping on layouts doesn’t always have to be big! Sometimes a smaller subtle use of stamps helps draw the eye to the subject in the photo."
Laura used the small hand icons from Little Cuties stamp set to highlight her photos. A simple and inexpensive accent that you can use over and over again. Stamp a whole sheet of the icons and then keep them on hand while you scrap, cutting out the individual image as you need them.
Lindsay Weirich designed this cute Trick or Treat layout with our Vintage Pumpkin stamps. Love the bright colors!
Watch for more halloween inspiration during the rest of this week!
Laura Achilles made this layout and wanted to have a special banner embelishment. She says "Stamping is fun and it's even more fun when you find other surfaces to stamp on." She stamped a simple banner border on canvas using the Pink Persimmon Small Banner Set. She then cut them out, fringed the edges a bit and adhered them using Zap Dots by Helmar USA.
Laura Achilles used the rosette from the Big Banner stamp set and stamped on white cardstock in alternating colors of orange and yellow. She used a masking technique to give her the ability to overlap the rosettes. The colors coordinate perfectly with the other papers by Cosmo Cricket. A great solution when you don't have the right background paper for your project.
The banner shape can be used for more than just making banners. Laura Achilles made these two layouts and found new ways to incorporate the banner stamps. With her first layout, she used the large banner triangle to create the rays of the sun.
Supplies used: Banner Set Large, Ric Rac Circle
Fancy Pants papers and embellishments, My Little Shoebox small alphas
Notice how the banner triangles are not completely flat, but have a bit of a curl to them, making it look even more like sun rays.
Laura's next layout uses the small banner in a traditional way across the page, but also look in the lower left corner.
Supplies used: Banner Set small and large
October Afternoon, Scenic Route, Basic Grey, Jenni Bowlin papers
American Crafts and October Afternoon Alphabet stickers
The banner stamp can make a little flag when turned on it's side. Attach to a toothpick and it makes a great golf flag! Laura also used the gingham pattern from the banner stamp, but cut the shapes into clouds for this Mini Golf layout.
It's fun to find new ways to use your stamp shapes. Especially ones with traditional shapes, like circles, triangles, square frames, etc. can often be modified and used in a way that was not originally intended by the designer. If you've done something different with a stamp shape, be sure to share a link in the comments. We'd love to see it!
By Melisa Waldorf:
Good Morning Paper Crafters! Today I'm sharing a 9 x 9 layout designed using my sweet husbands 1st grade class photo. I don't even remember 1st grade, do you??? And I don't have a photo, so I would love to tell you that I just loved my teacher, if I could only remember her, HA! What about you?? Can you remember any of the Elementary years?? But ... I'm sure I was a little angel, enthusiastic about learning and very obedient ... every teachers dream, teehee.
The "Little Red Wagon" stamp set was just perfect for this layout. You can use the boy or girl image and there are so many cute items to load the wagon up with. There is a birthday cake, valentine hearts, pumpkins and more! A fun sentiment for a friend when creating a card using this image would be "When you wagon is full, I'll help you pull". You can check out this set HERE.
"Little Red Wagon" looks great combined with Kaiser Crafts "Class of '87" 12 x 12 paper collection for this layout. I used "Timeless Tables", "Show and Tale", and "Sports Day" from the patterned paper collection, along with the matching rub-ons. The line comes with some other great embellishments and a 6 x 6 paper pad as well, HERE.
Project Details
Stamps : Pink Persimmon Little Red Wagon
Patterned Paper / Rub-ons : Kaiser Crafts
Border Punch : Fiskars
Trim red patterned paper 9 x 9". I used only certain horizontal strips from the "Sports Day" sheet and combined them to create the bottom part of the background. Trim background patterned paper slightly smaller than 9 x 9 and adhere to red cardstock base. Doodle around edges. Ink edges of photo with red ink. Use scalloped border punch to create a border from red cardstock. Adhere to bottom backside of photo. Adhere green ribbon. Adhere photo to page. Stamp Little Red Wagon's boy, stack of books, and wagon on white cardstock. Color with markers. I paper pieced the shorts because I didn't have the correct shade of blue to match. Adhere to layout. Trim just the "A" and "B" sections of the "Show and Tell" patterned paper sheet and adhere to layout. Doodle around edges. Embellish rest of page with rub-ons and buttons.
