Locker Room || Playing with Cut Files

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here today to share my first layout with the February Hot Mess kit.

I am totally in love with this kit and the awesome cut files from JustNick:

I really loved the little banner with the heart in it and decided to use that cut file for my layout today.  I enlarged the shape and tweaked the design just a bit to make the heart opening big enough to fit a picture inside.  After cutting out three of those shapes, I made a banner design across my page and filled in the rest of the banner with smaller cut files, paper pieces and ephemera.

The end result is something fun and unique – and seriously, aren’t those cut files awesome??

Thanks for stopping by!

Art Studio || Using Acrylic Paint

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here today to show you how I use acrylic paint to create some of my backgrounds.  I love to paint on my backgrounds and a lot of times I use watercolors.  However, I don’t like that my paper ends up all wrinkly and hard to use.  I have found that acrylic paint doesn’t do that.

I put a bit of acrylic paint in a cup and water it down.  You don’t have to water it down – both effects look pretty cool depending on what style you’re going for.  I used a large paint brush to paint a random swatch of paint in the middle of my paper.  Your paper will wrinkle at first, but when it dries, it’s nice and flat (at least mine was!)

Here is the finished product:

Random side note: Doesn’t my splotch kind of look like Texas?  :o)

Geek Lab || Going “Old School”

Good morning, everyone!!  Kat here today to share with you another layout using our fabulous Tapestry kit!

For most “Geek Lab” posts, we focus on tips for using some fun new tool or technology….but for this post, I want to encourage you to go “old school”.  🙂  I have been scrapping for about 6 years now and a few years ago, punches were all the rage.  This punch in particular:

Photo courtesy of Scrapbook.com

For those of you who have been scrapping a few years, do you remember this punch?  Everyone had it, so of course, I had to have it.  And it’s been collecting dust for quite a while now.  So, I decided to break it out and use it on a layout:

I created three rows of butterflies and then layered my photos on top of them.  It’s such a simple and easy technique, but I think it adds a bit of interest to an already super-simple page.

I hope I’ve encouraged you to break out some of those old punches.  I had fun digging through my punch stash trying to decide which one to use for this layout, so I think I’ll be using some of my other ones pretty soon!

Thanks for stopping in!

Study Hall || Inspired by Pinterest

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here today wanting to know where exactly do you find your scrap inspiration?  Like most people, I get mine from Pinterest.  I found this image on Pinterest and just knew that I wanted to create a layout inspired by it (I actually made another layout inspired by this same image a few years ago, but thought it would be fun to update it.)

Here is the image:

And here is my layout inspired by it:

I really thought that the add-on of the Pink Paislee Cedar Lane 6×6 paper stack would be perfect for creating the little diamonds.  Once I had my background created, I just layered on the photo with some pretty simple embellishing.  The end result was something fun and unique.

Have you created any Pinterest-inspired layouts recently?  Share the link with us – we’d love to see 🙂

Locker Room || Misted Background and Lots of Scraps

Good morning, everyone!  Kat popping in today to share a fun, super easy background technique with you and then discuss a couple of ways I use my scraps.

First, a picture of my layout:

To create this background all you need is your favorite mist, a plastic shopping bag and your cardstock.  Lay your plastic bag out on a work surface, spray your mist all over it, and then lay your cardstock down on top of the bag.  Repeat as many times as necessary to get the background you like.  Seriously – it’s that easy.  I am super partial to my white cardstock backgrounds, but this is a fun technique that I like to use when I’m craving a bit of color on my background, but am too scared to go full on colored-cardstock/patterned paper!

Next, let’s talk about those scraps.  I always have a ton of random rectangles of patterned paper left over when I’ve used most of a kit.  I never know quite what to do with them all.  For this layout, I decided to just layer them all to create a mat for my photos.  One of the ways to add interest to some of your scraps is to use a punch and layer the negatives along with the other scraps.  I used a circle punch on this layout, but anything would look good – stars, butterflies, the possibilities are endless!

Thanks for stopping in to see my layout today.  If you use this background technique on a layout, I’d love for you to leave a link so we can see it!

