CC February Kit

I got to work with the Blue Skies kit this month. I just loved the bright colors in it, and the mix of the American Crafts City Park and Echo Park Little Boy lines.


I've been waiting for just the right kit to do this layout. I've been collecting tags for a while, and between the buttons in the kit, and the button paper, and the brown pinstripe paper, I decided to go for it. I spent a long time pushing things around until I was happy. I printed my journaling on the green cardstock that came in the kit, and used some Making Memories paint in Celery to paint the corrugated buttons, as well as to "ink" the edges of my page. I finished it off with some red zig zag stitching and some hand stitching through the buttons on the button paper.


This layout was about our trip to the zoo. I wanted to use the brown alpha that came in the kit, but had already used up the full sheet of brown paper that came with the kit, so I just used some brown cardstock from my stash to matte my photos and pull the brown back in. I did matte one photo on the pink paper (on the back of the AC cloud paper) for a little punch of color. I cut out some clouds to use for my journaling. I also punched some clouds using the Fiskars cloud punches, for more journaling.


A super quick, super simple layout that I had to do when I saw the planes in this kit. Emma loves spotting planes and pointing to them. We stop in parking lots all the time for her to show us planes. I used the red ledger paper as a background (I told you that you'd need an extra sheet!), the plane strips from the strips page, and hand cut plane from the strips page. When I cut out the clouds in both this layout and the previous zoo one, I purposefully left a little bit of a blue edge around the edges of the cloud, so they'd pop off the page a bit more. It was especially important in this one, with the white background.


To add some more depth to a simple layout, I added some glossy accents to the plane (not sure if you can see it) and pop dotted it.


I also used some Candy Cane Stickles from my stash on the red airplanes in the border strip.


I knew these pictures from the Children's Museum would be perfect for the colors in this kit. I used the acrylic stars over the green polka dot paper for interest. The top left star holds my title, and the bottom right has the journaling. Because there are so many pictures, I wanted to keep enough "white" space in here to not make it feel too crazy. Besides the one 4x6 photos, the others are 2x2 and 2x3. The blue scalloped border was hand cut from the border strips page, and the red scalloped border strip was a sticker from the Echo Park alphabet sticker sheet.


I used some Adirondack paint in Lettuce on the corrugated star, and then used the Fiskars star punches to create a couple of extra accents.


I feel like I need to preface this project by telling you that this was not my original plan for a banner. I had a canvas banner that I wanted to use. I used up the WHOLE bottle of Candy Apple mist that came with the kit, but it wasn't enough... it was still looking too pink, and I really wanted red. So, I got a bottle of a different kind of red mist and went over it again. I let them dry for a few days, and all was well until I went to get them and the paint was coming off all over my fingers. I've heard that the Tattered Angels mist is good on canvas, so I know it was the stuff I had put on top. Grrrr...

So, after pouting for a week or two, I came up with this. I used a sheet of red paper (it's actually one of the solid color papers that goes with the Little Boy line) to cut the pennants, and then used my Slice (Animal Crackers card, 1.5" letters) to cut "happy birthday" letters our of all of the bits of the leftover papers. I ran the whole thing through the sewing machine, and then just added a few AC flowers. It wasn't my original plan, but I love how it came out.