Embroidery

Hey Bestie

~ dddesignz ~ 1 Comment

This layout is very special to me. I designed it as a birthday gift for one of my life-long friends, Gail, who was celebrating a milestone birthday. We’ve been through decades together, and she’s been there for me through thick and thin. While there may be a few years difference in ages, we’ve had fun together as if we were classmates growing up together. It turned out that we both married the man of our dreams the same year. Coincidently, our husbands share the same first name. The picture in this layout comes from our mutually celebrated 25th wedding anniversary trip to Italy. A dream come true for all four of us!

I used the Hey Bestie cut file from Cut to You as the centrepiece for this design. The cut file was cut from white cardstock and then pierced with a paper piercer to allow a stitched border.

The letters were stitched with pale peach embroidery floss and the heart with pale blue. Cocoa Vanilla Studio’s, These Days, coordinating patterned paper, was used to backfill the letters in the title.

I created a shaker pocket for the heart and added some sequin mix from Cocoa Vanilla’s Daydream collection. These sequins coordinated with this collection beautifully. At this stage, the title was set aside. The background paper for this design came from a Vicki Boutin collection of Ready-to-Use Mixed Media Paper pads. The gold, pink, and peach background was a stunning backdrop for this completed title. In preparation for securing the title to the page, it was backed with Foam Sticky Strips from Taylored Expressions. The photo was placed on a coordinating patterned paper used in backing the title. Once I was happy with the positioning of each, they were both secured to the page.

The page was completed by adding various coordinating embellishments from the These Days collection. The flower cluster, seen at the top left of the photo, was created using various elements from the Floral Ephemera pack. The yellow butterfly was used from the Die Cut Ephemera pack and the small colour-coordinated hearts came from the Puffy Stickers collection. The final embellishments added were the gold heart and the YOU ARE SO LOVED phrase to the bottom right of the title.

When the layout was complete, it was placed in a white shadow box before it was gifted to Gail. She loved her gift and the beautiful reminder of our special friendship. I hope you have at least one friend this special. Here’s to girlfriends everywhere!

Until next time, stay safe, stay well, and Happy Scrapping!

Go Play Outside

~ dddesignz ~ Leave a comment

I can’t wait to see grass again! We’re at a stage where winter truly begins to drag for me. So working on this layout was an easy way to feel surrounded with warmer vibes. I’m in love with this fun photo of Ben snapped last Fall. It just makes me smile every time I look at it!

I used two collections by Shimelle to create this layout. The base paper belongs to the Never Grow Up collection, and the green, blue and yellow grass paper, Forward Thinking, belongs to her Field Trip collection.

The first step in creating this layout was to create the layers of grass. I used spare pieces of paper to make templates for these two layers first. Creating a template will ensure you are happy with the end result before you cut your patterned paper. Once the hills were created, I used fringing scissors to cut the top edges of the paper to mimic blades of grass. When the fringed edges were complete, I used a paper piercer to create the stitching lines for the green chainlink border. This border was stitched using six strands of DMC 907 embroidery floss. Once the stitching was complete, the two sections were added to the layout. TIP: I like to use my 12″ x 12″ MISTI to help align page elements such as these. Simply remove the foam insert and place your page in the very bottom corner of the Misti to get a perfect alignment of your edges. When these layers were complete, the photo was tucked into them to provide an extension of the grass border.

I wanted to add further stitching to this layout and to enhance an overall whimsical feel. To achieve this, I stitched the border and sun rays of the sun found on the base patterned paper with DMC 726 embroidery floss. To help balance the layout, I cut five separate cloud patterns from embossed white cardstock using Design ID #11654 found in the Silhouette Design Store. Using white DMC floss, I stitched around the borders of each cloud before adhering them to the layout using fun foam.

The layout was completed by adding the two butterflies and the frog from the Never Grow Up ephemera package, and the Go Play Outside title from the coordinating Let’s Play Foam and Cardstock Phrase Stickers by Thickers. The butterfly on the far right has a few small pop dots underneath to give the illusion of flight. The frog was secured with fun foam for dimension, and two googly eyes were attached to add to the whimsical element.

I hope I’ve inspired you to create a whimsical layout of your own! Thanks for stopping by today. Until next time, stay safe, stay well and Happy Scrapping!