Layouts for the Ronald McDonald House

As many of you know, one of the charities that Stampin' Up supports every year is the Ronald Mcdonald House. This is a charity that is dear to my heart because I was on the receiving end when my son was about 9 and was in the hospital in Atlanta for an extended period of time. He is 31 now and is doing fine but things were a bit rough for a while and the house in Atlanta is wonderful! We were treated like kings when we were there and the younger kids had a blast. It made the whole hospital thing easier for all of us.

Stampin' Up also has an exclusive stamp set every year to help raise money for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. This and other efforts raise hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. I love Stampin' Up! The set in the current catalog is also on the list of stamps you can earn free with your Sale-a-bration order. Stampin' Up will still donate $2.00 per set even though they are giving them free. What a company!

I was asked to help make a layout for an album that Sherrill Graff is doing for the RMH in her area and I was glad to help. Being the over-achiever that I am, I ended up volunteering to do 3 layouts. Hey, the postage will be the same so why not???

Sherrill Graff is the "list mom" of the Stampin' Up Demos Only Stampers yahoo group that I belong to and love. See the owl on the right? Click on him to find the group. If you are a Stampin' Up demonstrator, it is a great resource.

The first layout uses some of the Night and Day designer paper that was in the Holiday Mini catalog. It is for a little girl named Hope who was adopted. I used a technique that a friend on the Demo Only group named Ilina Crouse posted. You punch 5 flowers with the Scalloped Circle punch and put them all together with a brad and then scrunch them up individually. You don't have to scrunch the back one but I did on my flowers. I figured since you don't see the brad after putting the button over it with a Stampin' Dimensional that I would use a cheap-o store brand. Bad idea, the prongs of the brad opened up by the time I was on the 3rd flower down. I replaced all the cheap brads with Stampin' Up brads and didn't have that problem with the rest of them. For the center of the flowers I punched a 3/4" circle of Real Red cardstock to match the mats and used Crystal Effects to attach them to the buttons. I pierced holes where the button holes were and added a piece of hemp twine to the center. I love this technique!

On the pink layout I used the gathered border idea like the card I posted the other day. I love the wide 1" Double Stitched grosgrain ribbon! It really adds to the layout. I also used a few beads and a hatpin from the Pretties Kit for the photo mat. I thought the butterflies would finish the layout off nicely. This layout is for a teenage girl who died. It must have been so sad to loose a daughter so young, I hope her parents will get peace from seeing the layout I made for her.

Last is a bright primary colors layout for a little boy. I used the Right on Track wheel and the Choo Choo stamp set along the bottom of the page and Real Red, Brilliant Blue, Yo Yo Yellow and Glorious Green cardstock (it lo0ks kind of blue in the picture). In real life the yellow in the background matches the yellow mat too.

I reckon I better get to the post office and send these layouts to Sherrill. Have a great day and do something nice for someone :~)

Another layout with Sweet Pea paper and Blog Candy Clue

I've been creating with the Sweet Pea Paper Stack again. I loved these pictures my daughter took of the grandkids and wanted to go with pink and blue which was so easy with the paper stack. I also used cardstock and designer paper for the flowers. I punched with the 1 3/4, 1 3/8 and 1" circle punches for the flowers and roughed up the edges. I used the brown corduroy brads for the centers of the flowers and added 8 pink brads around one of the flowers. I just used a glass to draw a cricle a little bigger than the 1 3/4" circle and folded it in half, again in half and again and again until I had 8 layers. Then I put the circle down and pierced the edge of each line so they were even. I think they would have looked fine if they weren't lined up so carefully but I'm a freak about things like that. It is very hard for me to make layouts that aren't perfectly balanced. I think they look great but it is hard for me to do them.

I have gotten a correct answer to my question as to why I would be offering blog candy. I said in my original post that I would draw from all the correct answers that I got by my birthday on Wednesday so you still have time to try again to get it right. Are you begging me for another hint?? OK, I'd say 129 is a pretty good number for a slacker at heart like me.

I'm working on another layout with the Sweet Pea paper. With so many beautiful patterns and colors it is so fun to work with! Maybe I'll get it finished to post soon. Right now I need to go see why my red headed woodpecker is hanging out on my greenhouse window. I don't think there is any wood there but he seems to want to be there for some reason. He knows that isn't the window where I feed all the birds. When I get my windows cleaned I'll post some pictures of them. We go through a lot of sunflower seeds around here! Whoever coined the pharse "eats like a bird" didn't know what they were talking about!

