It seems fitting that the last post of my design team term with Pretty Little Studio is with one of Keri Babbitt's fantastic sketches. I loved working with this girl way back in my Sweet Peach Crop Shop days, and it was so much fun being on a team with her again.

 

Keri's sketches always inspire me to think outside the box, and with this one I made just a few changes to make it my own. I started by flipping the sketch on its side, and then I added an extra layer of embellishment down the left side of the page, moving the photos a bit more toward the center.

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

I seem to be reaching for kraft bags quite a bit during my scrapping lately- I love the texture and dimension they add, plus they make awesome photo mats. I also tucked a few punched star shapes into the bag's opening, then sprinkled a few more punches and veneer stars diagonally across the page to connect the photos to the title.

Just looking at these photos has me wanting to run again! It's starting to warm up enough outside now for my cold-o-phobic self to start running through the neighborhood soon, and 5K season will be here before I know it!

layout | poppy & sophie {pretty little studio} {video}

There's a little bit of My Mind's Eye in the background, a chunk of some gorgeous Dear Lizzy vellum in the middle, and lots of lovelies from Pretty Little Studio front and center on today's layout! (Not to mention some quite old letter stickers from Pink Paislee and KI Memories to help out with using up the stash!)

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

I filmed a video of this one, too, for my last tutorial post over on the Pretty Little Studio blog. And I edited out most of the part where I cut around the flowers- it was a tiny bit boring to watch!


I started this page off knowing that I wanted to use more of those little hand-cut pink flower clusters that made an appearance on my cherry blossom layout earlier this month, and as I was flipping through my other Pretty Little Studio papers I came across a sweet violet print that I thought would be rather lovely with them. Luckily I had lots of photos from Mother's Day last year, when we took Mom a bunch a hydrangea blooms from our garden that were also in shades of pink and purple. Those plus miss Sophie's bright pink dress were a perfect match!

I certainly haven't filmed as many scrapbooking videos as I've wanted to lately. During January and February I traveled a lot for work, and while I can almost always take along a scrapping project to work on, my camera and lighting setup for filming aren't quite so portable! I'm back home for a while now, though (I hope!), and I'm looking forward to making more of these little videos soon!

project life 2012 | week {pretty little studio}

This week's Project Life layout is one of those catch-up weeks from my 2012 album. I pulled out these fall-ish photos from Halloween week because I had some fall items from Pretty Little Studio to use, but in reality there's a lot more documented here than just fall activities!

I'm not completely unhappy with this week's layout, but there are some things about it that just aren't working for me. As a side note, I loved Monica McNeill's post a couple of weeks ago about how you're never going to love every week's layout in a big project like this- bless her for saying it! 

So, what's not working for me? The biggest issue is that it's just too busy. I tried to cram a lot of photos and a lot of paper patterns and different sizes of journaling cards in, and now that I look at it I'm pretty sure I could have done just one or the other and been okay, but the combination of both is just too much. Part of that stems from the fact that I was using just Pretty Little Studio items since this was one of my projects for them this month, and Pretty Little Studio doesn't have many papers with smaller or more toned-down patterns. This is a big reason I really love multi-manufacturer pages more than single manufacturer DT work- I do love Pretty Little Studio designs, but I'm really a mix it up girl and would have put some more subtle patterns from another company with these, given the option.

The second issue? Too many journaling cards! I really am liking the cleaner look lately of just one or a few blocks completely filled with text, and photos in the rest of the spots (like my Project Life layout for Lawn Fawn or the one I did for my Two Peas Project Life class last week). One of the reasons that I had so many journaling cards was the number of photos I tried to put on the page, which meant lots of small photos combined with tiny bits of journaling. Really, I should have just put a small insert with this layout to let everything else have some breathing room.

Oh, well, live and learn! I'm not stressing about it and will simply file this away with the other 51 layouts (or layouts in waiting) in my 2012 Project Life albums. One or two blips in the context of the entire year-long project won't hurt anything at all!

february out of the box challenge {pretty little studio}

February is my last month on the Pretty Little Studio design team, making this my final project for their Out of the Box challenge series!

 

I have to admit, this one threw me a bit at first. Pink? Red? Pink? It's just one color I don't use much of, and when I do need to scrap with it I either reach for photos of my niece, Sophie (since lots of her clothes have pink in them), or for cherry blossom photos.

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

As I was flipping through my photo binder I stumbled upon these cherry blossom photos from last year, from one of the trees that has blooms with more of a reddish-pink hue than most of the yoshinos do. Decision made- cherry blossoms, it is. :)

I hand-cut the pink floral sprays from a sheet from the Pretty Little Studio Antique store collection, then went digging through the journaling cards to find a few more pink and red bits to finish things off. The brads, buttons, bling, and washi tape are all older stash, and that woodgrain background paper is from Studio Calico's Christmas collection, believe it or not!

I've got just a couple more Pretty Little Studio layouts in the hopper before my time with them as up. And as the design team commitments wind down, my time to dig in and use up some older supplies is ramping up- love that!

sketch layout for pretty little studio

It was my turn for a sketch layout over at Pretty Little Studio this week, and I had a lot of fun with Keri's sketch!

 

I kept the circles in the background (using a doily in place of one and patterned paper for the others) and used the idea of two photos strips but formed a block with them instead of having them offset.

Supplies:

InLinkz.com

I dug into the April Showers collection for this layout along with just a little help from Monsieur's journaling tags (the photos are from my birthday last year where I had a green and gold theme going).

Since Pretty Little Studio's papers are all 8x8, I always have my choice of background papers, and I decided to break into the stack of lovely Basic Grey Fact and Fiction papers that Mom picked up for me at JoAnn (since my own local store decided not to carry it). Pretty Little Studio and Basic Grey have vastly different styles, so it took a few minutes of flipping through the papers to find one that worked, but I love how the polka dot background adds just a touch of pattern that you don't get with just plain cardstock.

All of the embellishments are also stash, from the resin flowers (Michaels has them in every colors) to the chipboard butterflies (from an old Studio Calico kit- maybe last February?) and even that pinked yellow foam circle behind the title. I've had that for ages (it was a Tuesday Morning closeout find) and am so happy to be getting these items on layouts!