I Am & Crate for April Fools!
Hey little magpies, welcome to April! Rachel here and this month I worked with Simple Stories, I Am papers and also the new Crate Paper lines, Craft Market and Maggie Holmes Confetti. I wanted to show you some of the speciality papers from these lines, and a special burlap paper from American Crafts too. Sometimes it’s hard to see what the special papers are like online but then when you see them in use, it becomes clear what they are like, and why they’re special!
For my first two LO’s, using the specialty gold foil papers from I Am, I have taken inspiration from a friend of mine, Staci. She does the most amazing, graphic LO’s and I love her style. Of course, my LO’s didn’t end up looking anything like hers but channelling a bit of Staci, got me out of using white backgrounds for a change!
This first LO is using the I Am, Courageous Gold Foil Accent paper. The paper has the lush gold foil heart in the bottom left hand corner so I based my design around this and cut around some of the heart, so I could poke my photo behind it. The journalling card is cut from the 2×2 and 6×4 Elements paper. I bought all the sheets of journalling cards and have cut them all apart ready to use. I liberally used them on the woodpecker LO below. To get the red circles for this LO, I used punches and cut 2 different sizes to get the circle. My title is done using the lush Gold Foil Alphabet Stickers from Confetti. I used word stickers from the Craft Market Words & Phrases Stickers and the Confetti Tiny Phrases Stickers down the side of the photo, puffy arrow stickers from Mambi, Chalk and Bright, my favourite gold arrows from Freckled Fawn and then some exclusive Flair Badges from Hey Little Magpie. I’ve kept everything clustered around and touching the photo as this helps to keep everything grounded & connected on the page. When you’re placing embellishments, try and have it touching something and that will help keep your design together. Things that are placed on their own, or floating on the page, will draw your eye to that, and away from your photo. So keeping everything clustered around the photo, helps keep your focus there and keeps the eye travelling around nicely, where you want it to be.
This is what I mean about keeping things touching, this little cluster looks more pleasing to the eye when it’s all kept together, so your focus stays around the circle.
And here’s where I’ve cut around the heart design that is printed on the paper, so I could pop my photo behind it. I just cut with my craft knife, it’s not perfect but nobody will ever know when it’s in a page protector!
My second LO is again, using I Am paper, this time it’s the Beautiful Gold Foil paper. I totally copied my friend Staci for the title on this LO, I can not take any credit for putting Thickers on top of the gold ‘I am’ words, I saw her do it and thought it was a great idea. So thanks Staci! I do a LO like this every now and then, I just keep all the labels I get off my clothes and put them in a pot in my dressing room. Then I throw them all on a LO. So that’s what I’ve done here. I just started layering up my labels and when I was happy, started sticking them down. I have added some of the Craft Market Ephemera Die Cuts as well, the tickets and labels as well as the scissors are all from that pack. I also used some stickers from the 6×12 Journalling and Title Stickers sheet too. The final touch was some of the photo anchors/turns that I have been hoarding.
Here’s a close up of the foam Thickers I used over the gold letters that are printed on the paper, for my title.
And just a close up to see all the layers that are going on.
For this next LO I have used a whole load of the journalling cards from the I Am range. I won’t link them all because I don’t know which papers I used exactly and I probably used a bit from all of them! I definitely used the black & white striped card with the gold foil heart, from the 4×6 Horizontal Elements Gold Foil Accent paper because it was my favourite and I had to use it! I laid that card and my photo down on the background and I actually built this LO by poking the other journalling cards & elements underneath! So I worked in reverse mostly. Then I used some really old wood veneer birds from Studio Calico but there’s something very similar available from Freckled Fawn here. I’ve used some of my favourite puffy stickers from MAMBI again, they’re so cool and such a good price. I used arrows from the Brights pack and words from the Chalk Today pack and the camera sticker is from the Sayings Stickers, Our Life Smile pack.
A close up of some of the cute little birdies and the lush gold foil heart on the journalling card, it doesn’t really show up so well in my main photo but it’s seriously yummy.
And a close up of the layers. Things like the red spotty paper and the red striped paper were 2×2 square elements from one of the papers and I’ve cut them into strips and poked them under layers. I often do that, and if I have an offcut sliver of something, I’ll use it as an accent, poked under the side of the photo for example. The black spotty square with the red heart definitely came from this sheet of I Am paper.
This LO is using the Gold Glitter Accent paper from Craft Market. It is gorgeous in real life, the gold glitter is lush and it doesn’t flake off the page at all. I think American Crafts puts a coating over the top of the glitter so it doesn’t shed like it used to back in the day! I just started layering for this LO, using papers from the Craft Market 6×6 Pad and then some of the larger pieces from the Ephemera & Die Cuts pack. Some of the cards in that pack were things I knew I would never use, so I’ve used them here with just an edge poking out here or there. My title is made using the Gold Foil Alphabet Sticker Book from Confetti and the chipboard hello is from the Craft Market 12×12 Chipboard Shapes sheet. I also used other chipboard stickers here and there and the Words & Phrases stickers and Tiny Phrase Stickers from Confetti. Those little words & phrases are so useable, I do love to add a few to the side of a photo….. in case you hadn’t noticed!
Here’s a close up of how many layers of paper and cards from the Ephemera Pack I used.
And a close up of those awesome word & phrase stickers. The April label is from the Craft Market Ephemera pack and it does have gorgeous gold glitter on the side. There are labels for every month in the pack.
So finally, I had to do a LO using this amazing burlap paper from the American Crafts DIY Shop2 line. It is fabulous! It is proper burlap, backed with paper. So you could cut it up or you can use the whole sheet as a background like I did. It is awesome! I had no idea it was so cool in real life until I saw someone post a LO using it on Pinterest I think? I had to get some and create my own LO using it.
I’ve kept this LO pretty simple cause I wanted to show off the burlap background and also the photo is pretty cool and I didn’t want to overpower it. So I layered up some papers from the Craft Market 6×6 pad. I ended up needing some bright green paper to help set the photo off and I found some old Studio Calico Lemon Lush paper in my stash and also some sheets from the WRMK Love Notes 6×6 pad in my stash and used those to help bring out the lime green in the photo. I also found some old burlap tags in my stash but there’s something very similar in the store from Simple Stories, Burlap Stickers, Banners. Then I layered up some of the Ephemera & Die Cuts from Craft Market, I put the flower die cuts and hearts on foam pads. The title is using the Craft Market Marquee Chipboard Thickers (love them) and the small burlap alphabet stickers are from the 6×12 Journalling & Title Stcikers sheet. Then I added some words from the Confetti Tiny Phrase Stickers and some gold brads from my stash in a line above the photo. I could have easily kept adding stuff to this LO and it was quite hard for me to stop but I didn’t want to overwhelm the background or the photo, so I took a deep breath and put the LO aside….. just stop Rachel!
Here’s a close up of one of the flower die cuts.
And another close up of a little cluster, you can really see the burlap texture here, it’s super lush!
So that’s it for this month from me. I enjoyed using both the Simple Stories I Am line and the new ranges from Crate Paper, Craft Market and Confetti. Unfortunately only half of the Crate Paper lines arrived to the UK so we’re still waiting on the other half to get here, fingers crossed it’s very soon. I am looking forward to doing my May LO’s using both the Crate lines and concentrating on using more of their awesome embellishments. Have a great April magpies, and a happy Easter for this weekend!