I was just crazy about the
Limited Addition Kit for August from
My Creative Scrapbook, full of summery goodness with a vintage flair!! Not only is this kit filled with beautiful papers, there are loads of lacey die-cut papers, velvety soft Prima blooms, New Prima branches and crystals and over the top GORGEOUS trims from Websters Pages (crochetted lace, pom-pom trim, velvety soft trims, eyelet lace). They were just perfect for the photo's I had taken of my girls recently. Above is a picture of Chloe, I tucked her top 10 Favourites at age 11 in a tag behind the photo, here are some close-ups of the kit goodies!.....
There's so much variety in the colours in this kit too, so I was able to make it work with photo's that had strong colours. This is one I made with the LE kit of my youngest daughter Meagan.....If you like the felted sweater bloom headbands the girls are wearing, I have more like them that I made and are for sale in my
ETSY shop!
I called this one Wonderful Freckles, but in truth I'm feeling so guilty for not watching carefully while we were in Florida that she had on proper sunscreen.....she got quite the sunburn that thereafter turned into freckles....all mommy's fault. Note to self: keep sunscreen handy this summer! Here are some close-up pic's of more of the kit goodies (love the pom-pom trim and Prima branches!)....
And here is one more page I made up with the LE kit, with loads of leftover goodies to make more!! This one is of Meagan in front of a Magnolia tree....one of her favourite flowers.....and no, I didn't mis-spell the title, it's sort of a tongue-in-cheek play on words.
TIP: I used a little die-cutter by Boss-kuts to make the butterflies from the patterned paper in the kit. I never knew this before, but these die-cutters are as thin as the Quickutz so they can be used with your Revolution cutting Machine.....so if you ever see these on sale, you can safely purchase them to use with your Revolution.
If you'd like even more summery options for kits this month, check out the Main kit from MCS this month, I fell in love with this pretty white petal branch in the kit, and talk about bloom overload, this kit is filled with wonderful Prima blooms, along with the new Prima branch, theres also the Calipso roses, and a full pack of Prima Sprites! I have this photo I took of Meagan when she was a baby and I thought it worked nicely with it.....
Really a fairly simple layout, a little paper tearing, a little handstitching and I sketched out a brick pattern and used some water colour pencils to colour it in a bit.
TIP: When preparing to tear your patterned paper, lightly outline the area you want exposed with a pencil. This will help you to avoid tearing too far in or out. Also securing the vines can sometimes be a challenge, one way to make them really secure is using a couple of small stitches through your paper and over the stem of the vine. In this case I used a thick thread because I wanted it to show, to mirror the stitching at the top of the page, but if you use a fine thread and tuck the holes close to the stem it is not very discernable. Here are some close-ups......
Another page I made using the August Main kit is this one of Meagan by a pool with the sun shining down on her. I took one of the pretty Prima blooms in the kit and took off the back layer of the rose, still leaving a nice substantial flower. I ended up with a single 5 petal layer. I cut this up into 5 separate petals. I then curled each one and wrapped some sticky floral tape on it, then attached it to some floral wire, did the same for the leaves (simply some green cardstock cut in to leaf shapes) and this way I created little bud vines to go with the big bloom included in the kit. Here is the l/o and some close-ups....
The August Creative Kit this month has wonderful colours for both 'boy' and 'girl' pages. I made this page of my nephew holding his new baby niece.....
I cut some branches from brown cardstock and used a little flower punch to make some tiny white blooms to create a fresh summery embellishment for this page. Not comfortable cutting branches free-hand? I've got some lovely
pre-cut branches at my etsy shop just like the ones I used here, you can mix and match the designs to create a branch or tree that suits your page. Here are some close-ups....
Included in the August creative kit are some fun clear heavy plastic embellishments. So I thought I would try my and at some embossing and using alcohol inks. I've seen my friend Irene Tan playing with these inks for quite some time now and have always meant to give it a go. So when I got these clear embellishments in the kit I thought I'd give it a try. I stamped the top of the arrow, buttons and picture corners with embossing ink and a flourish stamp. I dusted it with gold embossing powder and then applied a heat gun to it. You have to be VERY careful with this part because if you bring the heat gun too close to the plastic piece it can scorch it (it also may cause the piece to curl a little but you can flatten it as it cools).........the next step is to turn it over and apply a few different drops of alcohol ink. Once it's dry you can flip it over and you'll have a very unique embellishment for your page.....
I also created my own 'patterned' paper using a piece of cream colour cardstock cutting it in a bracket shape and randomly stamped the edges with some floral and script stamps. Then just chalk around the edges with black or brown chalk ink to finish it off. Here are some close-ups....
Want more inspiration? the rest of the design team girls have done a beautiful job with this months kits (there's also a wonderful Album kit too!) Come browse the
Design Team Gallery for August and get your creative juices flowing!
LOL! I thanks for bearing with me through another of my LOOOONG posts!
~Gabrielle xxx