New Mini Album

Wow where did the summer go? I can't believe it's August already. I was down on the mainland for most of June for my granddaughters graduation from High School and my son's wedding. Of course being a scrapper I have a ton of more photo's to scrap now! 

I've been busy working on another mini album that I finished off last week. I was a lot quicker making this one compared to my first mini that took forever because I was waiting for the small magnets I had bought from eBay. This album I made 6"x6" and used Kaisercrafts "Lilac Whisper" paper collection. These papers are sooooo pretty! Here's a photo of the front cover of the album.

I've done a video so you can see the inside pages. There's a ton of spots for photo's and journaling. I'd love to hear what you think of it. Have a great weekend all!

Birthday Card

Just a quick card that I made for my sisters Birthday. I used papers from Bo Bunny's "Primrose" paper collection. I cut 2 larger papers for layering and 2 smaller papers along with a small doily that I used under the 2 smaller papers. I then did some fussy cutting of a couple of the roses from the paper which I popped up with foam dots. I distressed all of the papers and made a small sentiment for the card. The card is quite simple but with these papers turned out so pretty! Thanks for stopping by!

 

Clean & Simple

I had this photo of my son & grandson that I wanted to use for a layout. Not quite sure of the layout I wanted to make and wanting to use products from my stash I went searching for papers to use for the layout when I came across a scrap kit that I had in my stash for ages. This kit is from AmericanTraditional.com from their "Guy's Life" paper collection. I've actually made a number of layouts with this kit. I'm sure I've had this kit in my stash for at least 4 years. So although I've used some Prima flowers on the layout I've added some gears to try and make it more of a masculine layout. I was really quite happy with the way the layout turned out. Here's the finished simple layout:

Friends

I've been on disability from my work since 1998 due to my Mutiple Sclerosis but when I was still living on the mainland (Richmond, BC) I was able to pop into work once in a while and visit with all the girls. Since I moved over to Vancouver Island I haven't really been able to get together with everyone and now most of the girls are retired also. I go down to the mainland in May/June every year to see my neurologist at the MS Clinic so 2 years ago I got hold of one of the girls about us all getting together for lunch while I was down on the mainland. We all had such a great time seeing each other we got together again last year and even had a couple of the other girls join us. So we're hoping to all get together again this June.

Anyways I decided I'd better get the photo's of us from last years lunch scrapped so that is what this layout is all about, "friends getting together". I used up most of the rest of the papers from the "Tranquility" August 2016 Scrap kit from Swirlydoos. I added quite a few layers on this layout. From my stash I found some small wooded clocks to use, which for me kind of stands for the "good" times we have getting together and then the little wooden typewriter which I felt stood for working together in the office. I added the chipboard lantern which I covered with Vintage Photo Distressed embossing powder, then added all my paint splatters and here's the finished layout!

 

May 2017 Swirlydoos Round Robin

I managed to join in on this months RR over at Swirlydoos. Here's the challenge for May 2017.
"It’s May, the month of flowers and freshness. This month we are going to embrace the freshness with a twist by doing a layout with lots (at least 40%) white space with mixed media.
Twists!
One extra point awarded for each of the following:
1. It’s still spring, so let’s see some fun photos.
2. This is to be a true Swirly style layout.
3. Embellish, but don’t over embellish."

I was on Team #3, week 2 following Peggy from Swirlydoo's Design Team. Here's Peggy's layout featuring her adorable grandsons.

For my two photo's I used a couple of photo's of my grandson when we were camping a few years ago. The mixed media I used was some stenciling with a heart stencil and modeling paste, some green Starburst ink, some stamping and I used some Vintage Photo distress embosing powder on my chippies. After I added my photos and embellishments I added some white paint splatters to the layout. I was quite happy at how the layout turned out.

