On the Streets of Paris

Okay, they're not really on the streets of Paris, but these studio photos of the girls remind me of a Paris street every time I see them.  I waited a long time to scrap these because there didn't seem to be the perfect papers until I received my Prima Pastiche Deluxe Kit from Lil' Lambs Boutique.  Oh my word, the colors in this collection are just stunning.  I have a couple more layouts coming soon using this kit, but first onto Paris!!

Everything on the layout was included in the Deluxe kit except for the stamped collage below.  I've had this Paris stamp forever waiting to use and don't you know, I dug into my stamp stash and pulled this baby out for this layout.  The collage is a technique I found on Split Coast Stampers. I'll put up some tutorials soon of the collage and the paper flowers.  I wish I could tell you who made the Paris Collage stamp but alas, it's an unmounted stamp that I've had for a while and I cannot locate the maker online.  If you know which company made this stamp, please leave me a note in the comment section and I'll edit the post to credit the stamp maker.

The French title is translated "My Cute Babies" and the sub title along the left side of the photo is translated "on the streets of Paris."  This paper screams for the lovely French language, n'est-ce pas?  I used my tiny scalloped deco scissors to create the mat borders and then dotted them with my white pen from Inkssentials.

I used an exacto knife to cut a slit into the border along the bottom, so I could slip my photo part way underneath.

And finally here's a close up of some the wonderful Prima Pearls/Crystal bling and Prima pebbles included in the kit.  I made the paper flowers using a tutorial from Split Coast Stampers and some of the paper from the Kit. 

Happy Scrapping and....au revoir mes amis!

My First Board Book

And it's done! My very first Board Book. Sorry for the delay in getting up the new pictures up but work must come first (keeps those bills paid). This beautiful Grandeur Board Book (Kaiser Craft) from Lil' Lambs Boutique, was very easy to work with. I'm sure this will not be my last one.

Here's the quick story behind this project. The Moms in my neighborhood all get together, twice a month, for Bible study. We are currently working on a Bible Study about parenting our children. Every week, we pray over a new aspect of our childrens' lives. I thought this would be a great cap off to the study and an additional reminder to continually pray for my girls day in and day out.

The whole book is done using Basic Grey Eva collection. The front page is where I added my dimensional Primas, so they wouldn't get crushed inside the book. The flourishes are Grunge Board from Tim Holtz Idea-ology, which I inked with Distress Ink (Peeled Paint) and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist for the shimmer. Throughout the book, I used Crackle Paint to give it a worn effect (you can see a close up in the Sneek Peak post below).

If your pages seem to have a lot of blank space because of a solid background, then sewing or doodling (if you don't care to sew) is a great way to break up a sea of solid color. All the flowers on this page were punched out and made by hand. A very sweet lady, on one of the scrapping boards I frequent, posted this wonderful tutorial here on how she does these types of flowers. I added additional white accents in my solid flowers for highlights.

Don't forget to make use of your pattern paper for die cuts as in the pictures above. They make wonderful accents for board books.

If you don't have a sewing machine, no worries. You can always hand sew on your projects like I did above. I used a circle template and a paper piercer and punched holes all the way around the template. Embroidery floss works great on scrapping projects. I picked up some Slate colored floss and hand stitched my way around the circle using the pre punched holes. If you want a thicker thread or are uncomfortable sewing anything but straight lines, then hand stitching is a great alternative for you.

I used the Martha Stewart border punch here. I love these punches. And if you don't get your corners perfect, don't worry about it. Use your design to cover up any blatant corner problems.

Another Martha Stewart border punch on this page (Arch Lattice). I really like this one.

Finally I picked up the sewing/doodling technique here again to fill out some of the less embellished space.

Thanks for taking a look and go try a Board Book today!