So special to capture a daughter with her father and the special relationship that they share. I love how Laura chose a neutral color for the background that is pulled from the shirt colors in the photo. The pale greens and yellows make a nice contrast for the patterned paper and keeps the layout from being too "girly" or too "masculine". (click on the image to view larger).
Laura created the tags by misting with her favorite spray color and then randomly stamping letters and numbers from the Soda Pop Alpha stamp set.
Material List:
Ric Rac Circle
Soda Pop Alpha Small
PP – Cosmo Cricket and Basic Grey
Letters – American Crafts
Mist – Studio Calico
Tags – Avery
Text and Layout by Melisa Waldorf
Who's this sweet little guy??? This is my son Travis 22 years ago, sitting in his grandmother's lap. Look at those smiles! It makes me smile just to look at them. And look at Namaw, encouraging him to be bad and stick his hand in the cake. I have to say, he never needed much encouragement. He was my little stinker!
I don't know if you can tell, but there is a clown on the cake. So I just new that my Pink Persimmon stamps would be sooooo cute on this layout, and I think I was right. And these images would be perfect for birthday cards as well. I used Vintage Cupcake and Small Banner set. The cupcake set has lots of other cute toppers you could use and an adorable scalloped border. This is the 3rd time I have used the small banner set and I can't wait to use it again. There are several banner patterns to choose from and 2 other sentiments in addition to happy birthday. Now I need the large banner set!
The Pink Persimmon website has a great gallery to inspire you. But you can view the latest projects designed by the new design team by subscribing to the blog, just enter your email address in the box on the left sidebar. You'll get an email everytime there is a post, so you won't miss a single project. To sign up for their newsletter click the grey border across the bottom of the home page HERE.
Thanks for stopping by and letting me share a little bit of my history with you.
hugs, Melisa
Project Details
Trim red cardstock 9 x 9" and ink edges with black ink. Trim white cardstock 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" and ink both sides with black ink. Adhere to red cardstock. Trim striped paper 8 1/2" x 3/4" and ink edges. Create blue scalloped border with Fiskars border punch and adhere to underside of striped border. Ink edges of scallops then adhere to bottom border of white cardstock. Years ago when chipboard was so popular, I purchased a pack of 12" chipboard shaped borders and the scallop was one of them. I never used the actual chipboard scallop because I wanted to use it as a pattern. That is how I created the scalloped border along the top. Stamp cupcakes on white cardstock and on colored cardstock or patterned paper. Color cupcake with Copics. Trim liners from colored paper and adhere to front of cupcakes. Normally I use Liquid Applique to add dimension for icing, snow etc. But I'm out, so I decided to try something new. I used my Aleene's Tacky Glue. It's so thick allowing me to build up the icing. If I got in on the line, I used a toothpick to remove it. Sprinkle with glitter. Stamp cupcake toppers, color with Copics and adhere. Set aside to let icing dry. Stamp banner, trim, and punch mini holes in eash corner. String with floss. Paint chipboard letters for the "one". Arrange / adhere photo's and decorative elements. Stamp "look who's with SodaPop Alpha set".
Samantha Sibbet's girls are adorable. Take photos of them in black and white and put them in a cute shabby chic album and they are even MORE adorable. This Mother's Day Gift is for a very lucky Grandma.
Sam used the Kaiser Craft Bracket Album with October Afternoon papers. She also did a rubber cement "resist" technique on the book pages to give it a "shabby" weathered appearance. Paint one color of acrylic paint in random areas of the book, when dry apply rubber cement over these spaces and some of the bare wood areas. Apply a second paint color over the entire page and when dry, you can begin to peel off some of the rubber cement to reveal the first color and bare wood below. Click on any of the images below to view larger and get a close up look of this technique.
The banners are from the Small Banner stamp set and the alpha letters are Soda Pop Alpha .
Using the sepia toned photos with the distressed paint technique and the vintage style papers gives this album such a unique look. Your mom will love this gift Samantha!
![Craft Critique](<a href="http://www.craftcritique.com"><img src="http://i690.photobucket.com/albums/vv270/craftcritiquedotcom/CC-still1.jpg"/></a>){kind=link}