Yearbook || Carpe Diem Pocket Page

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here today to share a pocket page that I made with the awesome Carpe Diem kit.

When I make a pocket page, I try to stick to a color scheme of sorts to keep everything coherent.  For this spread, I gravitated toward the blues in the kit and then added pops of fun color throughout the spread:

One of my favorite things to do in my pocket pages is to make confetti pockets.  Now with the fuse tool, this is easier than ever!  I wanted to create a pocket to hold all the tags from a shopping trip I went on.  I backed the tags with a shrinked down version of the calendar cut file and added in a bunch of gold sequins:

I also decided to make my own week title cad – I did not go with too much blue on this one because I just couldn’t resist the bright yellow journaling card that was in my kit:

I also created another filler card to highlight the photos of my niece with ice cram all over his face.  To make this card, I just typed out the word “yummy” three times and glued it down over one of the transparent cards:

And finally, I do like to have little bits hanging of the edges of some of my project life pages to make my album more fun and interesting.  For this page, I decided to highlight one of the photos with the day of the week the photo was taken on:

And there you have it – a detailed look into one of my pocket pages.  This kit is so much fun and so colorful that I think I will use it to another project life spread.  I am ridiculously far behind, so catching up is one of my summer goals!

Geek Lab || Working in a Grid

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here today to show you how I used the AWESOME calendar cut file that was included with this month’s kit.  I absolutely LOVE this calendar cut file (I’m SURE you’ll see it on at least one more of my projects this month!) and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to create a grid layout.  I love grid layouts because they are so clean and organized looking.  Sometimes I have a hard time deciding where to place my embellishments, but when I work in a grid, it becomes obvious to me where I should place certain items.

To begin my layout, I opened the calendar cut file in my Silhouette software and re-sized so that the squares were roughly 2×2.  Then I cut it out and began filling in all my squares:

 

I placed my grid at an angle to add a bit more interest to my page.  I loved being able to add my embellishments in an “organized” manner – ha!  I’m definitely a simple scrapper at heart!

Thanks for stopping in!  How are YOU going to use the calendar cut file??

Yearbook || Using the Riley Paper

Good morning, everyone!  Kat here stopping in to show you how I used one of my favorite papers from the May kit:

The fun labels just spoke to me and I knew wanted to use them in a fun way.  So, I sat down and interviewed my 10 year old niece with 10 different questions and typed out her answers on the labels.  Then I fussy cut them and glued them down in a random pattern.  I think she will have a fun time looking back on this when she’s older.  P.S.- I love that she wants to be a soccer coach when she grows up!  Ha!

The fun labels also just begged for me to do some additional doodling around the outside of the page.  I’m having so much fun playing with this kit and all it’s fun colors!!!

Geek Lab || Cutting Apart Cut Files

Hey, everyone!  Kat here today to show you how I used the awesome background cut file that comes with this month’s kit. I loved the cut file, but I was a bit intimidated by it, so I decided to cut it apart to create a nice “flow” of circles across my page.  I backed each of the circles with a different patterned paper from the kit.  I also fussy cut the circles from the Samantha patterned paper and interspersed them throughout my die cuts.

Here is my layout:

I love the end result!  You still get to experience the awesome-ness of the cut file, but I was able to use the file in a way that fits with my style – a definite win!

Do you ever cut apart your cut files to get a slightly different effect?

Locker Room || Using Scraps

Good morning, everyone!!  Kat here today to share a fun idea about how to use up some of those scraps that you will inevitably have left over once you dive in to your monthly kit.

I am not the best at using a ton of patterns on the same layout, but with this kit, I knew I really wanted to find a way to do so.  I adore this kit so much – the bright colors and fun, happy patterns are some of my favorite!  So, I decided to cut tiny strips from my papers – about the same size as the border strips on the bottom of the papers.  Then I drew a big heart in pencil and used my strips of paper to mimic the shape.  Here is my end result:

And, look how many patterns and colors I was able to squeeze in!

Do you use your scraps?