 
 

Greatest

Just did a quick layout for this photo of my son in his "I am the Greatest..I thought that even before I knew I was!" T-shirt. I was just using up some of the papers from Blue Ferns "Tranquility" paper collection from the Swirlydoos August 2016 kit. I distressed and inked all of the papers, not many layers for this layout. I added a Prima vine along with some other flowers from Prima's "Divine" collection. I just took the title from the saying on the T-shirt. So a fairly simple layout but I quite liked the way it turned out. Here's the finished layout.

Pretty in Pink

Thought I'd scrap this photo of my daughter with her pink hair modeling a pair of the capris that she sells in her online boutique. I used the Blue Fern Studios "Hushed" paper from their Tranquility paper collection for my background paper which I distressed and inked. I did some stenciling and did some inking with Lindy's Stamp Gang "Cotton Candy Pink" starburst spray. I had this package of ephmera from Kaisercraft's "Mademoiselle" collection in my stash and I thought all the colors on the die cuts would go perfect with the background paper and of course my daughters "pink" hair, lol. So all of the layering is done with the die cuts from this ephmera pack. I cut the title out on my Cricut machine and then outlined the letters once I glued it down. Of course I had to add some Prima flowers to the layout, it just doesn't feel finished without flowers, lol. To finish the layout I added lots of white and black paint splatters to the layout and called it done. I'd love to hear your comments on the layout! Here's the finished layout.....

 

 

Family Time

I was digging around in some old photos and came across this photo of my two grandchildren when they came up to visit us in 2006 the summer after we moved up here to Campbell River on Vancouver Island. They were so little, I can't believe my granddaughter is graduating from grade 12 next month, where did the time go!

I've used the Blue Fern Studios papers from the Tranquility paper collection that came in the Swirlydoos August 2016 "Tranquility" Kit. I used the "Calm" paper from this collection as my background paper, I liked the blue color in the paper which I thought would go better with the blue in the photo. I used some Lindy's Stamp Gang "Whale Watch Blue" starburst spray on the background paper which went well with the blue in the paper. I distressed and inked the edges of the background paper and added a tear on the one side and rolled the paper back, added a small piece of paper behind the tear and added the small handmade rose bud. For my background layers I used pieces from the Jubilation, Patience, Peaceful and Calling Cards papers which I distressed and inked. I matted the photo and added cardboard to the back of it to pop it up. I added lots of Prima and Petaloo flowers from my stash as well as the "Family" title. the small wooden plaque came in the Swirlydoos kit and I just added the letters to it to finish off the title. I added some paper doilies, the little wooden clock and finished off the layout with white paint splatters. Here's the finished layout, I'd love to hear your comments!

 

Quick Post

Just wanted to do a quick post of my latest layout I did. This is a photo of my son and my BFF taken last June on Fathers Day at my son's house. My girlfriend has always been like another Mum to my son, I guess you could call my son her God-son. I used the Swirlydoos August 2016 "Tranquility" kit for this layout. I used a lot of mixed media on this layout, stenciling, misting and ink & paint splatters. Just trying to get myself use to using it on my projects more often. I distressed and inked all my papers, popping my photo and a couple of the other papers with card board. Here's the finished layout....

April 2017 Round Robin

 I joined in on the Round Robin over at Swirlydoos this month. This was the challenge "It’s April, the month of Spring. This month we are going to embrace Spring cleaning, with a “Clean and Simple” layout but it has to be Swirly Style. How, let me explain it to you. Create a “Clean”(no mixed media)and “Simple”(minimal embellishments) layout but make it Swirly Style (flowers and embellishments)." I was on Team 2 for week 4 and my team mates gave me some great layouts to lift. The main things to lift off of my team mates was using some punch around the page punches, three photos and some chippies. You'll have to ignore a few little slip ups as I haven't quite mastered using the punch around the page punches yet. I've used three photos of our kids from a photo shoot they had done and chippies that I used under the edges of the photos as well as a chippie from my stash for my title. Here's the finished layout:

Time Flies!

