May Papermaze Kit - Part 1

Hello, It's Lynn here today with the May Papermaze kit (a little later than usual due to holidays). The kit this month is full of brightly coloured patterned papers and cardstock - great fun! I have used mine to make four layouts of my children's activities back in the 1990's. The photo below shows the first two of these layouts.

Before looking at how the layouts were made, here is what you will find in the kit.

Patterned Papers:
49 and Market - Vicki Boutin - Artful Moments - Starters Paper #2 & #9
Simple Stories - Colour Me Happy - Okie Dokie & The Details
Simple Stories - Say Cheese Happiest Place - Adventure
Simple Stories - Take Note - My Favourite Things

The image below, shows both sides of the patterned papers.

Embellishments:
Doodlebug doilies - cupcake & mint, Pretty Little Studio - sunkissed word titles, Pebbles - Sun & Fun puffy dots, Jen Hadfield – Reaching Out – Rainbow Clip, P13 chipboard stars, Vicki Bouton – Bold & Bright puffy stickers, Rosie's Studio – Jubilee die cut sentiments, Studio Light Essentials washi tape

Bazzill Basics Cardstock - Raven, African Daisy (included in kit), Ocean Oasis, Bazzill White, Berry Sensation & Intense Kiwi (extra pack).

Crazy Cozy Coupe - The children on their 3rd birthday, with the gift of a Little Tikes Cosy Coupe. 

For this layout I chose the Starters Paper #2, and keeping the barcode strip at the bottom of the page, I trimmed the same side strip from the top of the paper instead - so I still have a 12" x 12" piece of paper.

I printed five small photos of the event, and arranged these across the base of the page - leaving room to tuck items under the photos in places. I purchased an extra sheet of paper from the same collection - Starters Paper #8, this one is made up of 24 colourful tags, I cut out nine tags in colours to match the paint strips on the background paper. I inked the edges in Black Soot Distress Ink, and added a Pebbles - Sun & Fun puffy dot to each tag (from the kit).

The tags were arranged across the layout above the photos, in the same colour order as the paper beneath. I added journalling, the Vicki Bouton Bold & Bright puffy stickers, and Rosie's Studio – Jubilee die cut sentiments (both included in the kit). 

With my much loved, Spellbinders Dies Say Cheese Classic Mouse - Classic Mouse Alphabet set, I cut the title and the #3 from Raven Bazzill, and some scraps of glossy photo paper. These were layered up to make shiny letters with black shadows. Finally, I outlined the letters, tags and stickers with a black marker pen. 

Artists at Work - The children playing with paint, paper and easels in the garden.

I built the background of this layout, using Bazzill Basics Cardstock in Raven and Bazzill White. I gutted the white so I had a 1" deep 12"x 12" frame and a piece 10" x 10", I trimmed the black to 11" x 11" and gutted it to make another 1" frame. These were then built up to create the background as seen in the photos. 

I mounted two landscape photos 4.5" x 3.5" onto a piece of white card, trimmed to make a very narrow border. This was then mounted onto the Ocean Oasis Bazzill, and then again onto a piece of  The Details paper. This was placed to the left side of the layout.

I used the Starters Paper #9 in several different ways, first of all I cut eight banners from the rays of colours. These were roughly 3.5" long and as wide as printed. I inked the edges with Black Soot Distress Ink and arranged them in rainbow colour order to the right side of the photos. 

The other way I used the paper, was to stamp on, to make the colour palates and brushes etc. 
I used Clear Stamps by Eileen Hull Swatch Cards and stamped the images on the white grid part of the paper. I cut these out and then stamped onto the coloured part of the paper to produce the paint colours. These were cut out and placed over the corresponding areas on the swatch cards. I also stamped the brush tips onto the coloured areas, and added them to the brushes. 

I used some of the washi tape from the kit and chose the word ' Creativity' and ran this between the photos and the coloured banners. Then I arranged all the stamped images I made. 

Finally, I used scraps of  Raven Bazzill, and die cut letters and numbers for the date and title. These were positioned over the coloured banners.

That's all for today, back with more from this kit soon.
Thanks for looking.
Lynn x

Everyday Moments - Simple Stories - Simple Vintage Junk Drawer Collection

Hi everyone, it’s Rebecca here, and today I’m sharing my second layout of the year. This month I’ve had the pleasure of creating with the Simple Vintage Junk Drawer collection, and it’s been such a joy to work with.  You can find the full collection in the shop here. For this layout, I chose to draw out the colours in my photo and echo them throughout the design. 

