Teacher Appreciation Layouts - Layout of the Week

This week is a very important week in schools all across America!  It's Teacher Appreciation Week!  This week was a huge deal in my daughter's elementary school.  And it still is!  Even though she's moved on to  middle school and her brother doesn't start elementary school until next year, I was asked to pitch in during this special week.  I'm sure it doesn't hurt that I work our local scrapbook store.  Those volunteers know just who to ask when these projects come up!

One of the mom's at the school came up with the idea of having each child in the school (about 600) create a scrapbook layout for his or her teacher.  Some kids also created layouts for the "specials" teachers: music, library and technology.  In an effort to include the office staff in this fun project, a mom contacted me and asked me to design pages for the principal and the three ladies who work in the office.  Of course, I was delighted to help.  These ladies were part of my and my daughter's life for six years and will be a part of my son's life for the next six years!

When I thought about what types of layouts to create, I was looking for something simple & graphic, that I could reproduce pretty easily for four people.  I think that the teachers will be receiving albums full of pages from their students.  I'm not sure exactly how my layouts will be presented to the office ladies, but I think they would be perfect in frames to hang on the wall.

I am really excited that our store will be getting the retail version of Project Life very soon and so I thought I'd create a PL style layout for these projects.  I also have a few fun ideas that I'm going to start designing soon to sell in the store and on etsy.  I'll be back with details, once the products are ready for sale.  So I had some ideas floating around in my head that I wanted to try out.

Our store (Whimzee's Scrapbook Studio in Beaverton, Oregon) sells tons of custom paper for local schools.  We order our paper from Scrappin' Sports, and of course, my elementary school is one that we order.  Check with your local scrapbook store if you'd like to create a project like this at your school.  I'm sure they have a vendor who can create custom paper for them.

Our school colors are red and black, so I stuck with a red, black & white theme for the layouts.  I used American Crafts textured white paper and World Win non-textured black paper, along with stamps by Technique Tuesday and ink from Tim Holtz & Ranger.  The cute black chevron washi is from Glitz.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to create custom PL style cards for the pages too!

A parent provided me with the photos.  Most were horizontal, so for three layouts, the horizontal layout worked perfectly.  For the fourth layout, I used two vertical photos and turned the layout 90 degrees, printing and cutting my rectangles vertically.

These layouts were a lot of fun to create!  I think I'm going to use this idea as a Teacher Appreciation gift in the future!  Create a layout and grab a white or black square frame & you're set.  I even created cards for a 5th layout, so I can make one for my daughter with a couple special photos from her last day of 5th grade!

Check out my fun idea and TONS of other amazing ideas over at the link party on Today's Creative Blog!  Tuesday is 'Get Your Craft On' day!  You'll find SO many cool ideas there every week, you'll wonder why you hadn't found it before!  Oh, be sure to tell Kim (Creator & Diva of TCB) HI and that Julie from JulieChats sent you!

Layout of the Week - My Happy Place

Most of my layouts come straight out of my own mind.  I usually get inspired by my photos or new papers & supplies at the store.  But from time to time, I see a layout I just have to "scraplift"!  There are just some layouts that appeal to me so much, I have to honor them by recreating them, with a little Julie-spin.  Lately, I've been getting a lot of inspiration from Instagram.  I stumbled across the Chic Tags blog just this way.  After seeing the fun creations from Chic Tags on Instagram, I've been checking their blog for inspiration.  And a couple of weeks ago, I found a layout that begged me to recreate it!  Created by Kasia, who lives in Turkey, the "Today was Awesome!" layout had me smitten!

I love everything about this layout!  Now, someday, I really do plan to recreate this layout in the colors that Kasia used.  But, in this case, I had already chosen papers & photos and just needed to use this layout for its design...as more of a sketch or plan.

Being obsessed with color, I chose to add my Julie-spin by creating a layout full of bright colors, letting Kasia's overall page design guide the placement of my elements.

To start, I hand trimmed my dotted paper and used my sewing machine to stitch it to one of my very favorite colors of cardstock, Ruby from the Vintage Collection of Core'dinations.  I liked the idea of continuing the dot theme, so I searched the Silhouette Online Store until I found the Linked Welded Rings cut that I could duplicate, rotate and weld to create a background similar to Kasia's.

