Happy Campers

I've scrapped these photos before, but the layout I did is now hanging in my mom's kitchen so I needed to do them again for me. I love the Cosmo Cricket woodgrain patterned papers. This teal is one of my favorite colours ever.I folded over a strip of the fabric included in the kit and just quickly did a running stitch along the raw edges. I gathered it until it was the length I wanted and used double-sided tape to adhere it to my page. I also threw a staple at either end to make sure it wouldn't go anywhere. After I added the Rip Strip (from add-on #1), I roughly hand stitched with embroidery floss along the length of it.

I also ran a file across the tops of the chipboard letters to distress them. I use a Basic Grey file and almost always sand the edges of my photos. It's a little more subtle than constantly matting them but still gives a nice effect. The most time consuming part of this layout was the stitching around the edges of the yellow patterned paper. I don't use this technique very often (because it takes so much time) but I always love the end result.

One of my favorite surprises from this kit, was the Studio Calico patterned paper. I had never really planned to cut it up to use as individual letters because I also love the pattern on the back, but I have gotten so many letters out of that one sheet. They are such a neutral colour that they would seem to go with just about anything. I've been popping them up on adhesive foam pieces so that they weren't so "flat". If I had one complaint about the Cosmo Cricket chipboard letters, it would be that you only get two of each letter. I tend to do longer titles so this helps to stretch out the chipboard letters by using them for one word while using the cut paper letters for another. The little tree is cut from one of the Studio Calico journaling cards. It looked a bit heavy with the whole card behind the title and I thought it would be more of a subtle effect to have the just the tree peeking out.

I typically like to have lots of dimension on my layout. Adhesive foam, distressing and fabric all add that little "something" that I enjoy. It's difficult to see from the photos, but another way I achieved a little more depth on this layout is by curving up the edges of the photos slightly and only applying adhesive to the centres before adding to my background. By angling them, they look as if they're only tucked in there temporarily. Many people might think this looks messy or unfinished. Fortunately, I don't :)

Everything used on this layout was from the main kit, with the exception of the Rip Strip from the 1st add-on and some embroidery floss from my stash.