Paper Recollections

Happy first day of fall!  Today's card uses a variety of Tim Holtz products to celebrate the first day of my favorite season. I sprayed a variety of Distress Mica Stains onto watercolor paper.  Then, I used the Tim Holtz Leaf Fragments Thinlits to cut out the leaves from the watercolor paper.  I cut two A2 ivory card panels.  I used the Leaf Fragment dies to die-cut a larger leaf out of the top of the card panels and a smaller leaf out of the bottom of the card panels.  I embossed both these panels using the Foliage 3-D embossing folder.  I trimmed a small amount off of each panel. For the purple card, I placed gold foil cardstock on the back of each of the leaf cut-outs.  I glued this ivory card panel to a dark brown A2 cardstock panel.   For the other card, I glued the ivory card panel directly to a rust-colored A2 cardstock panel.   I inlaid the die-cut leaves that had more of the orange and yellow mica stains to the leaf cutouts...

Today's layout was inspired by @christys_beautiful_life 30 Days of Sketches Round 8, Day 5.  I decided to focus the layout on my daughter's college move-in day.  The Scraptember challenge for this layout was to use a themed collection for a non-themed layout.  I used the B-sides of the papers from the Echo Park A Boy's Life collection.  I started by printing three 4x4 photos and backed these in gray cardstock.  I cut an 8x10 piece of blue and white striped paper, inked the edges with Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide ink, and backed it in navy blue cardstock.  The large banner piece measured 3.5x11.  I inked the edges of this strip and backed it in gray cardstock.  The smaller plaid horizontal strip measured 2x11.  I ripped both of the shorter edges of this strip, inked the edges, and backed it with navy blue cardstock.  All these items were layered on top of creme grid paper which was also inked with Hickory Smoke Distress Oxide ink. To...

Today's layout was inspired by Day 13 of @christys_beautiful_life 30 Days of Sketches Series 8.  Today's star sketch was created by Lottie Loves Paper.  The Scraptember challenge for this sketch was of course stars.  This layout was a labor of love as it took me all week to create it.  I knew I wanted to do some stitching, but I also wanted some color to come from behind the paper.  I designed the larger starbursts and stars in Cricut Design Space.  I cut the starbursts from a 12x12 piece of black cardstock.  The stars were cut from holographic cardstock. I popped up the larger solid stars using black foam tape. After gluing the rest of the stars to the black cardstock, I used a ruler and a pencil to draw in the rest of the lines in between the stars and radiating out from the center of the layout.  I used an embroidery needle and silver sparkle twine to stitch over the pencil-marked lines.  I filled in the rest of the spaces with assort...

Today's layout was inspired by Day 12 of @christys_beautiful_life 30 Days of Sketches Series 8.  Today's heart sketch was created by Brenda Ragsdale.  The Scraptember challenge for this sketch was cut files.  I couldn't wait to use this sketch combined with the beautiful photos of my daughter taken right before she left for her Homecoming dance. To complete the Scraptember challenge, I started by searching Cricut Design Space for the heart cut files.  I was able to find a heart with an outline.  I duplicated the heart and sized it down to create the inner heart.  I cut the outlines of the two hearts in rust-colored cardstock.  The inside of the heart was cut from a yellow patterned paper from the Paige Evans Wonders collection. I also used a free cut file to cut the title from gold foil cardstock.  I used two other patterned papers from the Wonders collection for the large strips of paper placed behind the hearts. I inked the edges of these p...

Today's layout was inspired by Day 1of @christys_beautiful_life 30 Days of Sketches Series 8.  Today's triangular sketch was created by Laura Whitaker.  The Scraptember challenge for this sketch was stitching.   As soon as I saw the triangle on this layout, I knew I wanted to use a sailboat to document my daughter's new student orientation day at her college by the sea.  I used my Cricut machine to cut a large sailboat out of a piece of blue whitewashed cardstock.  After losing a time-consuming battle with my sewing machine, I was able to get some blue stitches around the edges of the sailboat.  I glued the sailboat to the blue star paper from Vicki Boutin's Color Study collection.   I used the blue and white striped paper from the Color Study collection to create the large banner.  I inked the edges of the banner with Black Soot Distress ink.  I matte the banner with a small strip of the black script paper from the 6x8 paper p...

Today's layout was inspired by @christys_beautiful_life 30 Days of Sketches Round 8, Day 3.  I decided to focus the layout on a photo of this year's first day of school. The layout has several sketched circles.  I decided to break out the sewing machine and sew a few black circles using a variety of stitches.   The Scraptember challenge combined with this sketch was layering. So I grabbed the Simple Stories Smarty Pants collection and layered up a bunch of the branding strips and the patterned papers found on the journaling cards. I used the letter stickers from the collection to create the title.  I also used some of the stickers to embellish the title and photo, and also to create an embellishment cluster in the upper right corner of the layout.  To finish off the layout, I splattered it with black ink. I love the 30 Days of Sketches because it is a great way to use up older collections and challenges me to utilize techniques that I don't often use i...