That paper you're afraid to cut into

This blue and yellow paper called to me when I first opened

up my Studio Calico kit.

I loved it.

I cherished it.

I was afraid to use it.

I finally decided to man up.

But there were still decisions.

HOW?

Use the blue as a bit of background?

NO NO the YELLOW.

A mat, a half, a third.

Sigh.

Well I went with thirds.

With the red branding strip.

Whew.

I canNOT tell you how tough that was.

And then the photo.

Modern, heritage, kidlets. YadaYA.

Heritage is the way it came out - especially with the doily.

I love the travel paper, and Jillybean soup.

Simple Stories.

It actually all works.

Shocked me too.

I decided I needed a banner and didn't want the same ole same ole.

Hearts seemed like a good choice for this.

My brother and I having a tender moment.

It's sweet and perfect for this paper I was afraid to cut into.

Remember that post I teased

about here? Well its challenge time at Off the Rails

Scrapbooking and the challenge is create your own embellishment.

TADA for one in a row when I was actually ahead of the curve for a change. The tag has some gesso going on along with some mists and alcohol inks.

 I chose some Paper Studio pattern paper because I just love the greenish/blue stripes.

It makes the best girlie girl page ever. I took my honeycomb stencil and modeling past and made some honeycombs on the page.

Does the texture rock or what.

I grabbed my watercolors and just sloshed some paints over the honeycombs.

Watercolors are so forgiving and you don't have to be a Rembrandt to use it.

I picked up some kraft doilies. Kraft is another favorite with bluish/green and it accented the tag nicely as I used it for a mat. A B&W photo was perfect for all the elements. Found a bag of hearts I got carried away punching and tossed them on the page. I don't remember the alphas - but they are soooooo cool and fun and blingy.

As an aside, my kidlets always called their toes piggies or pigs until about kindergarten. I am carrying on tradition with grands. 

Head on over to Off the Rails Scrapbooking and check out the design teams creations. Also play along and hopefully win a lovely prize. Join the facebook page and post your page!

Can't wait to see!

Ready to fly...

Love getting instagrams or iphone photos of the grands direct to my phone. And usually said pix get the mojo flowing.

For example, this baby came in yesterday (or now the day before) and that same day a page was done.

All done in scraps. 8x8 makes it easy to do that because the base was a scrap. The only malfunction was when I used permanet adhesive to adhere the papers I had the flowers upside down. No worries, I flipped it around which changed the design/layout sort of. I think it worked out better now in hindsight.

I also had a peek at Mz. Ashli's page Nice kitty where she used dots. I didn't do that. But she did use die cut circles behind  her 2x3 size photos. What I did instead so I wouldn't be an exact copy cat, I used a QK die cut of scalloped rings and stuck them behind the photos and in some areas popped them up.

I know. Pop dots know no bounds in creativity. LOL!

Saw banners somewhere that had been punched out, so I did the same with a small heart punch. Then had a couple sparkly hearts left over from the MAMBI sparkly alphas.

Mama also said that she expected to be able to fly once the wings were donned. Grunting and groaning trying to fly "like Tinkerbell" she said. Well Grammy may have gotten the wings but she didn't promote any Tinkerbell flying. Darnit.

And would you look at her pretty blonde hair that I'd pay big bucks to have.