Pink Persimmon

Christmas Love scrapbook layout

Amy Lynne Lassiter created this layout that completely captures the hidden quality of the photograph.   Peeking through the tree, the image captured is just precious.  Amy has such beautiful layering on this layout, I asked how she was able to add so much detail, but still keep everything cohesive and flowing: 

"For this layout, I used the holly wreath stamp several times, it's sort of a "where's Waldo" if you look at the full layout. In many of the cases, I inked up the wreath stamp, using different colors of distress ink, some on top of each other."

"I loved all of the sentiments in the Holly Wreath, Santa's Sleigh, and Holly and Mistletoe sets, and thought it would be fun to create one sentiment, using those three sets in different ways. I layered several papers from Studio Calico's Wonderland 6x6 paper pad, with the edges punched with separate border stamps. I prefer to layer at staggering levels, sort of like terracing (I see that a lot around here in farm country), with contrasting colors. "

"Adding the Santa stamp in the top corner, as well as the wreath, gives a lot of design options to lead the eye around the page (I love the "visual triangle" idea; in this case, it was created using the top left cluster/circle, and circle underneath, bottom right circle/clock, and the circle in the bottom left corner of the photo. That puts the focus on the photo...which I think is essential in a scrapbook layout) . I kept to a green/red color scheme, but used a few different, more toned down colors, frequently in gradients. To add a bit of "Zing" (literally), I made sure to use the pop of black, with embossing powder on all of the sentiment stamps."

Style Girl Layout with a Vintage Photo

Melisa Waldorf made this layout featuring a photo of her Aunt that appears to be from probably the 1950's or 60's.  What a great way to honor the "style" of your favorite aunt with our Style Girl stamp set. 

Head over to Melisa's blog to see how she dressed her style girl images and put the whole layout together.  Do you think this hairstyle will be back in fashion soon? 

Mountain Girls

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!" 

Using small stamp images on your 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. 

Boo! It's almost Halloween

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!

Stamping on Canvas

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. 

Create your own patterned paper

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. 

 

Using the Banner Stamp in new ways

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! 

Back to School Week - Day 2

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.

A Girl and Her Dad by Laura Achilles

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