I was March Guest Designer at The Paperie

 So I'm posting this just a tad late LOL.  I was guest designer over at The Paperie in March and got to play with their awesome March layout kit. Thank you ladies for inviting me to play with you!

Sooo… I have to confess that I’m more of a shabby chic flowers everywhere  kind of scrapper and at first glance I was a little overwhelmed with the more graphic papers included in this kit…and no flowers!!!!!!!!! OMG! What was I going to do??? {Although I immediately fell in love with the cork star stickers in the kit. I’m going to have to get me more of those!} . I always love the more graphic layouts that I see displayed around the store yet producing that kind of layout does not come easily to me. I have trouble leaving negative space on my layouts!  Isn’t amazing how we all see and use supplies in such different ways?

Here’s my first layout using the cool Teresa Collins star paper in the kit. My family and I are big Republic of Doyle fans and were thrilled to have a chance to sit in Jake’s GTO while in St John’s last spring!

I mimicked the smaller banner in the kit when creating my photo mat/journaling block. All those letters on the back of the Webster’s “Hall Pass S is for School “paper were perfect for cutting out my title letters! The cork stars from the kit were the perfect embellies to finish off this page.

My second layout is this birthday page using the Echo Park “Days of the Week” paper from the kit. This layout was a real time saver as I got everyone’s birthday documented for the year in one layout. The buttons from the kit were perfect to spruce up the banners which were punched from the Fancy Pants True Friends paper in the kit.

Ok …that’s it …I gotta have me some flowers!  So what’s a girl to do? Break out the punches of course and make your own! 

My third layout uses the Webster’s Hall Pass "Building Vocabulary “paper. I know this was a school themed paper but I immediately thought eye chart when I looked at it. This reminded me that I needed to make an appointment to get my eyes checked again …which reminded me that I've had my glasses changed four out of the last five years …which reminded me of my fear of eventually losing my vision. Hence this very personal layout. The flowers were made with EK Success five petal punches, layered and then a drop of Glossy Accents in the center with some micro beads sprinkled on to finish. I am a huge punch fan and use them a lot on my layouts.

Next up is a very special layout of my parents. My dad is battling some very serious health issues at the moment but I love how I captured this very happy photo of them this past Christmas. He doesn't look sick and he and Mom are totally relaxed sharing a laugh together over Christmas dinner.

I’ll let you in on two little secrets. One: I rarely ever sew on my layouts anymore because I’m too lazy to pull out the machine …so I just doodle my sewing lines these days.  Secondly I tend to cut the centers out of papers that are my background piece if I’m layering another page over it. That way I have the frame I want but I still have most of the patterned paper for something else…in this instance the yellow flowers I made to decorate the layout. These flowers are similar to Tim Holtz die cut flowers but again , I’m lazy and so I just punch out circles and add five cuts  in a star shape to them { rounding the corners slightly} and ink and curl the edges. You can find a tutorial for how I did a similar flower HERE . 
    Do you recognize those letters in the title? No? Well they are the wood grain Thickers that are included in the kit. I simply altered them to fit this layout. I sanded off the top surface, pounced on some molding paste to give them texture and then painted them with black gesso once the molding paste had dried. 

 My final layout uses my absolute favorite paper in the kit. I just loooooved this flowery paper by Prima! Are you surprised? I only added a sheet of turquoise cardstock and a scrap of green cardstock from my stash for this, and of course I had to break out my punches again. Don’t you just love the vibrant colors in this beautiful paper?

What’s a birthday layout with some fun banners? The cute little clothes pins in the kit were the perfect touch for my banner. I also made the flowers for this layout… simple spiral flowers. Very easy to make but they add a powerful pop of color to this layout. Again, I actually cut the centers out of the card stock in the kit to have enough scraps to make my spiral flowers.

I’m trying to train myself to use up my scraps when I finish a layout by making cards and tags with them.  So here’s a card made from some of my leftovers.

Well that's it for today. I 'm going to try and blog a bit more frequently. Keep watching this weekend for another post on my first real attempt at a Project Life album .Thanks for popping by today . Toodles!