I came across this photo of my girlfriend and I a few weeks ago and thought it was a great photo of the two of us and decided I should scrap it. I was thinking it wasn't taken that long ago until I actually sat down and thought about it. It would have been when my daughter was 2 or 3 years old. Well she just turned 26 this month. No wonder I thought we looked so good,it was taken 23 years ago, lol!

So for the background paper on this layout I used the Blue Fern Studios Stillness paper from the Tranquility paper collection. For the different layers of paper I used Blue Fern Studios  Jubilation paper from the Tranquility collection and also papers from Prima's Tales of You & Me collection. I popped the photo up with card board. I added Prima flowers from Prima's Princess Castle and Prima Blumen collections. I cut the title out on my Cricut machine and the Cameo was from my stash. I distressed and inked all of my papers and added the paint drips. I was quite happy at how the layout turned out. I'd love to hear your comments. Here's the finished layout....

Guest Book

Doing another project for my son's wedding in June. I was in one of our local thrift stores in town picking up some plastic hangers and was walking back to the front counter to pay for them when I walked past this box with a bunch of miscellaneous things in it and saw a small book. I picked it up and found out it was a guest book that had never been used and they only wanted $1.00 for it. Since my son and his fiances had asked me if I could decorate up a guest book for their wedding, I thought this was perfect. The fabric store was next door to the thrift store so I went in there and picked up some lace and ribbon and came home and went to work decorating the book. The lace/ribbon/pearl string flower in the top left corner was one I made using a tutorial by Vicki Alberto a few years back. I kept wanting to use it on a layout or project but never quite found the right project to use it on until now and knew it would go perfect with this guest book! On the bottom right corner is this very pretty lace flower that I had in my stash from Meg's Garden that I had left over from when I was on their Design Team. For the back cover of the book I just used the lace and ribbon for tieing the book closed. I was really pleased at how it turned out, here's the finished project:

Mini Album

I finally finished my mini album! I say finally because I started this back at the end of November, lol. I was kind of working on this in between other projects that I was doing. The main thing that held up the finished project was because I was waiting for some small magnets I'd ordered off eBay from some company in China. So that saying "Coming on a slow boat from China" is so true. I ordered these magnets back in December and I just got them last week, yeah a real slow boat, lol. So of course I couldn't really put all the pages together because I needed to have the magnets on first so they would be covered by the paper. I worked on putting the album all together last weekend and I was quite pleased at how it turned out since this was my first time making a mini album from scratch. Rather than posting all photos of the album (and there would be a lot) I did a short video showing all of the pages. I've never done a video before so I'll apologize now for how bad it might be, lol. I'd love to hear your comments on my album! Have a great weekend!

 

Wedding Cake/Card Box

My son's wedding is coming up on June 24th and my future daughter-in-law, Angela, asked me if I would be able to make a card box for them. This is used for quests so they can drop their cards off into the box rather than just putting them on a table with the wedding gifts and maybe getting lost. I hadn't heard of them before but Angela sent me a couple of samples that she found on Pinterest so I was quite excited about the project.

Since the town I live in (Campbell River, BC) isn't huge we don't have a Michael's so I had to take a drive down island (Vancouver Island) to the Michael's to pick up what I needed for the project. I managed to find a set of round craft boxes to use, and bought some silk roses, some small white flowers, and some navy blue tulle. I bought some white satin at our local fabric store and some pretty iridescent sparkly white card stock from the small scrapbook store we have in town.

I took the smallest box, turned it upside down and laid it centered onto of the bottom of the second box and traced the smaller box around the other box. I did the same thing with the second box but traced it on to the lid of the largest box. The reason I did the tracing on the lid of the largest box was because I was going to use the lid of that box so that you could lift it off so you could get the cards that were dropped into the box. I took my box cutter and cut the lid about an inch inside of the tracing. I did the same thing on the bottom of the second box. For the top box I cut about an 8" x 3/4" slit in the bottom of the smallest box for any cards to be dropped into the cake. 

