Village Burger

Village Burger was a fun burger joint in Atlanta Chris found online for us to go to while we dropped off his mom and sister at the mall nearby :)

I had already had it in my head that I wanted to use this layout by Kelly Purkey at SOME point this weekend, and used it right away to get the left side of the layout going! I just loved how those letters looked against the red background paper!

The colors of this kit are so bright and fun, and so easy to use with the pics we took in Atlanta! This layout came together so quickly and easily!

For the right side, I got to use the Polaroid stamp from Studio Calico to fill in the space at the top!

I took a picture of a newspaper article that was mounted on the wall at Village Burger and cut it from the picture and had it half slipped into that embellishment envelope! Then I couldn't dare to throw away that scrap of Crate Paper that I had punched out the blossoms for the other side of the layout, so maybe for the first time, I used that punched out piece as it's own embellishment!

HOW-TO:

• I used the Story Hour kit by Studio Calico which had a lot of paper and embellishments from the Storyteller line by Crate Paper!!
• I can't get enough of the foam thickers by American Crafts!
• OK neither of those last 2 points were really a how-to but today is my day off and I just spent so much time blogging - you can get the supply list from here :)

Love

My favorite layout I made over the weekend! I LOVE this layout! We stopped for a few quick pics right near our hotel in Atlanta before heading out to dinner... figured we might as well get some pics while we were all dressed up!

The main inspiration for the left side came directly from Geralyn Sy's layout she made for her love of photography seen here! It was so awesome, I just had to try to use it!

I misted, stamped, and sewed on that tag - it might be the most techniqued-out embellishment ever!

The left side had a looser (yes looser, not loser) inspiration from Stephanie Howell's layout here - I saw it awhile back and remembered how she used some small punched pieces to make that ethereal sort of look!

I LOVE that paper strip I used on this page - it is amazing! It's from Crate Paper and I could tell it was a piece I would want to use over and over again on multiple layouts, just wish I had even more of it!

I borrowed my friend's White Mr. Huey's mist to mist the American Crafts for Studio Calico letter thickers that came in February's kit, Daydream Believer from Studio Calico! That was a mouthful! I hope I will remember to order the White mist in my next order!

HOW-TO:

• Again, I used the Story Hour kit from Studio Calico for most of this layout!!
• Like Geralyn did, I cut the camera out of the Kesi'Art paper
• At first I stamped those circles on the left side directly onto the dark cardstock and embossed in a dark blue-green, but it wasn't showing up very well and looked boring, so I re-did the stamp on that piece of Crate Paper and embossed in white, then cut around it and adhered it over the old one :)
• I used the Amy Tangerine heart from the AT bits by American Crafts and traced around it first on a matching reddish cardstock, then cut a little bigger so it would fit perfectly behind it
• The middle strip of paper was the perforated bottom portion from the bottom of another piece of American Crafts paper - I love that they have the perforations so you don't have to cut it yourself!
• On the right side I used the Creative Memories butterfly and dragonfly pocket punches and wrote in white with the Uniball Signo pen!

Georgia Aquarium

This layout took me quite awhile and I'm still not sure it's completed, but here it is (click to see the larger view):

This is the start of the pics we got from going to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta! Everyone loves a picture of someone taking a picture! Chris had the nice DLSR camera, so I took a quick shot with my little point and shoot :)

This left side of the layout came together fairly quickly, when I just started cutting big strips of matching papers. Then I decided to use that MME circle banner twine and the main part of the page was covered! I couldn't throw away those scrap triangles I cut out so found a way to use them to complete the page.

The right side took forever, including an overnight of thinking about it!

I knew I've been wanting to make perhaps a pie chart or something similar for awhile, so I started cutting circles and folding them and made a pie chart, but then I remembered I had another arrow spinner from the OA Sidewalks miscellany pack and turned it into a spinner embellishment! I cut out some pics of fish (suggested by fellow scrapper Heather) and placed them around it!

HOW-TO:

• I used the March kit, Story Hour from Studio Calico for this layout!
• To make the pie spinner, I chose my paper, then cut out the same size circle from each - about 4.25" using the circle template from Creative Memories
• Then I folded each circle in half and trimmed along the fold... folded and cut that half circle in half to get quarter circle size pieces... repeat again to get the 1/8ths of the circle pieces, do this till you end up with 8 pie pieces!
• I cut one more circle out of white paper, slightly larger than the original circles and glued the pie pieces inside it!
• Got a brad from my friend Kara and added the spinner!

