More is More, Sparkle City is Too Cute

In my post a couple of days ago called Less is More, Sparkle City Sure Does Sparkle I was all about using less on a scrapbook project. I do this when the product I am using is super bold (like Shimelle's awesome collections are), perhaps are out of your comfort zone, you have so much you cannot decide what to start with, or when you have small photos and don't want to overwhelm them.

Well, this week I am here to tell you the exact opposite - use more! Let me explain ...

I have this super cute photo of my nephew eating the famous John's Place pancake (plate sized, fluffy and served with both maple syrup and cinnamon icing spread mmmm) on our recent adventure to Victoria, B.C. For my nephew this is heaven - the key to this kid's heart is through great pancakes and chicken wings. What a character! I knew I wanted to scrapbook this story with the Shimelle, Sparke City collection that I received to play with this month from Scrap Shotz. The collection is bright and fun and whimsical - perfect!

While the collection does not have pancakes, it does have all kinds of other foods things (fries and hamburgers, noodle box, soda, bubble tea and more) - so instead of going pancakes I just grabbed ALL the things that are food related  and piled these down the left-hand side to create a sort of waterfall of yumminess. Then I mixed in some words and phrase puffy stickers from the American Crafts phrase stickers I also received this month from Scrap Shotz. I love how it turned out!

I added the title "The Simple Things" from my stash as I really do think it is the simple, little things that make life so fun. The little smiley faces that are in the phrase set with this title were also a perfect touch. 

Before I put it in my album I will draw some lines with my journal pen and journal all about how these pancakes blew his mind and it was the perfect start to our Victoria adventure. I often do not journal on my pages for blog posts as I tend to get all feelings and mushy haha

Try it! Try adding more (all the things) to your layouts. Instead of going less, go more and see what masterpieces you can create! Think about a theme - all the food items, or all the hearts, or all the butterflies and all the same colours for a monochromatic look.

Have a crafty week!

Less is More, Sparkle City Sure Does Sparkle

Hello crafty friends!

This month the amazing Scrap Shotz team sent me some of Shimelle's Sparkle City collection to play with and, wow, talk about colour and vibrant and silly and fun. My favourite!

As with all of Shimelle's amazing collections, this one is full of purples, pinks, reds, greens and all the amazing patterns. The puffy stickers are gorgeous and the die cuts are so cute (think smiling cartoon pigeons and little french fry containers) - some of them are even holographic!

Take a peek ...

To be honest with so much colour and so many options (the paper pad alone has 48 sheets), I was a little overwhelmed. I wanted to play with all the things. So I started small. Small photos and a small amount of product. A 'less is more' approach to get the Sparkle City spark going.

My approach ...

In my photo stash, I had two tiny (2x2 inch) colour photos of my crazy nephew following me around a tourist shop in Victoria, B.C. wearing a plastic horse mask. I was laughing so hard at his antics I could barely take the photos  - so they are horrible. But good photo or not, this memory had to be scrapbooked. Besides how good does a photo of an 11year old in a plastic horse mask need to be?!

Now usually with a bright collection, I use neutral or even black and white photos and very large photos to help bring some calm to the layout. However, this is Shimelle's collection and I feel she is all about colour and would appreciate a more vibrant approach, so I went for it - a big colour, but a small product and photo, approach.

You can probably see that I used very little product - less is more with the super bright and cute collections for me. I used 4 die cuts (the camera and the little city building), two small scraps of paper behind my photo and roughed up the edges to bring some mess and dimension to the layout, 3 tiny stars, 3 phrase stickers and a title. A lot goes a long way with this much sparkle!

I really wanted to draw the eye to the tiny photos so decided to place the photos cluster on a two-tone watercolour 'mess'. I chose purple and red as those are two of the colours of the little die cut buildings but also because I just love these two colours together. I simply found some red and purple watercolour paints in my stash and used the packaging technique to smoosh a puddle of wet paint onto the page. Yes, smoosh is a technical term - all the mixed media gals are using it (wink, wink). 

Once assembled, I finished off the layout with some journal pen stitching around the border of the page - this is where you literally freehand lines down each side of the page with a couple of random squiggles as if the "sewing machine" got all caught up. Then added a few matching purple and red splatters. I like white space but only so much. 

I love how this layout turned out! Off camera and before it went in the page protector, I added some freehand horizontal lines below the photo to the bottom of the page and added my journaling. I was chuckling to myself as I wrote- what a ham my nephew is. Oh he makes me laugh! 