I covered the 3 boxes with the white satin and on the edge of the lid of the largest box (I didn't use the lids of the two smaller boxes). I then took the sparkly card stock and covered the top of the boxes. Once the glue had dried on the paper I took my box cutter and cut out the centers of the cut outs of the middle box and the lid of the largest box. I then glued the smallest box to the second box and then those two boxes to the lid of the largest box. 

On each box I took the navy blue tulle and wrapped it around the box pinching it in the center and adding a small red rose from my stash onto each box where the tulle  was pinched.

Once this was all done and dried I could start adding my roses and flowers down the one side of the cake/box. I started with the red roses and layed them down the side, then I added some of the navy blue tulle and layed that down amongst the roses. When I got down to the bottom box I had to make sure that the roses and tulle runing from the top of the cake to the bottom of the cake stopped on the lid of the third box and the next group of flowers and tulle were not attached to the lid but attached to the bottom box. This way the couple could lift the top of the cake off at the lid and take the cards out of the bottom box. I then added the other flowers to the bottom box. Here are a couple of pics of the whole card box. I'd love to hear your comments. Have a great weekend every one!

Old Photos

I came across this photo in my box of "Photos to Scrap" the other day and I was like "Holy crap this is old!" Mainly because my dh Rick is not to gray yet (I can cover my gray with dye, lol). I looked at the back of the photo and it was from March 2007, that's like 10 years ago...where the hell did the time go? 

For this layout I used the Bo Bunny "Bella Rosa" paper collection. The top left corner of my layout is a bit of a lift of one of Gabrielle Pollacco's layouts. I just really liked the way it looked on the layout. I popped up the photo with some cardboard to give it a 3D look. For the bottom right corner of the photo I did some fussy cutting of the roses in one of the papers from this Bo Bunny collection which I also popped up with cardboard. For the top left corner of the photo I used some of the Prima Blumen flowers, I love these flowers, they come in a few different colors and just make perfect flowers clusters for layouts! I added a bottle cap embellishment that I made using a flower I punched out from the Graphic 45 "Secret Garden" paper collection. I used a few other embellishments from my stash, did some distressing until I was happy with the way the layout looked. I'd love to hear your comments, TFL!
 

Swirlydoos February Round Robin

So this month's RR over at Swirlydoos is all about "Love"....what else could it be about in February! Our layouts should be about something/someone we love and to use those scrappy items that we love to hoard, use red, pink, black or white colors (or all 4 of these colors), lots of bling, flowers, well you get the idea.

So my layout is of my granddaughter (who I love to pieces), she's all dressed up for her grade 12 Winter prom back in December. For the colors I've used pink, light pink paper matting the photo and then the dark pink Prima butterfly. I've got a pearl flourish and a butterfly stick pin that I made for my bling. One of the things I love to  hoard are my chippies so I used this one "Chase Your Dreams", which I painted with some mauve paint and also used some Diamond Stickles to give it some sparkle, not that you can tell in this photo, lol. So this is my layout for Team 2, week 3. You can click on the photo for a larger view. I'd love to hear your comments, have a great week!

Another Liam layout

I was digging through my photos the other day to find one to scrap and I came across this picture of myself holding onto our grandson Liam the day he was born, December 2, 2015. I decided I had to scrap at least one photo of me with Liam. I used the Swirlydoo's October 2015 "Garden Harvest" scrapbooking kit (except for the background paper)for this layout. So here it is...

Thanks for stopping by and I'd love to hear your comments!

