After B and Cheryl signed me up for a scrap kit by Scraptastic (the September This is Life Noted kit), I received a bundle of goodies, including, but not limited to, journal cards, 4×6 background cards, stamps, wood and wire embellishments, sequins and craft tape. I loved the family of colours so much; they were so fun that I chose an awesome beach picture of my beloved son and sister in Kelowna and accompanied it with a 12×12 Boysenberry Dot by Bo Bunny! Magic combo with the raspberry and turquoise colours in the kit!

After setting out to find a cool sketch to use my kit with, I found Scrapbook Challenges and choose Sketch #372 which I thought would be a great way to use some of the so fun journal cards!

I noticed that the forum at the above website is no longer actively managed (but challenges are current). No worries though, the great thing about sketches and searching for layout ideas is you can scraplift and make them your own. I personalized this layout, not only by opting to use a fun 5×7, (instead of three smaller photos) but also using squares (they worked better with the journal cards) instead of the circles.

Technique stop: When you have images on journal cards or paper or even stickers, don’t be afraid to crop them down, drawing in the focus, like I have done with and “&” card on the upper most left hand side. Treat it no different then cropping a pic to bring the important image forward and get rid of the not so important background!

My next favourite feature of this layout is the title bar, so fun, and what a great way to use this twill tape, from Stampin’ Up!. Using the best ink colour ever, Melon Mambo (also by SU), and the splatter stamp from the kit, I was able to take a plain feature and make it like it was always a part of the kit!

And another personalization, instead of placing my title on the twill,  I loved the the YOU+ME journal card so much as a the title, I just carried the splatter across the length of the tape to complete the look.

Here I used the same stamp ink and edged the sides of the squares, just to give that little bit of well … EDGE. To me it’s just a nice finished and polished look!

Once I had it all laid out, I dressed up the squares with some of the really cute embellishments but thought the purple space just needed something.

Adding in a few white embossed splatters and some of the sequins just seemed to complete the look!

Technique Stop: Don’t hold back on playing with things, like distressing the edges of the pennants and inking them, plus using foam dots to pop them up really adds a lot of ZING without a lot of effort! Or distress one spot on the layout, what a great little feature when using white based cardstock! All these little things make such a great difference!

I started doing little trials, like the above or bending a corner over on an oversized back ground mat or adding a stamp in an odd place on my background, all simple things I’vev learned by watching others, that end up being some of my favourite little features and help me get the result I’m hoping for! I can have the greatest paper in the world, but a few little sequins in the top right corner can take a layout from me liking it to LOVING IT!