Now that I have cracked open the Sparkle City vault - I am dying to make more, off I go!  Hope you all have a few mins to get crafty this weekend too. 

November Kit - A Layout & Card Gift Set

Hi friends! Karla here today with two more projects using the gorgeous Scrap Shotz November Kit Club featuring the Jen Hadfield Along The Way Collection. If you haven't already checked out the last two layouts I created with it, be sure to get the details, along with a process video HERE. This will be the third layout I put together and I love that the beautiful colours and designs can go with so many different themes!

I decided to use the December Sketch from the Creative Scrapbooker Sketchy Challenge and created a circular pattern with the shiny blue Kaisercraft Glitter Tape in the kit. I created a gathered effect by folding it back and forth and then using my sewing machine to stitch through it. 

There are so many pretty cards in the 3x4 cut apart sheet included with the patterned papers, and I decided to use an oval die to cut out the light teal card and fussy cut the house from another card (below). I also fussy cut the butterflies from the sheet of butterfly patterned paper and used lots of the diecut ephemera, buttons, stickers and enamel dots from the kit to create a wreath look on my layout.

The pretty gold foil on the framed Happy Day sticker coordinates wonderfully with the Gold Foil Puffy Letter Thickers and the foiled sentiment on the word sticker! I even used some square and circle stitched dies to diecut various black and white elements to tuck behind the glitter tape.

Next, I decided to make a 6 card set to give as a gift to one of my daughter's teachers at Christmas. I used the patterned paper sheet of sentiments and since I was on the wreath kick 😉 I decided to keep it going! I wanted to keep these fairly basic and they didn't take me long to do at all. I layered leftover bits of paper, even using the pretty branding strips, to create themed cards. I added some Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker to the front of the sentiment wreaths, which I cut out with a stitched circle die, and softened some of them with my waterbrush. I even coordinated the inside of the card, which you can see beside each card front below, to match! I know the teacher is going to love having these handmade cards ready to give out to her own friends!

Even after creating three layouts and six cards I still have lots of product left over from this kit! Thanks so much for stopping by today. Be sure to check out the whole Kit Reveal post HERE for closeups and a video! You can find the kit at the Scrap Shotz store here, and pick up any fun Kit Add-Ons here. I hope you have as much fun playing with these goodies as I have!

Scrap Shotz April Kit Reveal #2

Hello!

Rosie here, back to share a few more kit projects created with the April monthly kit. This month I created a second layout based on the Creative Scrapbooker Magazine April sketch, here's another look at the sketch:

and here is my layout:

It's a bit hard to see but I stamped leaves from the stamp set in light gray ink on the card stock creating a subtle tone on tone effect. 

I placed the paper flags diagonally across the top, popping up the 3 smaller flags with foam adhesive. The title was created with a wood veneer word and kit alphas.

I then created 3 distinct areas similar to the sketch, one to house the journaling:

I accented this square with a kit paperclip, wood veneer and die cut butterfly. The journal spot is a kit die cut as well.

The 2nd square holds 3 layers of matting and this large die cut from the kit ephemera, you can see it's adhered with foam adhesive to add dimension.

The final section holds the photo. This layout is very different from my first one based on this sketch, I think I like this one better 😉.

This card came together quickly and began by ink blending light gray and peach ink with a mini ink blending tool and the Altenew Weave Builder stencil. I used Altenew crisp dye inks, this would be lovely with Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks.

After ink blending, I adhered the inked panel to a white card stock base, then adhered the kit ephemera with foam adhesive tape.

The sentiment was stamped from the MFT All Smiles Stamp set with embossing ink and heat set with gold embossing powder.

A few Studio Katia clear drops accent the background as well.

Next, I wanted to create a monochromatic background so I fussy cut these shapes from Garden Tiles patterned paper.

I created the sentiment from the Pinkfresh rose gold alphas included in the kit, love how they pop on the grey background. Liquid Pearls in Rose Gold accent the centres of the fussy cut elements.

Here's a final look at this round of projects:

Thanks for stopping in a taking a look! Cathy will be joining you later this week to share what she's been working on.

Happy Crafting!

April Kit Reveal!

Hello!

