Some layout and a birthday banner

I am trying to get the right balance between design and content in a layout. While I want to make things that are pleasing to the eye, what matters most is the content - the photos and the story. With that in mind, I am making an effort to add more journaling to my layouts. Or at least most of them. There's no harm in a fluffy, cute layout every now and them. Like having a calorie-full, vitamin-poor treat after a nourishing meal.

* Patterned Paper: Basic Grey (blue dots), My Mind's Eye (red and pink; red and white), Echo Park (yellow),  Pink Paislee (blue floral)

* Buttons: Crate Paper

* Fonts: Bebas Neue (title), Century Gothic (journaling)

* Tool: Silhouette Cameo

* Triangles shape: my own

This one is to be the cover page for 2011 project 12 (layout a month). The previous years' one was a labour of love, but 2011's is a quickie...

* Patterned Paper: Basic Grey

* Font: Bebas Neue
* Tool: Silhouette Cameo

 Inspired by this cool magazine illustration:

Source: houseind.com via Elisa on Pinterest

Two things I am using a lot: the Silhouette Cameo and the font Bebas Neue. Here's a birthday banner for my son, also using both of them:

*Fonts: Bebas Neue, Console Relay

*Tool: Silhouette Cameo

*Other: Cardstock, eyelets, twine

Not every exciting, but there are two things that might interest you if you have a Silhouette or Craft Robot. Notice the Happy Birthday on the first flag? If I had cut only the letters, I'd have to glue them one by one trying to keep everything aligned. I added a line above and below the letters, just touching them so the whole thing is in one piece. Very clever idea from Patricia Zapata - she has a freebie on her blog with the idea, but the format was not compatible with the Cameo so I made my own.

The other one is the Console Relay font - an interesting font and bit unusual.

New use for Promarkers

I am always trying to find new uses for my supplies. This was an unexpected one.

My son and his friends wanted to make some "arts & crafts". I thought some leaf printing could be something fun and not too messy. The idea is to gather some leaves, paint them and them press the leaves to paper so you are left with leaf imprint.

I just went and gathered some acrylic paint, got the boys to get some leaves in the back garden and happily they spent about 1/2 hour. So did I.

Later I noticed that my son's tracksuit top was covered in pink acrylic paint. I had the feeling it would not wash out that easily. And it didn't, all the paint was still there after a 40 degree wash.

I googled "remove acrylic paint" and the first hit was an entry in Claudine Hellmuth's blog. I was pleased, if anybody should know, it was her. She recommended rubbing alcohool. Which I didn't have. I went to the liquor cabinet and found vodka. (Yes, you can roll your eyes now). Until it hit me that I could try Promakers, as they are alcohool based. I had a blender promarker, which is colourless. As soon as I rubbed the marker on the dried paint, it became wet again. I scribbled over all the paint marks, put the tracksuit back in the wash and it came clean! Eureka!

Father's Day cards

Do your children make Father's Day card in school? I seem to remember that we always made either a card or an "arty thing" for Mother and Father's Day, but it doesn't seem to be the case in my children's school.

I particularly remember a necklace that we made for our mothers, it was made of pasta and beads which we varnished once finished. The (uncooked, of course) pasta shapes were those that we put in minestroni, little rings and stars and now I can imagine how the poor mothers had to wear these prickly necklaces for months to make us happy.

Usually I get the children to draw their own cards, but this year I had an idea of having them posing with handwritten speech bubbles and making a card out of it.

My son decided to write something a bit nonsensical "daddy call me maybe" (after the song), and when I argued that it didn't had anything to do with Father's Day, he completely lost interest and asked my daughter to write something for him. I regretted that I opened my mouth, as the point was having something with his own handwriting.

Here's my son's card, closed:

open:

My daughter's closed:

open:

 She came up with this:
"Every Dad needs a cheer.
That's why father's Day is here!"

Love it!

The font is Blackout, I tend to use typewriter like fonts and Century Gothic, but this one really made the cards!

The bubbles are part of the preset shapes in PSE, and I just added a coloured border to it. Here it is in case you want to download. Click to get the right size and then right click to save.

TFL!

Blue cards

I am still obsessed with the idea of using stencil or silhouette shapes in cards, like the bird card I made a while ago.

This time I used another dingbat, HFF Aqua Stencil. I made a few for boy's birthday cards but it would suit a baby card too, I think.

I sprayed a bit of a shiny mist over the blue cardstock, which looks nice in real life, but doesn't photography well.


And with scraps, a masculine birthday card:

From pin to execution

My two obsessions at the moment are the Silhouette Cameo and pinterest. Hardly anything I am making so far doesn't use the first one or is inspired by something I pinned/found in pinterest.

The first one is because I think it allows me to make things I always wanted but never had the inclination to cut by hand. The second is a fantastic repository of ideas, and from the beginning I am trying to only pin things that truly inspire me. Even if I love something I won't pin it unless I think I could make something similar or I could use as a springboard to something.

Here are two pins which I used to make my own stuff:

This origami dress, at 59 repins, is probably the most popular thing I pinned.

Source: howaboutorange.blogspot.com via Elisa on Pinterest

It is a very simple card, but very striking. The dress itself is not hard to make, while it might take a while for a novice to remember all the folds, once you learn, you could do it while watching TV at the same time. The excelent video tutorial for the origami, by noorinaya is here.

Here's my take:

And in this version, I ysed a border punch on the hemline:

This one is is another beauty:

Source: omiyageblogs.blogspot.com via Elisa on Pinterest

Now, it one takes much longer to make. I made several of them and oh, boy, it took a looong time to finish them. I wanted to make something special for a special bunch of girls and it was worth it, as they turned out as I wished them to. According to the source website they're called  shiori ningyo which means bookmark dolls.

I placed my ningyos inside acetate pockets in the front of my cards:

Now I see I started with the Silhouette but nothing in this post uses it, but it's getting late and I'll leave it to my next post. Good night!

TFL!