January 2017 RR at Swirlydoos

So January's Round Robin over at Swirlydoos was layouts for "New Beginnings" whether that be New Year Resolutions, new jobs, new relationships etc. My layout is of my son and soon to be daughter-in-law Angela. They just bought their first home and the day they picked up the keys to the home my son had it all arranged to have his friend playing their "song" as they entered the house and the kids had all made signs saying "Will You Marry Me" that the real estate agent had hung up for him and he had rose petals from the door to the center of the room  in a circle that he walked her to and as she was reading the sign he bent down in one new and proposed to her. So these photo's are of the engagement party they had in September and my son was giving a speech and I think you can see by the one photo that he brought Angela to tears with his words. The small photo on the top right was the two of them kissing after the speech. The saying says "Marriage is a new beginning of life, a new starting point of happiness". Thanks so much to Linda for her design, and for Linda,  Annie and Kathi's inspiration for my layout!  Here's the final layout!

Card Mojo is Back

Well yesterday I actually managed to get 4 cards done, I know I'm so slow! This first card is the same as the one I did the other day but changed the top layer of the hearts with a different paper and I'm quite pleased at how it turned out.

 These next two are pretty simple but I like how they turned out.

This is a lift of a card I found on Pinterest by Scrappin' and Stampin' in GJ. This one is another simple design but I just think it's very pretty.

Here is the Stampin' and Scrapin card I lifted.

I hope you like all of these. I'm off to go get started on my layout for the Round Robin at Swirlydoos, have a great day!
 

Pretty in Pink

Another couple of Valentine cards. I really like the way this first one turned out. I used a light pink cardstock for the 1st layer on the card and then a darker pink cardstock that I dry embossed using one of my embossing folders. For the hearts I used the same light pink cardstock for the bottom layer of the heart and used some pretty valentine paper from my stash for the top layer of the hearts which I popped up with foam dots. I also popped up the smaller heart with foam dots. I printed out my sentiment on my computer and added that onto the card. For my flowers I hand dyed with some of my pink inks and shaped then layered when they were dry and added some pearl centers to them. I hand dyed my seam binding with the same ink and made my bow and added a pearl center to it. I topped my bow and flower cluster off with one of my stick pins I made. Here's the finished project!

This second card I'm not really all that happy with it. I think my card mojo took the day off the other day when I made this one, lol. Not really sure what I don't like about it, maybe just seems a little boring looking to me.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!

Valentine Cards

I've been making a few more Valentine cards this week. I'm trying to use up papers from past Valentine papers to cut down on spending more money when I already have a lot of papers from past years. I also want to use some regular papers to make Valentine cards and maybe some cards that are just about "Love" so they can be given any time of the year. Here are a few of the cards I made. Click on the photo to see a bigger size.

 

Happy New Year!

Well here we are 13 days into the New Year and my first post of the New Year. I was so busy making layouts for our grandson's first year scrap album before Christmas that I just had to take a rest from scrapping & blogging. I decided the other day to try and get started on my Valentine cards, so far I've only got two of them done (I never said I was speedy, lol). Here is my first one, which is a bit of a lift from Ewa, a member of Pion's Design Team. 

This is my second card I made, I didn't really have any plan when I made this one but I did want to use my heart "Love" die on it. I added the two flower clusters to the top left corner and bottom right corner but it seems to be a little flat in the middle doing this but not quite sure what I should have done different other than maybe just doing one corner.

Well I hope you liked these and I'd love to hear your comments!

Final Layout

No, no I'm still going to be scrapping...this is just the last layout for our Grandson's first year album.As you can tell by the photos I'm pretty sure that Liam really likes cake since he seems to be wearing most of it, lol. I used the Scenic Route Metropolis Idea kit for this layout. I thought this kraft sheet from the kit was perfect for a birthday layout. So what do you think?

 

Memories

Don't you just love it when you see little ones smiling? When our daughter sent these photos of our grandson I knew I had to scrap them....oh actually I scrap every photo of him, lol. Anyways back to the layout.