I began by creating some layered paper pieces, cut and torn from a variety of patterned papers in the collection. These were arranged in the centre of a sheet of PWC, with the edges distressed and the layers staggered to add texture and dimension. Using a metal die, I also cut a viewfinder from one of the papers and layered this in. It’s such a great way to stretch a collection—and a good reminder that I really should reach for my metal dies more often!

Once the layers were in place, I added my photo. Lately, I’ve been loving the look of printing the same photo multiple times and layering them together, and I’ve been using this technique on quite a few layouts. I love the effect it creates, and I find it helps the photo feel less “blocky.”

With the main elements established, I turned my attention to the title. I chose the word “moments” from the Journal Bits & Pieces and paired it with “everyday” from the Element Stickers. One word sits beneath the photo, while the other runs down the side, adding a little extra visual interest.

To embellish, I couldn’t resist adding some florals from the Element Stickers and Floral Bits & Pieces. I tucked them in among the paper layers, letting them travel diagonally across the layout to help draw the eye toward the photo in the centre.

To finish, I added several fussy-cut butterflies. I’m always drawn to butterflies in collections, and I love it when a collection includes a 12×12 sheet just begging to be fussy-cut!

Thanks so much for reading. I hope my layouts this month have inspired you to create with this beautiful collection. I’ll be back next month working with a new collection.

Take care,

Rebecca xx

@preciouspagespapercraft 

Bee Awesome - Photoplay 'Sweet as Honey' Collection (Tulla & Norbert)

Hi everyone, Rebecca here with you today sharing my first July layout. I really can't believe we are over half way through the year already - and halfway through summer... how did that happen?!

I'm working with a new collection this month - it's one of the 'Tulla & Norbert' collections from Photoplay, and it's called 'Sweet as Honey'. Now, I have a confession to make - I'm not a fan of gnomes or gonks (ssshhhhh don't tell Tulla or Norbert!) and as much as I loved the look of this collection, I was a little worried about how I might use it. But I was worrying over nothing - yes, there are a few gnomes, but there are also plenty of bees and florals, and many of the B sides of the papers were patterns without gnomes, so it was actually a pleasure to work with and I really love a lot of the papers.

I started by selecting a couple of my favourite papers - 'Buzzing By' - which is a gorgeous woodgrain paper with really cute bees and beehives on it, with a mustard yellow honeycomb pattern on the B side, and also 'Sweet Pollen' which is a black paper with beautiful yellow, white and green floral clusters on it. I used my metal nesting Hexagon dies to cut some hexagons in three different sizes from these papers, and also cut my photo into a hexagon shape. I also pulled out some floral metal dies to make myself some embellishments from the same papers.

Using my edge distressing tool, I added some texture to the hexagons and then arranged them horizontally across the centre of my page. I added some craft foam behind them all to introduce some dimension to the layout before sticking them down with double sided tape.

I scattered the die-cut flowers around the hexagons, layering some of them up to add some interest. Above my photo, I added a little tab that says 'Bee You' - this is from the Cardstock Ephemera pack. It's a great little pack with 26 pieces in it. I also added a ticket from the same pack which says 'Bee Awesome' and I'm using this as my title. I added foam behind it to help draw the eye to it. I found some really sweet little wooden bees in my stash to I scattered a few of those on the page too.

I have a mini stencil by Creative Expressions called 'Honeycomb' which works really well with my hexagon theme, so I pulled that out along with a Distress Ink in 'Mustard Seed' and added a few individual hexagons around the patterned paper hexagons. I used a blending brush to add the colour through the stencil, and then used a black gel pen to trace the outline of the hexagon to help them 'pop'.

There is a piece in the ephemera pack with a gorgeous beehive on it that I really wanted to use, so I fussy cut the beehive and stuck it to the right of my title, dangling down, raised on foam pads.

At this point, I decided I wanted to have a border around the edge of my layout. I was going for a minimal look with plenty of white space on this layout, but I felt like the layout needing framing, and using patterned paper is a great way to do this. I always 'gut' the middle of the patterned paper to preserve that for another layout, then trim down my white cardstock by about 1/4 inch on all sides, and then adhere that to the frame. Obviously this is me - so I distress all the edges of the white cardstock too for a bit more texture. I then finished the edge of the layout off with a black doodled border.

I wanted to add a little bit of sparkle to my layout so I pulled out some sequins from my stash - they have a lovely woodgrain pattern on them to match the 'Buzzing By' patterned paper. I scattered a few around the layout and that was me finished!

Thanks for stopping by to have a read - if you'd like to watch the layout come together then there is a process video up on my YouTube channel, which you can find here.

I'll be back later in the month with another 'Sweet as Honey' layout so until then,

Take care

Rebecca x