School's Out But Learning is In..

Happy Friday!! Wall-E comes out today and Isabel is so excited. This just might be the very first movie she goes to see at the theater. She made me paint a picture of him and Eve. Mind you, this was a "rough" sketch with her little Crayola Watercolor Paints..



Being that it is pretty much the middle of the year, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on all the new techniques that I am doing or products I am loving right now. I think I have really expanded my scrapbooking horizons in the past few months and I thought I would share some of my key learnings.

Some of my favorite things I have been doing lately are:
1. using my craft knife more
2. Embellishing naked chipboard shapes and alpha's like the butterfly above and either painting them, covering them with paper, coating them with ribbon, etc..
3. I learned the technique of using twirled ribbon on my paper to create a really cool 3-D effect.
4.Using fun punches like the awesome MS butterfly punch used above.
In this layout:
Paper Cutting-I used the paisley paper above in a way that is totally different than as it comes in it's pattern paper form. My craft knife has certainly come in handy for this.
This layout shows several other things:
1. working with color themes more. I find that my eyes love the look of green and blue together. It is so clean and calming. I also love hot pink and orange, hot pink and turquoise, yellow and blue. Summer is about bright, fresh, juicy color!!!
2. Paint-I used paint aound the photo circles and am using paints lately in a more subtle way as an additional layered accent.
3. Layering-in the layout above, I used the October Afternoon pattern papers, with the FP felt. I love the texture that felt gives.

Other techniques that I am dipping my feet into more this Summer are:
1. Hand-stitching
2. Using more Stickles glitter and paints
3. Adding Glossy Accents to painted chipboard
4. Using my Heidi Swapp Edge Distresser
5. Acrylic Stamps
6. Thickers, Thickers, & more Thickers!!!

This has been really fun looking back and I hope I get to do this again at the end of the year to see what is keeping me busy then and reflecting where I've been. Scrapbooking is such a learning journey and I am loving every minute of it!! I can't wait to see where July takes me!!

Have a fabulous weekend!!!