Getting the most out of your kits...

I have a little tutorial up over at Gossamer Blue! When playing with the September kit, I discovered something fun you can do with these pretty Solstice stickers.

Of course you can use them as is, and they are gorgeous! But I had started a project that had a lot of gold on it already, and when I went to add more gold stickers, I felt like they were getting lost in the design. So...I discovered that you can flip them over, peel off the backing and add color to the back of them! You can watercolor them, paint them, or even add embossing powder and heat emboss them!

The background of my card was watercolored with gray paint splashes, and then I began assembling my card with the main Sept. kit contents. I layered a polkadot clear tag over the Crate Paper peach sticker and added the "And" ephemera piece. The gold medallion was tucked under the "And" piece.

Last, I added some sewing machine thread, one of my watercolor heart stickers I made and a cork heart. The striped tab was tucked under the left edge.

You can send this as a card, or even use it in your project life pages as a decorative card with your photos.  Stop over to Gossamer Blue to see the finished result!

Gossamer Blue kits for September...

I'll be honest, I've never really been a kit person. I'd rather choose what I like and mix and match my own picks to put together on a page or card, rather than buy a kit someone else puts together for me. However, when I received the Gossamer Blue kits for the first time, I completely fell in love and changed my mind 100% about kits. Maybe it's the fact that they are more my style than other ones I've received, I don't know, but I just had to share my excitement with you all! Here are a few things I made with the September main kit. I also received the Bits & Pieces add-on.
On the first card, I immediately was drawn to the Crate Paper - Notes and Things stickers. I painted the background of the cardstock with white paint, so my stickers would show up better. I love the gold accents! The gold foam stickers were also in the kit, made by Pink Paislee from their Solstice line.

This one is a super simple, quick and easy one. I layered some stickers and added a bit of thread. That's it!

More layering on the last one, a circle sticker backed with a gold medallion sticker, an arrow die cut, a gold heart puffy sticker and a love sticker. I added the black banners made from paper for a little bit more contrast. There are so many pretty papers in these kits that I had a really hard time deciding which one to use in the background. So many of them would have worked!

Check out the gallery to see more great stuff with the Sept. kits. I posted a little preview pic on my Instagram of some of my favorite things in the main kit. These are a great price AND what's even better is that you can cancel at any time (but I really don't think you will want to, I've heard what's coming for the holidays, and it's going to be awesome)!
Danielle

more Monthly Moments: August...

I don't know why, but I've been designing many things on the diagonal lately. I'm loving it! My last project with Papertrey Ink's Monthly Moments: August collection is inspired by cards on the diagonal, like these by Maile and this one. I always love to use scrapbook ideas on cards, so I thought why can't I do the opposite and use a card idea on a scrapbook page? I love the cut out panel idea.

I'll share a little bit about how I made this...

First, I started with a large 11" x 11" piece of watercolor paper. (Since my watercolor pad is 11" x 15", I just trimmed it into a square). I cut a section of it out on the diagonal and backed it with Soft Stone cardstock, so the gray would show through the cut out. Then I watercolor painted the top and the bottom panels. I didn't adhere anything down yet. You can see the paper is a little warped from the water, but I want to be able to lay everything out first and decide where the items will go, so I'll attach it down completely later and flatten it out.

Next, I had an idea to fill the center cut out with large-scale flowers. Bold Bouquet came to mind. I also used a few of the Embellished Elegance die cut leafy stems. A few of the smaller bouquets were stamped and embossed onto vellum.

The ink colors I used were pulled from some of the colors in the Monthly Moments: August Journal Card collection. I also die cut a Monthly Moments: August die from white cardstock and a Monthly Moments: Spiral Notebook die from one of the Monthly Moments: August Journal cards.

Now I'm going to layer a couple of 2x2" pics that I printed out of my daughter Taylor from this month and layer them over the journal card. These are going to go in the open space on my layout. I stamped a "today" from the MM: August stamps and made some banners from the MM: August Journal Cards. I'll start adding in the flowers around the focal point, the photos. Notice how the black draws your eye to the pictures and creates contrast to the lighter colors.

You'll want to spread out the colored flowers and the white ones to make sure they are evenly distributed.

Adhere everything down when you are happy with the placement.

Next, the journaling. I am always afraid to write directly on my layouts after I went through all that work to make it pretty. So, I used a piece of vellum to write the journaling and placed it on the layout to see how it would look. I decided to keep it and stuck it on. "A day in the life" was stamped with the Monthly Moments: August stamps and "this is me" was stamped above the photos.

That's it! I know at first glance it looks like a difficult page to create, but I hope it helps to see the breakdown of the steps. Not hard at all. I love large scale stamps, they work great for scrapbook layouts. A few larger things look better to me on a page than a lot of smaller items. Look through your stamps to see which ones would work great as a background or to layer around your photos, and don't be afraid to mix and match them with the Monthly Moments line. Also, if you want to use stamps on your layouts but are afraid of stamping directly onto your page, stamp on die cuts...that way you can move them around on your page freely to decide where you want them go.

Visit Ashley, Melissa and Heather for more Monthly Moments inspiration.

August scrapbook layout:

(All supplies by Papertrey Ink unless otherwise noted.)

STAMPS: Monthly Moments: August

INK: Hibiscus Burst, Orange Zest, Aqua Mist, Tropical Teal, Sweet Blush, True Black; Versamark - craft supply; Soft Granite - Hero Arts

PAPER: Monthly Moments: August Journal Card Collection, Stampers Select White and Soft Stone cardstock, vellum

DIES: Monthly Moments: August die, Monthly Moments: Spiral Notebook die, Embellished Elegance dies, Bold Bouquet dies

OTHER: watercolor paints by Reeves, clothespin by Crate Paper (The Pier).

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