This morning I offer you the Little Sprout paper kit collection in two very different ways. Fancy Pants created this adorable, double sided line that will work for either boys or girls. The Shoppe even has a Deluxe Kit of the Month featuring these cute papers.

First up, is the boys. Although this line has a lot of blues and greens, which I took full advantage of here, this can easily be turned into a girly layout as well. Instead of backing the lower half with the swirly green paper, you could back it with the coral polka dot paper instead. Add pastel blue and coral buttons and ink the edges in a coordinating color. There you have a fun, girly layout.

The blue paper with fancy flourish, just screamed Little Angel to me. So I grabbed this picture of my oldest at 3 months and went to work. Big patterns such as this one shouldn't intimidate you. Instead of trying to work around the big pattern, I used an exacto knife to cut around the lower part of the pattern and upper corner, and then slipped my photo into the middle of it. I moved the photo down into the slot enough so the upper part of the flourish could work as an anchor or photo corner for the top.

Our friend Melissa, the Quilling Queen, inspired me to try my hand at this renewed art. I attempted to quill this butterfly below and although it was not too difficult, I could certainly use a lot more practice for sure.

I also tried these little fringe flowers which turned out pretty cute, I think. In the next day or so, I'll be adding some how-to's for these little embellies on my blog.

Enjoy your Little Sprout collection!

Aside from the fact that the color combination is gorgeous in this Amber Road paper kit by Pink Paislee, look at the patterns and designs. I love the look of the red damask patterned paper, the shape of the die cut paper and incredible journaling cards. It has it all.

Before I used the vibrant, red flip side of the jouranling cards sheet, I made sure I cut out all the cards I would use first. After doing that, I didn't need to worry about how much of the red paper I used. Strip piecing on your layout gives you the ability to use many of the patterns in your paper kit, without using a lot of paper. More paper equals more layouts and that gives you a nice return for your dollar!

I frequently choose a lot of my embellishments straight from the patterned paper itself. The tree blossoms were easily cut out with my exacto knife (I highly recommend a Swivel Exacto Knife). I popped up about 3/4 of the flowers with pop dots to give nice dimension to my layout.

If you are not a fan of the one picture per layout style that is out right now, then add additional "sound bytes," as I call them. Choose several photographs and crop them into 2" squares. They are an easy addition to your layout without significantly changing your design.

Happy Scrapping!

Hello all!

I wanted to share a quick little project I did using my JustRite Stamps alphabet! These stamps come with three different sizes of letter, and for this I used the 95 pt size. It is sooooo great to have individual letter stamps this large!

As you can see if my picture, I have some lovely Flow Blue China that I inherited from my Great Grandmother. It's the real deal :0) So, it only makes an appearance a few times a year, Thanksgiving being one of them! I did not want to detract from my china, and I love the juxtaposition of the natural elements with the formal...so, using a Tall Gable Box cut from acetate, I created my Thanksgiving place cards.


To create my leaf, I die cut it from a Spellbinder die (using red card stock), drew lines and shadows with my Copics, then gave them two coats of Rock Candy by Ranger (I can't stop using this stuff!!!!). They actually look like real leaves with the crackle the Rock Candy created!


The kiddos and I gathered tons of acorns to fill our boxes (*note to self* always cook acorns on low heat in the oven to prevent them all from sprouting. ask me how I figured this out :0) ) I simply tied jute around the box, added my leaf, and stamped our initials onto a tag using my alphabet set from JustRite Stampers.




Are these not the most beautiful acorns?? Oh, how I do love fall!

Tammy created an incredibly fun Fancy Pants Halloween Deluxe Kit that I've been using this past week. I have two very girly girls and at first glance I wasn't sure how in the world I could work any of their froo-frooy costumes into this whimiscal line. However, the wonderful thing about the Fancy Pants Trick or Treat line featured in this kit is the double sided papers. The fronts feature the fun and ghoulish side of Halloween and the backsides have more subdued patterns.

I ended up making two layouts using both sides of the papers. The layouts couldn't be more different so hopefully this will inspire you to think in more than just the obvious way for some of the papers you buy.

As most of you have seen from our current challenge running, you don't have to use themed paper for the intended purpose for which it was created. Below I used the front sides of the Trick or Treat line to capture things that just freak me out.

Then, I flipped all the papers over and used them to make this very flowery Halloween layout of my girls.

I couldn't resist adding the Rock Candy Crackle paint to my photo mats and flowers and really like how the effect turned out. Rock Candy goes on clear so you don't lose any of the pattern or color underneath.

The Bling It pack by Basic Grey, included in the kit was perfect for the bases of my flowers.

I had some extra bling leftover and decided to make this cute little butterfly as well. Bling never has to stay in it's original form. So, get those scissors and cut it apart to suit your needs.

We'd love to see your take on this line. Drop us a link to your layouts in the comment section below so we can see how you used this wonderful kit.

Have a safe Halloween this weekend!

Tammy sent me THIS adorable paper kit from Fancy Pants called "Christmas Magic". I just fell in love :0) Look at that HUGE snowflake!! How could you cover that up?? Most of this paper I just want to frame and hang on the wall :0)

I used some of THESE Prima Holly Leaves. They were not quite the right color, so I spritzed them with Glimmer Mist...

Now, you scrappers out there...how do you handle doing the same picture for different albums?? I try not to do this, but I love these pictures of my kiddos from last year, so I decided to scrap them twice...one for each of their albums.



Does everyone do this?? Scrap the same picture more than once?? Do you do the exact layout twice (or 3 or 4 times?)

I used some of THESE super cool Dew Drops from Robin's Nest. (I sooo want to use these for the center of a flower!)
So, one wonderful paper line gave me two very different looking layouts! Hmmm...only took me 10 months to scrap last year's Christmas photos...maybe I can be a little faster this year!

Have a great Monday!