Live in the Moment

If you are scrapping on a budget or just want to have more variety, then co-ordinating paper pads can be the way to go. Many companies produce a 6x6 pad, and Cocoa Vanilla produce a 6x8 which is a fantastic size as you can mat a 6x4 and/or 5x7 photo with it and the 8-inch side gives you more options when using the paper on your layers. Plain/B-side papers are good for making journaling cards and cut apart pieces are great for small embellishments.
My favourite way to use the papers is to cut them into strips and/or quarters and layer them up under my photos. I try to use an uneven number of papers and place them in opposite spots on the page for balance.

We have a bunch of great paper pads for you in the Mystical Store. 

Supplies used: Colour Blast: Arty Farty: Vision. Cocoa Vanilla- Happiness: 6x8 Paper Pad, Accessory Stickers, Die Cut Ephemera. Bohemian Dream: Enamel Shapes. Nuvo Drops: Gloss: Blue Babe and Carnation Pink.

Darling Boy

A quick how-to on my LO Darling Boy above...

After sticking down my photo on a piece of white cardstock I layer three strips of foam tape together and placed on a diagonal on the lower portion of the back of my card. Then repeated for the upper portion. I was going for enough height as to make it appear that my card was floating above the flowers and I wanted to keep the foam tape away from the edges where I was going to slip my flowers in. 

You can see in this image how much height I had.

I made a rough plan by placing my larger flowers and the featured hearts around the cardstock. Once I was satisfied with that I stuck them down and filled in the gaps with smaller flowers and hearts as well as the fringe ribbon. Some of the flowers I used were from my personal stash. This LO is a great way to stash bust some flowers to great effect.

A couple of side views... note not all parts need to be under the cardstock.

The completed page...

Supplies used: Bazzill White, Echo Park Under the Sea Ocean Friends, AC Thickers Amy Tangerine-Today,  Kaisercraft Foam Tape, Kaisercraft Wood Flourish Pack Love, Wood Hearts, Fringe Ribbon- Wedgewood Blue,  Flowers: Green Tara: Calla Lillies, Rose Mini, 2cm Gerbera, 2cm, 4cm, 6cm, 7cm. (Some flowers and letters from my own stash).

Stash Busting: lots of bits

Ever get to the point where there's just a couple of stickers left on the sheet? Or three die cuts left in the pack? Or you're tired of coming across that same cute little item in your stash and wondering if you'll ever find the page to use it on? If so, then this is the stash busting layout for you... 

There are a few tips to making a page like this where you use up a large number of supplies come together cohesively...

• Have a relatively simple background. No overly patterned papers or bold designs that compete for attention.
• 1 or 2 photos at most.
• Keep a colour theme and try and stick quite closely to it plus neutrals. I have baby pink and blue. It's okay that I have veered a little into apricot- but that dark pink flower top left, and the more green/blue one centre-right probably should have been left off this page.
• Work in clusters. Almost everything bigger than a Nuvo dot on this page is touching or overlapped with one or more other items. That blue butterfly toward the bottom of the right side doesn't, and it stands out because of it- I should have slipped it partially under the blue flower.
• Leave some 'white space'. Remember white space isn't only white. It's a clear space with nothing going on that gives the eyes somewhere to rest.
• Draw attention to the feature- my patterned paper points straight down at my photo.
• Use a layout design- I've gone with a diagonal Layout from top left to bottom right. All of the action happens in a band from top left to bottom right. My clusters are intentionally lighter in visual weight where they start to move out of the design (bottom of the left-hand cluster and top of the right hand one).  
• Be willing to cover things up- we all have those little items we love and want a little spotlight on- sometimes you have to be willing to let that go and have them overlapped with something else... witness my lovely blue butterfly. :-)

Have fun using your stash!

Stash Busting: Frames

If you're like me you probably have a pretty decent stash of scrapbooking supplies- and most likely somethings more than others. In my stash one of those things is frames. I love having frames to add a home on my page as a feature, a home for my title or some embellishment feature, or just to frame an image. But I always seem to end up with a bunch of frames that are just too small for my photos or titles or just don't work for whatever reason. I gathered a bunch together in similar colours and tones from a couple of Cocoa Vanilla lines and found a fun solution.  Apologies for the quality of the photos I was scrapping at night so the light wasn't great for photography.

Here's my initial plan with the 9 frames I started with. There's a few gaps and it's not quite balanced. Nothing is stuck down yet.

I carefully added some light pencil marks and lifted my photo off.

I trimmed off the parts of the frames that would be hidden under the photo and used those off cuts to fill the holes and add the balance I needed.

 

Here's the 'behind the scenes' shot. My adhesive of choice for sticking photos and paper down is Henzo photosplits- they are just what I started with 22 years ago and I am a creature on habit in this case... so all those little blue tabs are photosplits. Some of the frames were chipboard so I glued them with Tombo Mono multi green.

Here's the completed page- once again apolgies for the photo quality. 

  Supplies used: Paper, Frames here and here, Flowers here and here, title: Always, Family, Flair, stickers, word art Expressions, Nuvo drops.

Stash Busting: Strips and Bits

 

Do you keep the thin 12 inch strips that you trim off your papers? Then this is the page design for you. I recently finished up working with my June kit which was loaded with the luxurious paper from the Colour Blast Limited Edition Range. 

Instead of packing away my scraps I decided to use them up on one last page. Interweaving five 12 inch strips down two sides created the perfect home for my photos. 

From there I turned to my 'brown' embellishment box to compliments the bluey greens. I pulled together some more left overs- journalling cards, tags, tickets and some wood veneers. I've use foam tape to stack them all up in my own little scrapyard contruction site. I have two smaller gatherings of embellishments to create a visual triangle on my page.

My title reflects the big yellow machine in the pictures my son is looking at- I've used some leftover chipboard thickers for that. I've finished my page with Coffee Kaisermist and some Metallic Copper Penny Nuvo drops.