The One with August 2011 American Crafts Layouts

First of all, I'm super duper excited about this bit of news:

INTERNATIONAL

Cindy Stevens – from New Brunswick, Canada

Lilith Eeckles – from Bertogne, Belgium

Michelle Clement – from British Columbia, Canada

Piradee Talvanna – from Singapore

Revlie Schuit – from Roelofarendsveen, The Netherlands

Shimelle Laine – from London, England

UNITED STATES

Amy Heller – from Newtown, CT

Cindy Tobey – from Kentwood, MI

Corrie Jones – from Dallas, GA

Heidi Sonboul – from Torrance, CA

Jamie Harper – from Phoenix, AZ

Jenny Chesnick – from Brooklyn, MD

Leah Farquharson – from Lauderhill, FL

Leslie Ashe – from Fort Worth, TX

Mandy Koeppen – from Hastings, MI

Melissa Mann – from Pensacola, FL

Paige Evans – from South Pasadena, CA --- that's me!

Pamella Brown – from Santa Rosa Beach, FL

Rahel Menig – from Gilroy, CA

Suzy Plantamura – from Laguna Niguel, CA

Soooo so so looking forward to working with such a talented group of women from literally all around the world!

Here are my two monthly creations for American Crafts for the month of August:

THE MAGIC OF DISNEYLAND

Journaling says: We've been taking Fox to Disneyland pretty frequently since he was only eight weeks old. (Teach 'em while they're young, right?) He seems to really love it! Especially rides with lots of colors, lights, and music like It's a Small World. We know he won't remember ever going, but hopefully he'll see the pictures and layouts and recall the magic of Disneyland.

Tips and tricks: So this layout took like four hours to make, no joke. Lots of trial and error! First I created a star in Adobe Illustrator and connected all the points to the center, printed it out, cut out each section, traced the sections onto patterned papers, cut the papers out, then sewed them onto a kraft cardstock background using green thread. Up until now I've only ever used white, cream, brown, or black thread, but I branched out and got a rainbow of colors that I'm excited to use! And let's back up a bit, before I sewed anything down I punched clusters of stars all across the background then adhered some of the stars that were punched out with foam dots and sprinkled in some jewels. Theeen, I dipped a piece of brown/white baker's twine in Mod Podge, wiped off the excess, and pressed it down around the star to make a border. I wrote the journaling around the baker's twine so it becomes part of the design. Next I sewed on some mini pictures around the edges, added a focal point picture popped up with foam squares to the center of the star, then made my title from Thickers. Piece of cake, haha.

Supplies: Cardstock, patterned paper, letter stickers, pen, adhesive: American Crafts; Baker's twine: Divine Twine; Jewels: Mark Richards; Star cluster border punch: Martha Stewart Crafts; Sewing machine: Brother; Thread: Coats & Clark; Decoupage medium: Mod Podge by Plaid



THE MANY ADVENTURES OF FANTASTIC MR. FOX

Journaling says: At just ten months old, Fox has already been on 18 flights, visited seven states, been to Disneyland a dozen times, gone to the zoo, attended a wedding, and much more. He sure is one lucky boy and we love him so much!!!

Tips and tricks: I started with 12 mini pictures and adhered them around the edge of a white cardstock base. The Thickers title came next then I had fun embellishing around the title with stickers, brads, a button, stickpins, and more. I used a ruler to draw straight lines with a brown pen at the top left and bottom right corners of the white cardstock then wrote journaling. And finally, I stitched some "x"s with cream floss across a few of the photos.

Supplies: Cardstock, badge, ribbon, letter stickers, chipboard borders, dimensional vinyl mountain sticker, dimensional monster and star stickers, button, brads, pen, adhesive: American Crafts; Dimensional felt cloud sticker, stickpins: Pebbles; Floss: DMC; Needle: Dritz

That's all for now!
And thanks to Veronica for letting me come over and use her computer and internet while our power was out for six hours :)