This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of ashleyhortondesigns.com. I do receive compensation and material product from Crate Paper to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. The 4th of July is right around the corner, and I have some Red, White and Blue inspiration to share with you today! Every year, I snap a photo of either the kids or the whole family wearing red, white and blue. Last year, we managed to get, what I consider, the perfect family photo. Everyone was looking in the general direction of the camera, wearing close to a smile, and not moving around blurring the photo. Success! We even included our sixth, furry member of the family, Baxter and we had him looking at the camera with his best doggy smile.
When it comes to scrapbooking holiday themed photos, I don’t always go with the typical holiday color scheme. For this layout, I was able to create a red, white and blue look using the Bloom and Shine collections by Maggie Holmes. I brought in a wood grain patterned paper for the background. I liked the contrast of the wood look with the red, white and blue. I also brought in a bit of teal, since some of our clothing was more of a teal blue, rather than dark blue.A large star die cut was perfect for adding interest to the background of my layout and continuing the Fourth of July theme. I cut it on my Silhouette Cameo from white cardstock, along with a few blue and red patterned paper stars. I layered the patterned paper stars over the die cut, and I stitched along the outside edge in order to add texture to the layout.I didn’t want to completely cover the star die cut, so I mixed in a few embellishments to add dimension and texture. The fringe heart, chipboard pieces and wood veneer were perfect for the layout. And, I loved that larger size of the fringe heart and wood veneer helped fill up the layout without over-crowding the page. And, you can’t have a Fourth of July layout without a little bit of sparkle! I used gold Thickers, stickers and the gold fringe on the heart for a pop of sparkle. The Crate Paper collections all mix so well together, so I loved that I could use products from Bloom and Shine to create the perfect holiday layout for my favorite Fourth of July photo!Make sure you snap some photos this Fourth of July, and I hope you've found some inspiration for documenting them on your next layout!
This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of ashleyhortondesigns.com. I do receive compensation and material product from Crate Paper to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Mother's Day is almost here, and the Crate Paper Design Team is sharing Mother's Day projects this week on the Blog. I know that all of us appreciate our mothers and celebrate Mother’s Day one way or another. I must admit though, that almost every year, I forget to take a photo with the kids on Mother’s Day. I know…such a horrible confession from a scrapbooker! But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have plenty of photos of me with the kids, or as a family. That led me to use a photo of all of us together, which was miraculously taken last year on Mother’s Day on a trip to Niagara Falls.Even though there is one day set aside each year as Mother’s Day, I think it’s definitely okay to use a photo from any time throughout the year on a mother themed layout. If you are a mom, then you are a mom all year long…and you have a mom of your own, who is also a mom all year long. So don’t feel like you can’t create a Mother’s Day layout, if you don’t have a photo taken specifically on Mother’s Day.When I thought about what I wanted to do for the design of this layout, I kept thinking hearts. I wanted to do something interesting in the background, so I decided to browse Pinterest for ideas. I came across a super cute quilt design, which was perfect for including several patterned papers from the Bloom collection. I followed the quilt design and chose neutral patterns from the Bloom 6x6 paper pad that I cut around 1.75x1.75 inches. Then I chose various shades of pink from the 6x6 paper pad for the heart shape.For the next step, I placed all of the squares onto a White cardstock background, following the pattern of the quilt design. Once I had all of the squares in place, I machine stitched around the heart shape with Black thread. This helped add to the quilt feel of the layout and made the heart shape stand out a bit more.I layered my photo, title and a few embellishments from the Bloom collection over the heart design. I love the Gold Happy Thickers, so I used those for the title of the layout. Next I added a few wood veneers that I painted with acrylic paint and one of the Fringe Hearts to add more texture to the layout.I hope I’ve inspired you today to create your own mother themed layout, whether you’re using a photo of you with your kids or a photo of you and your mom. And remember, you don’t have to use a photo specifically taken on Mother’s Day. Look through some of your photos taken over the years, and I’m sure you will find the perfect photo or photos for your layout!
This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of ashleyhortondesigns.com. I do receive compensation and material product from Crate Paper to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. I love to mix embellishments and patterned paper, but it's also fun to mix collections too! I thought it would be fun to create a layout using products from all of my new Crate Paper collections, so I did! I used a little something from Bloom, Little You Girl, Little You Boy and Hello Love on the layout I'm sharing today.I wanted an eye catching design in the background, so I used several patterned papers from the Bloom collection, to create pleated flowers. These are really easy and they add a little bit of whimsy to your projects. I cut my strips for the flowers in sizes ranging from .75x12 up to 2.5x12 inches. The height of your pleated flowers on the page, depend on how you score and fold them. If you want them to be a bit flatter, make smaller score marks along the 12 inch strip.Since a lot of my work went into the pleated flowers, I kept the rest of the layout to a minimal design. This way I didn't cover the flowers or overpower them with a lot of extra embellishing. The patterned papers I used came from the Bloom collection and my embellishments came from Little You and Hello Love.I used the cute buttons from the Little You Girl collection and the Little You Boy collection, to add to the center of each of the flowers. And I used more embellishments from both collections to layer over and around my photo. The cute alpha stickers from the Little You Girl collection were perfect for the title of my layout. I wanted to bring in another texture, so I chose the XOXO wood veneer piece from Hello Love, to add under my photo.This was such a fun layout to put together, and I think I might just have to reuse this design some other time! It's easy to change the look, using different patterned paper and embellishments!
This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of ashleyhortondesigns.com. I do receive compensation and material product from Crate Paper to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own.This week the Crate Paper Design Team has been sharing lovely layouts! It is definitely easy to create a lovely layout, using the Bloom collection. I also added in a few things from the Hello Love collection and the Little You collection.Since the theme for this page was lovely layout, I wanted to add in the color Pink with hearts and flowers. I started the layout by cutting a large heart from the Bloom polka dot paper. Then I cut smaller hearts from the fringe patterned paper and added them inside the large heart shape.I decided to place the photo at the center of the layout, and then cluster my embellishments and title around the photo. I used the Petals Thickers and the Happy Thickers to create a long title on the layout. And I also incorporated the glittery XOXO piece from the Ephemera pack.I always like to include texture on my layouts, so I added machine and hand stitching to this page. I love the mix of the two widths of thread. And the wood veneers from the Hello Love collection also add in another great texture!If a lovely layout is in your future, make sure you pick up the Bloom collection! You can't go wrong with it!