I cut it in a dark teal, Stargaze from American Crafts.  Then I went back and deleted out the center of all my circles and cut that in white to create a background.  I love using the Luminarte Mists from Splash of Color (previously Creative Imaginations), so I used a paint brush and water to wet the white background and then dripped four colors of the mist onto the paper.  I let the white pieces dry before adhering them to the circle pieces.

Next I gathered some tags & other embellishments, some old, some new to give my page a graphic look similar to Kasia's. I chose some stickers from the Fancy Pants kit, along with a couple Technique Tuesday stamps and my SMASH date stamp.

I love how my page turned out, with tons of color and lots of layers & textures.  If you're having trouble layering your embellishments, just remember to lay everything down and move it around a lot until you like the result.  THEN start from the bottom adhering the back pieces first.  Adding pop dots to a few of your embellishments gives some depth to your creation, just be sure to pick only a few.  Everything doesn't need to be "popped up"!

I hope this "scrap-lift" shows you how you can use your inspiration layout as a sketch and think of its design elements in your own way to create something original that shows a little bit of you!

Check out my fun idea and TONS of other amazing ideas over at the link party on Today's Creative Blog!  Tuesday is 'Get Your Craft On' day!  You'll find SO many cool ideas there every week, you'll wonder why you hadn't found it before!  Oh, be sure to tell Kim (Creator & Diva of TCB) HI and that Julie from JulieChats sent you!

Supplies:

Paper:

Core'dinations Vintage Collection Ruby

Fancy Pants Down by the Shore: Colorful Days

American Crafts Textured Cardstock: Stargaze

Colormates Non-Textured Cardstock: Light Heritage White

Stickers:

Fancy Pants Down by the Shore: Sticker Fundamentals

Tags:

Peterson Arne: White & Yellow Mulberry

Creative Cafe: Together

Stamps:

Technique Tuesday: Awesome and Studio AE: My Life

K & Company: SMASH Date Stamp

Ink:

Versamark Watermark

Tim Holtz Distress Ink: Walnut Stain

Splash of Color Luminarte Radiant Rain Mists:

      Bashful Blue

      Ginger Peach

      Key Lime

      Sunburst

Embossing Powder:

Ranger: Rich Red

American Crafts: Zing in Cricket

Misc.:

Scrapbook Adhesives: 3D Foam Squares

Yellow Thread

Layout of the Week: Halloween Headstone

Even though it seems like summer only just arrived here in Oregon, the calendar says it's time to get ready for Fall!  Never one to miss out on seasonal decorating, these extra large pennant banners just jumped right out at me during the EK Success Craft Fest this fall in Portland.

These large arched chipboard pennants are 10" x 16" and when flipped upside down it just screamed Halloween headstone!

I gathered some fun Halloween papers & embellishments, some new, some older...

I think I used all these papers, except the tiger stripe.  After laying everything together and deciding which to use, it just didn't seem to fit into the look I was creating.  For my first step, I used the Soot Ink Pad from Tim Holtz, rubbing it along the sides and over the enter front of my headstone.  Then I cut strips of paper and attached them with spray adhesive, before adding some fun embellishments like self adhesive strips, ribbon, twine, a tag from 7 Gypsies, punched bats and a piece of jack-o-lantern flair.  We're planning to use the Halloween Headstone as a fun place to attached little notes in our booth during this weekend's Scrapbook Expo.  After the Expo, I'm planning to add some orange glittered THICKERS announcing Happy Halloween!

Tips:

Sand double layer cardstock, such as Core'dinates, to add a distressed look to your Halloween projects.

Don't be afraid to give your tags a distressed look too!  Wad them up & rub with ink to give them that "just found in the haunted house" look.

Trim your patterned papers and lay them over another coordinating pattern.  This diamond pattern takes on a banner look when trimmed.

Punch a strip with your favorite punch and mount it over a thick ribbon for a custom embellishment!  The bats have also been sprayed with Luminarte black shimmer mist (difficult to see in the photo) for and added texture.