Motion Sickness... du jour

Woohoo!! Motion sickness!! JK, woohoo, this is my 9th layout made with Studio Calico's January kit, County Fair and I think I finally killed my first kit!!

My husband and I are a mess together... before I met him, I thought I had the worst motion sickness ever, but then there's Chris, who has to take Dramamine... a lot! Even after he took some, we rode some roller coasters, then both felt extremely sick, and I felt like I was starting to get heatstroke, which causes me to start puking, so we just had to get out of there = hot mess!!

As for the layout, I knew I wanted to match the greens in the greenery from the pics, so chose the paper based on that. I also wanted to capture the wood feel of the wooden roller coaster, The Predator so I used up my very last scrap piece of that beautiful October Afternoon paper = sad and happy emotions were evoked!

After I laid out the strips and pieces of paper, I decided to connect it all with some sewing and added the pics. I asked Chris for a good title - he seems to be better at these sometimes than I am, and since we're pretty much a mess everyday, he immediately thought of "Motion Sickness du jour" and we both laughed, so of course I had to use it!


HOW-TO:

• Main green paper is Wallpaper from the Random collection by Crate Paper
• Strip of wood panel paper is Stagecoach from the Sasparilla collection by October Afternoon
• Letter paper is Alphabet Soup by Studio Calico
• I decided to include those awesome, awesome Elm foam letter stickers from the Nightfall collection by American Crafts - when I first saw these, I thought they were cool for Halloween-type application, but I've used them for layouts not even close to Halloween and seriously LOVE them! Note to self: buy more of these immediately! I love the dimension they add as well, and you don't even need an embellishment to get dimension, wow :)
• I cut one of the Jenni Bowlin Studios doily flowers in half, as I've seen lots of people do, and really love how it accents the title, I added the remaining ones in my stash to counter the other side and use up the rest, wow I don't remember the last time I "used up" anything other than limited amounts of the same sheet of paper haha!
• The "sickness" stickers (that sounds bad) are Gray & Cream Sticky Keys by October Afternoon
• The "du jour" stickers are by Pebbles, as are the small Candy Dot buttons in the upper left corner

Games, Rides, & Fun!

Last summer we went to Darien Lake (Six Flags) theme park with tix we got from Chris's company. We went one Friday afternoon and rode some rides, played some games... and had some fun... until Chris got really motion sick from the rollercoasters he used to be able to ride when he was little and we had to go home immediately ha!

Since I knew I wanted to use the County Fair kit from Studio Calico, I found some inspiration from Lisa Truesdell's (from the SC design team) layout here. I almost never use plain card stock for background paper but felt less scared by a colored piece, plus the ampersand misting mask showed up perfectly on it!

The cards embellishments came from the Sasparilla miscellany pack and were perfect for this layout! I added some sewing across the top to finish it off.

HOW-TO:

• This is my 8th 1-page layout using the County Fair kit by Studio Calico and I still have plenty left to work with!!
• The colored cardstock is Powder by American Crafts
• The numbered stamp and the wooden letters are from Studio Calico
• The cards are from the Sasparilla miscellany pack by October Afternoon
• The little banner, and top border paper is from the Sasparilla collection as well, as is the wooden blossom circle from the Sasparilla flower sack and the Date sticker from the Sasparilla flag banners all from October Afternoon!
• I sprayed Mister Huey's bonny blue using the Ampersand mask from Studio Calico
• And that bottom strip is like my favorite piece of Crate paper ever, "Handpicked"

Georgetown Hoyas card!

I made this birthday card for my brother-in-law, who's (obviously) a big Georgetown Hoyas fan! I didn't want to do a typical birthday card for him, so decided to figure out how to incorporate something he loves!

I did a quick google image search and found the logo online, saved it and edited it to a size that could fit on the front of my card. I printed it on thin paper and taped it to the front of the card. Then I pierced around the logo through both the paper and the card, then sewed with a really dark blue (looks black oh well) and gray. I really liked the idea of keeping the Trademark to make the logo look complete :)