Honey & Spice – it’s very nice!
Hey Magpies! I chose the new Heidi Swapp collection to work with for November. I am a massive Heidi fan, I have been ever since I started crafting. I have always loved her designs and found them really easy to use. So when there’s a new Heidi collection, I am all over that!
Honey & Spice is the new collection and I will admit, it didn’t thrill me when I saw it, I am usually a bright and colourful scrapper but since it’s Heidi, I was going to try it. And it’s very usable! I didn’t get some of the bits when I was ordering my stash because they didn’t arrive with the first shipment so I couldn’t get my hands on them! I didn’t get the Cardstock Stickers, the Tag Set or the Washi Tape and I am bummed about that cause I know I would have loved that little rainbow washi tape and those tags would make fabulous LO’s! So don’t think I didn’t use those bits of the collection on purpose, if I could have got my hands on them, I would have had them for sure! I bought the rest of the collection apart from the stamps. I’m just not a big stamper at all, I’m a very lazy scrapper lol! I also added in 2 bits from Pink Paislee since I couldn’t get my hands on everything. I thought the Auburn Lane and Again & Again collections both seemed to match Honey & Spice quite well. So I added some Auburn Lane Stickers and the Again & Again Die-Cut Ephemera to my order to co-ordinate in.
As is the way with me, I started out by looking over the collection and I went through the ephemera packs I had. I laid things out and was sort of picking out some bits I really liked, like the rose gold florals and bike from the Honey & Spice Ephemera Pack. So I was just laying out some bits and bobs and realised, I had a LO! So I whacked a few of the bits on to foam pads and added some of the Again & Again Ephemera bits behind the photo. Honestly, that is all there is to this LO, some bits of ephemera dotted around. That’s all there is to it, so easy and these days I’ve learned, I can use my favourite bits up right away. It’s ok. I don’t need to save them for ‘special’ cause if I really want some more, I can buy another pack right? There’s no need to keep stuff for ‘best’ anymore, there’s always another collection coming and I can always buy another pack if I really have to have some of the bits to keep for ‘best’.
The LO was looking a little bit bare in the end so I decided to add one of my signature Nuvo dot swirls along the bottom. I do this quite often and the secret is to draw the line in pencil first and then what I do is use an embossing tool to go over the line and leave a dent in the card. Then I erase the pencil and it leaves the faint embossed line behind. Then I follow that with my dots, Also, I don’t get to stressed about it. Look on the right hand side of my line, there’s some dots that joined up. Things happen, it’s not perfect but I’m sure you probably wouldn’t have noticed those joined up dots if I didn’t tell you! So don’t worry about your line too much, it’s gonna look fantastic whatever you do. Have a go, it’s easier than you think!
I wanted to use one of the 12×12″ background papers from the Paper Pad next. I tend to go to white cardstock all the time and I like to push myself out of the rut every now and then! I picked the pink paper, which I think is the reverse of the La Fleur paper but I’m not 100% sure. It’s a lush pink and has some touches of yellow on it, so I added some splats of Heidi Swapp Color Shine in gold as well.
Then I went ahead and started layering up my photo on top of a whole pile of stuff. I used some of the Again & Again Ephemera directly under my photo and then layered a few sheets from the Honey & Spice 6×6 Paper Pad and I added in that black & white striped paper which is one of my all time favourites. It’s an old Maggie Holmes paper and I bought about 20 sheets of it and use it a lot. When you find the perfect paper, bulk buy is my advice lol! A black and white stripe definitely adds something to the Honey & Spice collection.
Cocoa Vanilla has some stunning collections and their newest one, Unforgettable, is fabulous. I used the Foam Title Stickers for the title on this LO and you probably need those in your stash!
For the last LO this month I was again, just playing around with some of the bits and bobs, laying them out and a LO just grew from there. I always buy two sheets of any cut-apart papers, like the Happy Day paper in the Honey & Spice collection. So usually when I get a collection, I cut one sheet up straight away. So I did that and really liked the ‘just have fun’ square and wanted to use it. So I did! I cut a bit of the dark blue paper from the 6×6 Paper Pad the same size and layered the typewriter from the Ephemera Pack on it, on foam pads. There’s a lot of dimension on this LO which probably doesn’t show up in a photo but I have been quite liberal with the foam pads!
Then I just dotted around some more of the ephemera, lots of the florals and then I added that cute little vellum dog! I mean seriously, I don’t have a dog, I don’t even like dogs, dogs have nothing to do with my LO but then again, neither does the bird, I just add things cause I like them these days. And I loved that dog, so I whacked it on there! It doesn’t bother me that it has nothing to do with the LO and honestly, I have showed the LO to a couple of people and they all commented on the cute dog. None of them said hey Rach, what’s the dog doing there? So if you like something, I say just bung it on! If you think it’s cute, use it. Why not? I mean I know some scrappers say they would struggle to use something like a dog unless it was on a LO that had a photo of a dog or was about a dog but I am firmly in the, if I like it, I’ll use it camp.
I hope you like seeing some layouts using the lush Honey & Spice collection from Heidi Swapp, I was surprised how much I liked using the collection and I have another 3 layouts to share later in the month, using much more patterned paper next time. I’ll see you then, have a great November Magpies!