My Scrapbooking Story: Allison's Tips and Tricks #3

My Scrapbooking Story: Allison's Tips and Tricks #3: Cupcake Liner Flowers! 1) First things first get your hands on some cupcake liners.  I found these cute polka dot mini cupcake liners f...

Allison's Tips and Tricks #3

Cupcake Liner Flowers!

1) First things first get your hands on some cupcake liners.  I found these cute polka dot mini cupcake liners for $1 at Walmart, I had the other two at home.

2) Flatten them out.

3) Cut around the liners to make "petals".

4) Glue down the liners into each other.

 5) Place a button, brad, piece of felt, or whatever you choose in the center and Voila! Flowers!

New Page Kits at ScrapbookingStory.com!

I am happy to announce that we have begun to produce our own page kits. These page kits are especially for the beginner scrapbooker, or the super-busy crafter that would like to get pages done fast and easy! Everything you need is included. Just add your adhesive, and maybe a pair of scissors! Our first kit is "Fresh As A Daisy." It includes a cute little ribbon butterfly idea that you will be able to recreate on lots of projects! Instructions included. Only $7.99 for this one page 12x12 lay-out! Designer: Joy Marquez

The Double Layout Dilemma

Double layouts equal horror for me.  I always struggled to find a cohesiveness between two pages. I think this is difficult for me for two reasons.

First, because I'm a budget scrapbooker.  In general I struggle to spend a lot of money---on anything!  Therefore, the idea of using TWO full 12x12's of ANY paper drives me crazy!  This budget scrapbooking often leads to only having a little bit of the PERFECT paper for a double layout.  

Which leads right into the Second reason why double layout are the hardest scrapbooking for me.  Once I commit myself to a paper or an idea I have a really hard time changing my mind.  It's like when you're play Scrabble and you "find" the word "Hi" after that it's impossible to seen that 7 letter word staring right at you!  ---at least that's how it is for me. 

ANYWAYS..... In today's blog I'm going to talk about how to overcome the Double Layout Dilemma.

Here is my Camping double layout.  I have been holding onto this firework Reminisce Paper for a very long time because we always go camping over the 4th of July.  Well.... little old me didn't realize how demanding this paper would be.  It is an attention hog! Here is the way I worked through this layout...

1) Sketched the layout.  Originally this layout had the 3 4x6's on the right hand side. 1 circle photo on the right page. Plus 2 more circle photos on the left hand side.  And the title went across both pages.  

2) Choosing paper.  I choose the fireworks, of course, and the Sassafras Sunshine Broadcast paper (one of my favorites).  Since, one of my favorite things to do is mixing patterned paper I really must let the paper dictate how many photos and extra's the page can hold. 

3) Cutting Back.  I realized straight away I needed to cut the amount of pictures down.  So I got rid of the circle photos and let the firewords be the organic part of the page. 

4) Begin.  I started with the Right page because I knew it would be easier since I wanted the 3 4x6's to be stacked with means I only have half a page to deal with.  Then I started cutting. I knew I couldn't use all of the firework paper so I starting cutting out "pretty" fireworks.  Put the paper down and it worked.

5) Going with your gut. From then on I just went with my gut, looked at my product and tried to match and coordinate. :)

Another piece of beautiful, challenging Daisy Bucket paper.  I had two pieces from the Merry Wishes Holiday Lane line .  And I had some embellishments that I HAD to use because I just loved them. 

What I did was cut.  I started cutting the paper. I cut out the tree, decided to use the same design, opposing colors borders.  And just worked with the paper. 

The wonderful thing about this paper is that it's SO Christmassy!  I didn't have to do much else decoration because I like the paper and the pictures to be the star of a page! 

Then I used the embellishments the express the events of the day. 

Allison's Tips and Tricks #2!

Book Page Embellishments

A little while ago I saw some butterflies made out of page books.  I am working on a strawberry picking layout and I decided this would be a good time to make some little strawberries. 

