And the winner of the Cosmo Cricket giveaway is ...
Congrats! Please email jamie@coordinatescollections.com by 1/28/11 to claim your prize!
For Friday's Find, I searched the gallery and fell in love with this layout by Daiva.
She used Linda's 2 page sketch and created a great, balanced layout. I love how she chose to pull the red and green out of her photos, and they really pop against the black background. The journaling placement also helps lead you eye across the page.
Go leave her some love!
I got to work with the Amish Quilt kit this month, and it's one of my most favorite ever. Lots of pretty little patterns mixes with some bold ones. And the colors were just so pretty - the red, yellow, grays. Aaaah.
My add ons this month:
I actually got some other add ons, too, but they didn't turn up in my layouts yet.
Let's start with cards, since those are actually what I started with this month. I've been desperately behind on cards. I used a piece of the blackboard album as the background. I cut the sentiment using my Slice, and added some chipboard elements from the add on. I also added some pearls from my stash. The only bad thing about this card was that with all the chipboard, it was really heavy!
Next, I made a pair of birthday cards. All kit and add ons, and some pearly from my stash.
On my first layout, I added some teal-ish mist to the white cardstock background, and some baker's twine from my stash. The chipboard banner is from the Cosmo Cricket add on. Don't be afraid to layer the Tiny Alphas to get words to fit in... They tend to have a bit of extra room on one side or the other. And a word of warning - Make sure you test your pens on some of the background scrap if you plan to write on those Cosmo stickers. You can see mine blurred, and I used one of those Sharpie pens. Maybe try a slick writer?
This is one of my favorite layouts ever. I planned to use the stamp to create a background, and I had also planned on stamping one image in red to highlight my photo. I started by placing my photo (not adhered) so that I could figure out where the red stamp would be. Leaving room for it, I then stamped randomly on the rest using watermark ink (love, love, love). And then I found some red embossing powder. I honestly don't know when I bought it, because I've never ever embossed before. I thought I burned it when it first started melting. But I just adore how it came out, and I love the gray flower on top of it. I hadn't originally planned to, but I decided to journal around each background stamp. That definitely took some planning - and lots of pencil and eraser. My title is done with the Thickers add on. These are just gorgeous! The black bracket is a piece of the chipboard album that comes in the kit.
I decided to add some pink to this kit, in place of the red, since I really wanted to scrap these photos. I started by spraying the white cardstock with metallic pink grapefruit Maya mist. I also sprayed some of the wood alphas left over from my Vintage Attic kit with the same mist. I had some disappointing results with metallic mist last month, but I think these look a lot better and the coverage more even. So my new misting technique? Putting my cardboard mist box in the bath tub and standing over it. It gives a very fine coverage and gave me a better shot at more even coverage. Then I went about cutting paper, layering, and sticking things down. I uses some of the Basic Gray Basics micro alphas in Manilla for the rest of my title. Even though they were technically Manilla, they looked stark white with all that yellow and on the kraft tag. So once I got them all done (but before I stuck down the wood letters), I sprayed the whole tag with Cream Metallic Maya mist. It gave it a much creamier feel. I was about done and trying to find a place for some journaling. My original plan was to use the Prima stamp with some pink ink and block out the center of the stamp to leave room for journaling. That was a mistake, on a bunch of levels. 
. But by stamping on some scrap beige cardstock (it looks like craft, but it's not) to try to get a center piece to use to block my stamp, I ended up with pink stamped frames on beige cardstock. I cut it out and liked how it looked. Then I made some more, which allowed me to extend my journaling when I ran out of room. With a few more pieces, I tied my stamped image into the rest of my design. I added lots of chipboard bits from the chipboard add on, and some pearls from my stash.
Thanks for reading this far!
