The Atelier

"The Princess and the Pea" by Keri Brooks-LaClair

Meet my new puppy, Brodie.  The Princess and the Pea for sure!  She surely thinks she is royalty and owns the place!  Hidden journaling reads:  Ever since Brodie realized she was big enough to jump on the couch, she has taken up permanent residence.  Luckily, she prefers the end that her sister Harley doesn't like!  It is so fun to see her growing up!

I really wanted this layout to have a royal, rich feel to it, so I went for a lot of gold.  The problem with that is, that it did not scan well at all, and reflected even worse with a digital photo.  This is the best I could get it, and I was so bummed, because the photo does not do the layout justice!  The background  is gold, and all the stamped images are embossed with gold EP.  I used Buzz and Bloom's UM Divs Rounds stamps to create a background.

  For the ever so elegant title, I opted for Buzz and Bloom's Initially Alphabet, also embossed in gold embossing powder on black cardstock.  I left a small border of black around the letters to make them really pop. 

Now, I just need to get the layout in an album before this ever so proper fairy tale princess decides to chew it up! 

"A Day in the Life of a Paper Artist" by Keri Brooks-LaClair

This is the project I have been looking for!! To be able to express to my family, and the world, that even though I am obsessed with all things paper, the time I have to work with it is overshadowed greatly by my daily responsibilities!

It was so funny when I saw the subject of this month's Buzz and Bloom project, because I had just posted a message on a forum about how frustrated I get when people constantly look at my work, and say "I don't have time for that!" or "I have too much IMPORTANT stuff to do, to scrapbook!" or my favorite, "I'm just too busy!". Like I'm not? I finally got to the point where I just say, " I make time." And that is exactly what I do! I get supper in the oven, bring the timer with me, and head upstairs to my Scrap Cave. It is amazing what you can do in 30-60 minutes time! I print pictures a bunch at a time, and then I don't have to waste time sitting in front of the computer photo editing every time I want to complete a layout. I try to hand journal, not only to make it more personal, but to cut back on the time I run back and forth to the computer to print things out, size them, reprint them, make sure they fit, etc. etc. etc. I make the time, because I want my son to have these books someday, and know exactly WHO people were, and HOW MUCH everyone loved him. I want him to have a photo reference of events and occurances, and exactly what happened. There are so many reasons to scrapbook, but the one and only one that should matter is this: I do it because I want to!

The Buzz and Bloom products I used for this layout are:

 Buzz and Bloom Unmounted Stamps: Wonderful
Buzz and Bloom Rustic Chipboard Alphabet

For my project I decided on a two page layout, as one 12x12 page could not possibly hold everything that I do in a day!

* I took pictures of all the things I do on a typical day, and printed them out as small 1 3/4 inch squares. I mounted them all in one big rectangle, and added a larger photo of me, mounted on cardstock. When I finished mounting the square photos, I had three empty spaces, so I stamped them in brown ink with Buzz and Bloom's Wonderful images.   

* I made up a journaling block, to reflect all of the names and titles I go by in a day's time. I wrote them all down, and embellished with a tab that says "alias" on the side. I stamped another image from Buzz and Bloom's Wonderful UM set.

* I finished off several of the components of my pages with a spiral notebook punch, to give it a genuine paper feel.

*For the other side of the layout, I took four pictures of my "cave." I didn't bother picking it up, cause 99% of the time, this is how it looks. Taking time to clean takes time away from actual creation time!

*I made a collage type title, a bit of this, a bit of that. My main focus was on the word DAY, which I made using Buzz and Blooms Rustic Chipboard Alphabet. I covered them with paper, cut them out, and lightly sanded the edges. For the smaller words in the title, I used smaller sized rubons. I wanted LIFE and PAPER ARTIST to stand out, so I made them a bit larger.

* And last but certainly not least in my book, I distressed the heck out of everything!

I guess the main thing I have learned in the past little while, that was made even more clear to me doing this project, is that if a thing is important enough to you, you will make time for it. That rings true with scrapbooking, paper crafts in general, and also life!

"Beautiful Beautiful Brown Eyes" by Keri Brooks-LaClair

Have you ever heard the song? Beautiful Beautiful Brown Eyes? It is on a bluegrass CD that I have, from a very special pair of brothers, The Gibson Brothers. They are my “way back” cousins, and we grew up on farms next door to each other. We love to listen to the CD, and Cody *loves* this song. When he was younger, I started singing along to it in the car, and would sing it right to him. He now thinks that the song is just for him! It hit me one day, that I could definitely do a layout about my husband’s and son’s brown eyes. I come from a family of blue eyes, but they weren’t strong enough to overcome my husbands family of brown eyes!

1. Choose a pile of coordinating patterned papers, and cut into desired pieces for a layout of your choice. Mount your photo on coordinating cardstock or patterned paper. Before you adhere anything down permanently, fray the edges of all of your cardstock pieces with a distressing tool. Then ink the edges slightly with an ink color that matches your patterned paper’s color palette.

2. I really wanted the title of this page to stand out, having built the whole layout around a song title. I went into my printing program, and printed out the word “Beautiful” two times, slightly overlapping the first word with the second. I mounted the piece so that the title would run vertically along the length of my photograph.

3. For part of the title, I used Buzz and Bloom’s Tubby Chipboard Alphas, to spell out the words Brown Eyes. I glued them face down to the back of a piece of patterned paper.

After they were dry, I cut them out with a craft knife, and sanded the edges with a fingernail grinder, to give it a VERY worn out look.

I gave them all a coat of sealer, to make them shine a bit.

4. Finally, I adhered the finished chipboard letters to the edge of the photo, and adhered the layout together firmly. This gave the chipboard letters a lot of dimension! I also took another line from the song, and printed the words out individually on cardstock, and stapled them onto the opposite corner of the layout.

This was a very fun layout to complete.  I plan on doing more song inspired ones in the future.  It is amazing what an old song from decades ago can bring about with a little creativity!