Happy 4th of July!!

 

 Hello everyone!!!  HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!  I'm super excited to be here with you all to share my first post :)  I'll be honest, I created a layout a few weeks back to share for this post but as we got closer I found out that I would be posting on the holiday.  I knew I MUST get a little more crafting done & create something extra to share to put you all in that 4th of July spirit!!!

Before I became a design team member, I was a shopper and subscriber of Noel's store & monthly kits :)  I went through my last 3 kits and mixed & matched all sorts of fun papers and goodies to dress up this antique style wood star.

That is what I LOVE about Noel's kits - they are so easy to mix & match between them :)  I cut patterned papers to cover the sides of the star as well as the center of the star.  To jazz up the middle, I layered a bunch of embellishments & papers from the Boardwalk, Summer Wind, and Jack & Jill kits.  I also used that great Crate Paper black star ribbon & the adorable Jillibean Soup corrugated cardboard star to help add a festive touch to this piece :)

You may have noticed that kraft script patterned paper peeking out behind the Crate grid circle sticker - I have to confess, it's a DIY :)  I've just recently gotten back into to stamping and it is a great way to create your own patterned paper.  I started with a sheet of kraft card stock & stamped a text image onto the paper.  Then I punched out a scalloped circle shape & inked the edges with some Colorbox chalk ink.  Do you have any stamps collecting dust in your crafty space???  If so, break them out :)

Now I mentioned earlier in this post I had a layout to share as well.  On the 4th of July my family is at the beach, it is a tradition we began a few years back.  A wonderful week full of family & fun!!!  It is perfectly fitting then that being the 4th, the layout I created captures a recent moment of my youngest son at the beach :)  I just adored the soft color palette of the Summer Wind kit & found it contained just the right "ingredients" to showcase this sweet pic of Nicholas meeting his first sand crab :)

I loved the font of the American Crafts thickers in this kit!!  While the natural kraft color was great, I decided to cover them with some real sand to add something special to these letters :)  You can see amidst the title work is all kinds of goodies layered up from Hambly Screen Prints, Elle's Studio, Pink Paislee, My Minds Eye, and American Crafts.

In the top left hand corner of the pic I added some more layering of embellishments to balance the page out.  That adorable cloud is from the Hambly rub-ons in the kit.  I wanted to give the illusion of it just floating there so instead of adhering it directly to the patterned paper on the page, I put it on a transparency.  Then I simply cut it out & tucked it behind the tag.  This is also a great way to avoid rub-on disasters :) You know when you put it directly on a page & then realize you don't like it there or maybe you are mid-rub and the paper shifts and suddenly your image looks like it's broken :)  By the way, in the past I've had great luck saving myself from a bad rub-on job by simply erasing the rub-on from my paper with a good quality art eraser.  You lose the rub-on, but save the page :)

I hope you enjoyed my first post!!!  Thanks so much for stopping by :)