Some final layouts from my Prima Stash

I have a few layouts left from my Deluxe Pastiche Prima kit from Lil' Lambs Boutique.  I'm not sure I've enjoyed a line of paper more than this one.  It could be the crazy winter we've had here and I just love the bright, cheery colors.  Or it could be the incredible combination of Distressed Vintage to Victorian patterns that I liked so much.  Either way, I was thrilled to get so many projects done with it.

I entered a Paint and Distressing challenge on scrapbooking forum I participate in, and this is what became of that challenge.  The process was interesting to say the least.

We were called to use paint on our layouts somewhere and the twist was to distress it by using a hole punch.  I figured why not do both on my big circle in the corner.  I'm pretty sure I've forgotten how many layers of paint are on that circle, but I ended up with Gold paint, which I liked the best of all of them.  That's the fun thing with paints...you can just keep painting over it until you get what you like.  I did have a layer of crackle paint underneath which gives it that rough, distressed finish.  I then took my hole punch and punched, punched, punched all over.


For the scallop border, I cut out 11 circles and then fanned them around the outer edge of the circle.  After gluing the circle on top, I inked the scalloped border with Peeled Paint Distress Ink.

Finally, I blotted dots of Gold paint around the two opposing corners.  I've tried many things to make my dots but have found that a good old, non used pencil eraser does the best job for me. If you wash it off immediately after using, then it's ready for the next time you paint with it.

This next layout was a quick and simple one.  The background paper does most of the work for you.  I took my 5x7 photo and punched my matted border with the Arch Lattice Martha Stewart border punch. 

I border the bottom corner with the Prima flowers included in the kit. I did ink the edges of the big flower with Aged Mahagoney Distress Ink.  The ribbon, in the kit, I used in the upper corner of the photo to create a bow and at the bottom edge of the photo.  I used glue dots to create my ruffled border effect.

Prima has indeed become pretty slick with their marketing and packaging.  If you'll notice a lot of their packaging for embellishments come with this journal type background.  No need to throw that away.  Find a way to use it on your layout.  I took the packaging material from the brown, felt branches in the upper layout and cut out a small rectangle journaling spot for this layout.  3 of the edges were already cut with a ragged border, so I just cut the 4th edge to match.  I added a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink around the edges, handwrote my title and finished off with a rub-on butterfly.  I used my swivel Exacto knife to cut half the flower from the background paper, so I could slip my journaling spot in behind it.  Pop it up with a pop dot to give the flower dimension.

Ta-dah.  Easy as that.