I am happy to be here and kick off the Design Team reveal for the latest Scrap Shotz kit. This kit features the brand new Twilight line from 1 Canoe 2 so let's take a look at my first layout:

I've been wanting to create a layered die cut background for awhile so I put my Silhouette Cameo to work!

The die cut is made of 3 layers, the base layer is white card stock, the middle layer is the kit Marble patterned paper and the top layer is B side of the kit Peony patterned paper. The layers where glued together with liquid glue then adhered to the 12x12 white card stock with foam tape.

The photo is matted on gold glitter paper from The Ton.

The peach die cut is popped up with foam tape, 2 more die cuts are then layered to the left to lead the eye down the page.

I've accented the die cut frame placing Nuvo Crystal Drops in orange soda around it.

These wooden buttons are also included in the kit.

Next up is a layout based on the April sketch from Creative Scrapbooker Magazine:

I was initially skeptical of whether these colours would work with these photos from a football stadium but this line is quite versatile as you can see :).

The journal card is from the kit Field Notes patterned paper and also serves as the layout title.

I've layered kit wood veneer over kit die cuts and tucked in a few die cut leaves that were leftovers from a different project. Wood buttons from the kit also make an appearance on this layout.

Now for a change of pace with a card!

I've used the stamp set from the kit, specifically the flower stamps beginning with the largest stamp, then filling in with the smaller images. I've used the Mountain Mist, Volcano Lake and Lagoon inks from this Altenew Ink set.

The large detail flower is stamped with embossing ink over the large flower image then heat embossed with gold embossing powder.

The sentiment is made up a kit die cut, the U is die cut using an alphabet die from The Ton glitter paper. Glitter washi tape edges the right and left side of the card base. A few Studio Katia clear drops finish the card off.

You can get yourself a kit right HERE!

I'll be back Wednesday with more projects, thanks for stopping in!

All the Good Things Scrap Shotz February Kit

Hello!

Rosie here, back to share a couple more projects I created with the Scrap Shotz February kit. It's been so much fun working with fellow Canadian Vicki Boutin's brand spanking new line😁. This bright and cheery line is also very versatile especially if you purchase some of the fabulous add ons and use Vicki products in your stash!

Let's take a look at my first project:

This layout was inspired by the blues in the photo which I did not use for this layout. I decided to use these Vicki Boutin paints on the Vicki Boutin Mixed Media paper with a Prima 12x12 stencil from my stash. 

The photo had me thinking about an ombre look so I spread Daiquiri Ice paint with a paper towel through my stencil. I then mixed Saltwater Taffy paint with Daiquiri Ice paint for the mid-tone blue again with a paper towel through the stencil. Lastly, I combined the Saltwater Taffy paint with the Plum Pudding paint to create the denim blue bottom portion.

Once dry, I trimmed the painted background on all 4 sides and adhered to a kit patterned paper. Here's a closer look at the layout: 

I fussy cut the birds from one of the kit patterned papers, popped them up and then coated with a Spectrum Noir glitter pen.

 Silver thread was added as an accent under the embellishment cluster.

I created a visual triangle with the dark orange paper from the top left of the photo to the bottom right, adding punched circles from the dark orange paper to the lower right edge of the photo

Here you can see how the black Thickers title pops on this stencilled paint background. 

Let's take a look at the upper left portion of the layout:

Fussy cut birds accent this portion of the layout and let's see if you can see the aforementioned sparkle pen on the birds:

Below is a close-up of the journal label and fussy cut accent layered over silver thread.

Here is one final look at the layout, I hope you've also noticed the Studio Katia Crystal Fusion sequins sprinkled throughout.

Next up is my kit sketch layout and this month the team is using this Stuck?! Sketches Feb.1 sketch:

and here is my version:

This photo has been hanging around my crafty area for a few months and the moment I saw this kit I knew I would use this photo with it.

You can see I stayed fairly close to the sketch, creating a "doily" out of kit patterned paper inked with Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide Ink and then spritzed with water.

Distress Ink Spray in Hickory Smoke was splattered on the ledger background paper along with Mr.Huey's Spray in Gold. Patterned paper punched circles, using a punch from my stash, frame the circular photo mat.

 I used Studio Katia Gold Foil sequins around the top left and bottom right portions of the layout.

These gold words are Thickers included in the kit.

Here is a close up look at the layout:

 My mind is still whirling with ideas for projects so keep tuned into the blog because I will be sharing them here.

Thanks for stopping in a taking a look😊.