Scrapbooking is fun!!!

I've been a scrapbooker for a few years longer than I've been a stamper. I was introduced to stamping not by making a card, but by stamping on my layouts. It amazed me that I could hand make my own embellishments, dress up pre-made embellishments, and stamp out titles and journaling.

Recently, though, I've found myself stamping on everything BUT a scrapbook page. So, I had a couple hours yesterday afternoon and I decided to scrap Alaina's 7 month journaling (I've said many times that I scrap "backwards" - rather than start with photos, I start with what I want to say). You can click on each photo to see it in more detail.

What a wonderful time I had, playing with colors and words and images! I love how anything goes in this hobby: there are no rules, there are no scrapbook police who are going to come "get" me for mixing patterns and writing sideways. Ironically, I never did stamp on this layout (that's another thing about me - I rarely plan the end result of a project - I just go with the flow and am usually pleasantly surprised when I'm finished LOL!).


To make the journaling more interesting to read, I wrote it with my Uniball Signo Gel Pen, following the curve of the lemon on the paper (yes, my cardstock had a lemon image on it). When I ran out of room (I'm wordy, you know LOL) I started writing in the margins of my layout. I love my Gel Pen for writing on darker colored cardstock. It really pops and makes the words much easier to read.





Doodles are popular in the papercrafting industry right now. Of course there are stamped images available (Doodle This and Double-Line Doodles are favorites of mine) if you are convinced you can't doodle or just don't want to. But for this layout, I glued down some paper flowers and used my Uniball Signo Gel Pen to draw swirls and dots between the flowers. To illustrate how much I do not plan my projects, I grabbed a handful of the paper flowers, tossed them on my page, and glued them where they fell.









Here's another page element I wanted to show you. I received a tutorial the other day from another Stampin' UP demo, Erika Martin, on embossing shelf liner. I used the technique to make a card (that will be in my next post) and since I had some scraps leftover, I decided to use them on my layout.

To make these embellishments, I pressed the shelf liner into my Versamark pad, coated it with embossing powder, then melted it with my heat gun. I attached a paper flower to it with a brad, then glued it down with a mini glue dot. Don't you just LOVE this look?

This weekend I challenge you to find something ordinary around your house and find a way to incorporate it into your craft project. Maybe you have some old keys lying around - press them into acrylic paint and then "stamp" on your paper with it. Use kitchen string to create a fun photo frame. At this Tuesday's Technique class, we'll be using wax paper on our cards to make a cool resist.

Now go create!
- Nicole