I will take you step by step on how to create your own one of a kind embellishments.

Step 1: Get out your acid free, water based, Dual Brush markers. Choose your colors, wet them down to the strength of color you'd like. Get a paint brush and get ready to paint!

Step 2: Get an old book you aren't going to read or hit up Goodwill and buy a 25cent book that you don't mind destroying. Draw on it the shape you are looking to make for your embellishment.  It could be a strawberry, star, heart, butterfly, flower, words, it can be anything your heart desires.

Step 3:  Paint in your design.

Step 4: Completed painted Strawberry.  **Note: be careful what you use for black ink.  As you can see my black ran a little with all the water.  However, I kinda like the smudged look.  :)  it's very watercolor-ie and I like it!

Step 5: Cut out your design.  I did 3 layers.  I wanted it to be as dimensional as I felt I could make it.  I only had one size of pop-dots if I had a thinner pop-dot I would have done 1st layer as a thin layer and 2nd would be a thicker pop-dot.

Step 6: Apply pop-dots.

Step 7: Cut out design and adhearn to your layout or card when ready.

I can't wait to get these on my page!

National Scrapbooking Month!

Hi!

Happy National Scrapbooking Month! We want to celebrate!

We want to reach 100 Likes on FB! Only 13 buddies to go! Like us on Facebook, and you will automatically be entered in a drawing for a FREE Brand New, Gorgeous, Glitz Design Paper Kit!

Right now, you will receive a FREE gift with every purchase made at ScrapbookingStory.com!

This month, follow our blog, and post a comment to say "hello" and you'll be entered in a drawing for a collection of summery papers and embellishments!

Plus! We are offering a Flat Rate shipping for any size order at our shop, all month long! Great time to go in with a friend, and SAVE big on shipping costs! We'll never tell ; )

Keep on telling your stories!

Joy Marquez

ZOMBIES and Inspriation!

Hi Everyone! I'm back to working on my 2010 scrapbook.  So far I have about 10 pages papers and ROUGH idea's for the pages sketched out.  I have finished two pages and half finished my title page. 

I have been a little slow to start this book for a few different reasons. 

1) I was busy quitting my office job and starting dog walking.  It's an unexpected change but necessary!  Why necessary?  Well so I have more time to scrapbook...duh! 

2)  Sassafras Lass closed down and will now only be designing paper so I've been staring at all my beautiful Sassafras Lass paper and products and trying to decide the perfect way to use all of it. Which leads me to..... 

3) a slight inspiration block.  I want to do all of these pages perfectly BUT, completing 20 odd pages just a few months ago has left me a little out of ideas.  

LUCKILY..... I received my

I'm hoping there will be some wonderful gems I can scrap lift from Creating Keepsakes to make this 2010 album awesome!  

Here is my first page, "Happy Easter" that I'm a little disappointed in myself in.  It's very generic.  I need to push myself a bit!  

Here I have used some beautiful Sassafras Lass paper and Jennie Bowlin Studios chipboard butterflies.  I inked the butterflies yellow and then inked the sides with blues and greens. I also used American Crafts thickers letters.  I LOVE these letters!  I think the font is so adorable!  I would use it on every page is make if I didn't think it would be too repetitive. 

Here is my second page.  "Zombie Apocalypse"! 

In 2010 we went to a Halloween Zombie party. It was so much fun!  Probably a little too much fun!

When I started this page I had a totally different idea as to what I was going to do.  I was going to use all this great Glitz Design paper from the Plum Crazy line. It looked very Halloween-y and matched perfectly. But, as I was looking at the photos I noticed a lot of red makeup and I had this beautiful red Bazzill Paper and it just seemed like it was calling to me. And I saw my popsicle sticks just sitting there.  So I decided to do a fairly simple layout.  Mostly paper cut in dramatic shapes and then make a bloody-not-so-white-picket fence.  I'm very happy with how this page turned out!

What have you been working on to inspire me!?