For this layout I used the Bo Bunny "Bella Rosa" paper collection. I used the red side of the Amore paper from this collection for my background paper which I distressed and inked. For the torn corners I used the Aryia and Rustic paper from this paper collection for the top corner and for the bottom corner I used the Amore and Rustic paper and of course I distressed and inked them. I then cut out one of tags from the Elegant paper which I used to add Liam's name and what month the photos were taken. I distressed and inked this tag also. I popped up the two photos with cardboard. I had a peach color flower from my stash that I cut in half and tucked the two pieces under the bottom papers. I added a couple of other flowers from my stash below the photos. I added my wooden Memories title and added the little pocket watch that I added a twine bow to, and then added my butterfly and called it done. I was quite happy at how the layout turned out. What do you think?

 

LOTW

Well I was pleasantly surprised this evening when I went onto the Swirlydoos Facebook page and found out that I got "Layout of the Week" for my "Baby Boy" layout.

 Thank you so much Swirlydoos!

Baby Boy

I cant believe in another week and a half this little guy is going to be a year old and these photos just make him look like such a grown up little boy! Still on my use papers from my stash regime I came across these papers from We R Memory Keepers "Winter Frost" collection and thought they'd be great for this layout. I also used a sketch from Kelly Holifield:

Although it shows as a Halloween type sketch you can use it for any type of layout. A sketch just gives you a starting point for your design; I pretty much stuck to the sketch other than the spider and web. Here's how  my layout turned out.

 
 

The Boys

Well I've been digging through my paper stash trying to use up older papers before buying new papers. I've been pretty good so far in not buying new, she says giving herself a pat on the back, lol. The papers used in this layout was a scrap kit I bought about 7 or 8 years ago. Yea, I know I'm a pack rat, never throw anything out. These were perfect for this photo of my husband and our newest Grandson Liam. I guess not that new anymore since he will be turning one years old on December 2nd. Wow that went by so fast.

I used a green cardstock that matched the green in the papers almost perfectly. I matted the photo with a green cardstock just a bit darker than the background paper. I took the lighter blue paper and cut it approximately 3" x 12" and laid it out as shown in the photo. I cut three more pieces of the patterned paper and laid them out as shown in the photo. I added a doily as shown and also a couple of tags which were included in this kit. I added a Prima vine and my title "The Boys". I also tore the background cardstock and rolled it back, added a small orange piece of cardstock behind the tear and added a small rose bud that I made.  I distressed all of my papers and inked them. Here's the finished layout.

 

Another layout & a couple of cards.

Well I've been digging through my paper stash and scraps trying to use things up that I've had for ages. For my layout I picked this die cut from Websters Pages. I backed it with some coordinating green cardstock. I distressed and inked both papers. I dug around in my paper scraps to find these other papers which I distressed and inked. I seem to be into banners on my layouts lately, I really like how they look on the layouts. I popped the photos up with cardboard and I used a Prima vine which I ran down the right side of the larger photo. I also printed out a pair of flip flops that I drew in my Paint Shop Pro program and cut them out and popped them up with foam dots.

When I was downloading these photos from my phone I was looking at the small photo and thinking why does it look like Liam has a Mohawk. I looked at the actual photo and realized that it's actually a person way in the background behind them, lol. If I had noticed that earlier I could have photo shopped that person out of the photo. I'll probably do that and replace the photos.

 So still trying to use up more paper scraps I made these three cards. These papers are from a kit I bought way back in2010, most of the papers in this kit were quite pretty but the others, to me, were kind of blah looking so I really had to force myself to use them.  Nothing super fancy but I liked the way they turned out considering I didn't like the papers, lol. So here they are:

I'd love to hear your comments on my projects!
 

Halloween Duck

Another Halloween layout of our grandson in his duck costume. This was actually taken in September when our daughter had first picked this costume up. I think on Halloween day Liam had three costumes that he wore. I used some of the same papers I used in my previous Halloween layout of Liam. These are from Making Memories "Spellbound" paper collection as well as the embellishments. 