Matting a Whole Layout

I posted the layout above on the left a few days ago where I matted the whole scrapbook page. This is a nice look for your page but could use a lot of extra paper since nearly an entire sheet of paper is hidden under the mat. Many of you have done this before and already know what I'm going to teach in this post but for the ones who never have, here is how to save the paper:

In the picture above I have the background (white) paper in the trimmer. I put it in 1 inch into the trimmer and cut from 1" to 11". DO NOT CUT ALL THE WAY TO THE ENDS! If you look closely you can see where I cut the first 2 sides of the cardstock.

When you trim all 4 sides you have an 11X11 inch square cut out of the middle. This can be used to mat pictures or for other page elements. This is what I used for the mats under the cupcakes in the layout above.

Now put the paper that you are planning to be in front of the page (green) into the trimmer. Cut one inch off one side and turn the page 1/4 th a turn and cut one inch off that side. Now the paper will be 11X11 inches square. Put adhesive on the back around all sides and center on the background 12X12 inch frame.

You will have a 1/2 inch border around your page. If you want a smaller border, cut the front piece (green) down by 1/4" on the 2 sides instead of 1/2". If you want a larger border, cut more off, like an inch off the 2 sides.

I don't know how my paper got so wrinkled but my 14 month-old granddaughter has been visiting and she is into EVERYTHING! We will blame it on her (like we have pretty much everything else this week).

This is the back of the page. It is best when adhering the 2 papers together to put the adhesive on the smaller (green) paper. If you put it on the background paper you may put it too far out into the border area and then you will have to clean it off, plus, it won't be over where you need it to hold the 2 papers together.

Clear as mud? LMK if you have questions. If you are still reading, I think you deserve some blog candy. I will choose from everyone who posts a comment and the winner will get a set of 5 fantastic homemade cards!

The Whole Layout

Here is the layout we did at the Stamp group meeting last night. It was a lot of fun. We used every circle punch tht Stampin' Up sells! We also used bleach to stamp the flowers on the blue circles. It was kind of funny that the color of the Pacific Point blue cardstick when bleached out matched the Gable Green cardstock perfectly. If I had planned that it wouldn't have matched at all!

First I punched the bottom of the long side of the white cardstock (which measures 8 1/2 X 9 1/4) with the Eyelet Border punch and added the strips of Good Morning Sunshine patterned paper (they meaure 7 1/2 X 3). After adhering the white squares to my background paper I wheeled around the sides and top of the layout.
If you have never used a border punch, it has an amazing effect to your layout or card. It has a guide on each side of the punch so you can line it up perfectly to get a smooth, even border. Hopefully the picture shows what I mean.

If you put the 2 sheets of cardstock together first and wheel the whole thing at once it will match at the center top of the layout. To wheel this long of a pattern you really need to have an ink cartridge in the wheel handle so you don't have to keep stopping and re-inking the wheel and trying to match it up. Be sure to keep the wheel flat on the paper although you can hide a multitude of mistakes with all the punched circles! It will be easier to keep the wheel flat if you stand up to do that part.

Also, start and stop the wheel off your layout. That way there won't be a faded out part at each end. For wheeling an entire layout you will need 2 sheets of blotter paper or typing paper so it will cover both edges.

A tip for punching holes in your circles: Punch the smaller circle first and then hold the larger punch upside down and punch it either centered or off-set like I did the circles on the layout. This makes it easier because you won't be trying to hold the very edge of the circle while you punch the smaller circle in it.

I used the flowers from the pretties kit in one corner of the layout. I put the half-pearl centers on the flowers with mini glue dots. The flowers come in white and you can use your ink pad to color them so they match the layout or card colors. Pretty cool! If you want the whole flower the same color you can put a few drops of the reinker and a few drops of water (depending on how dark you want the color) in a plastic baggie and put the flowers in and smoosh the color into them. If you want a more subtle color or varigated colors or multiple colors you can use the sponge daubers and apply the color from your ink pad.

I did the flowers on the layout 3 different ways so you could see 3 options for coloring flowers using the daubers. I also did one with a yellow center to show the 2 tone option. Obviously, when using yellow and blue, you don't want to let them overlap or you will get green. If you want a band of green in the middle, no problem but if you don't you will have to be more careful applying the second color than I was!