Supplies:

Paper Accents

Tim Holtz Ink Pad

Papers-Teresa Collins, Authentique Paper, Core'dinates

Various Ribbon, Paper Twine & Yarn

Tag-7 Gypsies

Spritz-Luminarte

Sticker Strips-K & Co.

If you're looking for other creative Halloween inspired ideas, stop by Today's Creative Blog for Get Your Craft On Tuesdays.  100's of creative types submit their creations each and every Tuesday, I'm sharing this project and I'd love to see yours over there too!

Layout of the Week - I Love Your SMILE!

I was so excited to see the challenge handed out by the ladies at the Ella Publishing blog. They were looking for layout submissions with the title, "I Love Your Smile." That was the only criteria, just use that title. I think karma brought me to this gleeful photo of Delaney. For the past couple weeks, I've been designing baby layouts for my next beginning scrapbooking class, so I had a pack of photos of Jake when he was first born right there on the table. When I saw this page call, I flipped through the photos to see if any of them fit the title. And boy, this one jumped right out at me. This is THE happiest I have ever seen Delaney in a picture. It was taken, probably by Dave, just after Jake was born. We gave her this great I'm the Big Sister t-shirt and she was so excited, she put it right on. She was over flowing with joy that her little brother, whom she had waited so long for, was finally here! It brings tears to my eyes to look at it, when I think of how happy she was.

Her reaction to the photo, while I was creating this page, cracks me up! She looked at it and asked if it was taken when Jake was born. I said yes and that she was so happy. Being 8 1/2 now and having her brother be almost 2, she said, "I love him, but I don't know if I'm that happy about him now....he did cry a lot and...you know, mom, he's Jake." So that makes this picture that much more special to me, what a beautiful innocent smile, so excited that her baby brother is finally here. Unbeknownst to this sweet little girl are all the things about babies that aren't so fun, the SCREAMING (you have to know Jake to know I'm NOT kidding), the wet & poopy diapers, the hitting, throwing & destroying, etc. Of course she is still the happiest big sister in the world, when her little guy says her name, "Dee Dee, Dee Dee" or when he walks up to her, tilts his head, puckers his lips, closes his eyes, and cranes his neck toward her just hoping for a kiss.

Those are all reasons that this photo makes me a very happy mom! I hope you all create layouts showing something that makes you happy!

As far as the layout, I used the Cricut to cut the circles, placing my matted photo inside the largest circle to draw attention to it. I placed the title around the circle, also in an effort to draw attention to the photo. I chose journal strips for this page because a journal box might draw attention away from my photo. Inside the strips is my jounaling, "a girl was never so happy to have a little brother." I think that all the elements of this page help draw attention to Delaney's photo. I think it's important for her to have some pages in her album commemorating her brother's birth that show her reaction. He will have tons of blue pages showing all the exciting happenings after he was born and big sister needs a little attention too!

Tips

Try mixing chipboard styles when creating your titles. The mix will give your layouts a whimsical look.

If you aren't happy with the color of your chipboard, so ahead & paint it. Here I painted chipboard with both paint and glitter glue.

Don't be afraid to add other embellishments to your chipboard. Here I added ribbon, rhinestones & stickers to my chipboard shapes.

Supply List

Basic Grey June Bug collection papers
Admiral: used the back side
Park Bench: used the back side
Picket Fence: used the back side

Prizm light & medium pink textured cardstock

Pink Metallic Ribbon

KaiserCraft Basics: Rhinestones - light & dark pink and Rhinestone strips - pink

Creative Cafe pink chipboard shapes

Circle shapes all cut with the Cricut

"I" - Tim Holtz Grungeboard harlequin alphas

"your" - American Crafts THICKERS hat box plain chipboard

"SMILE" - Die Cuts with a View foil chipchatter uppercase - pink

Mrs. Grossman's casual alphabet stickers

American Crafts Memory Marker pen - soft black

Paint
Scrapbook Shades by Li'l Davis Designs - marshmallow

Ranger Adirondack Brights Acrylic Paint Dabber - raspberry