I played around with my papers until I got an idea of the design I wanted then I distressed and inked all of my papers and glued them all down. I added my embellishments and flowers. The bottle cap with the pumpkin is one that I made by punching out the pumpkin from one of the papers and then adding it to a flattened bottle cap and then adding a clear 1" epoxy circle on top. I added my title and there it is. Here's my finished layout.

 

There is only one you

My layout for this photo of our grandson was fairly simple with the layers and banners. I used the Heartfelt "Under the Sea" paper collection. I did distress all my papers for this layout but I didn't ink them. I fussy cut one of the flowers from the paper collection which I popped up with foam dots and laid in the bottom left corner. I added flowers from my stash and called it done. Here's the finished layout.

 

Walking Dead

Here's another Halloween layout I did, this is my grandson (no not Liam this time, lol) showing off his makeup talents. His favorite show is the "Walking Dead", I think he's hoping to get a job in their makeup department. He's getting pretty good at this stuff.

For my background paper I used the Echo Park "Chillingsworth Manor" paper. I backed my photo's with some green card stock. I distressed and inked the background paper. The other papers I've used are from Tim Holtz "Laboratory" paper collection. I tore the papers into strips which I inked and glued down some horizontal and some vertical. I then took some white lace I had and colored it with green distress ink and laid that down across the page just below the paper strips. 

I then took some black Gelato across the top of the page and then sprayed with water and used my finger to spread it out. I took some of my Lindy's stamp gang ink in "Bells of Ireland" green and "Pineapple Paradise" yellow and sprayed them in different areas of the background paper as shown in the photo. I added cheese cloth to the layout behind the photos. I added my spider webs that I cut out on my Cricut machine. I added cardboard to the photos to pop them up, then added a few flowers from my stash, did my title and called it done. I'd love to hear your comments on this layout. Have a great week everyone!

 

Little Pumpkin

I hope everyone is having a great day today! I just wanted to do a quick post to show off my first Halloween layout. Of course it is another layout of our grandson Liam, I'm sure everyone is getting sick of seeing him by now, lol. Liam's to young for trick or treating but that doesn't mean his Mama isn't going to dress him up in his pumpkin jammies, lol. So here's the layout, I'd love to hear what you think of  it!

 

Making of a layout

When I'm posting my layouts and cards here on my blog I usually do try and give a "sort of" explanation as to how I did the layout. Today I decided to actually give a step by step on how I made this layout. So here goes!

The first thing to do is to decide what photo you're scrapping (duh, lol) and pick out your background paper. For this layout I'm using the Bo Bunny "Madeleine" paper collection. I distressed all sides of the background paper with my Prima distress tool as well as inking the edges with Tim Holtz "Vintage Photo" distress ink. I also made a small tear on the right side of the background paper which I inked and rolled back. I took a small piece of pink paper from my stash and glued that to the back of this tear as shown in the photo.

You can pick out some coordinating papers now and cut to size as shown in the photo below (click on the photo to see a larger size). Distress and ink all of your edges. Please note the sizes are in inches.

Now you can glue the layers down as shown in the photo below. A little tip (that someone shared with me long ago) is when you are using your tape runner, glue or whatever you use, is to not put your glue/tape right to the edges of your paper put them further towards the middle of your paper. That way when your adding your embellishments you can lift the edges to tuck things under the paper edges.

Now all you have to do is add your photo and pick out your embellishments to finish the layout off. For my photo I added some card board to the back of the photo to pop it up. I added a tiny rose to the tear on the right side. Added my flower clusters and a couple of ephemera tags. I added a small wooden clock from Prima and inked it on the edges and tucked it under the photo. I also fussy cut out one of the bird cages from the "Madeleine" papers and popped it up with foam dots. To finish the layout off I added my wooden "Family" title that I painted to match up with the papers. I really hope you found this step by step helpful and I'd love to hear your comments. If you try out this layout leave me a link to your layout so I can check it out! Here's my finished layout. TFL!