Scrapbook Update-Layout 24

With all the rain outside it made for a perfect scrapbooking time inside. Just as I was settling in to work on my next layout (a trip to Washington DC) the mail came. Now a month ago I broke the cardinal rule of trying to use up ones stash, I joined a scrapbooking club! I know, what was I thinking? Well this club has some neat stuff and it is a 3 month at a time club so I figured it was low commitment. Take a look at the Jenni Bowlin Studios kit I got in the mail! I decided to challenge myself and use the kit the same day for my layout. Here is how it turned out:

When brainstorming the color scheme for a trip to our nations capital I was of course thinking about red, white and blue but the photos from the trip were all pretty gray in color (thanks to all that marble used the build monuments!) so I figured any colors would work. Why not orange and blue. Plus the stars theme is TOTALLY American right?! I was pleased to have used so many embellishments on this layout: ribbon, photo corners (I had to use photo corners!), chipboard letters and stars, glitter!, and a star stud. The layout is from the BH sketch book and all the supplies except the photo corners came from the kit. I used a couple new techniques on this layout as well so here is my commentary.

Altered chipboard-Chipboard is all the rage in scrapbooking and I did use it once before but this was my first time using naked chipboard and covering it myself. I couldn't help but wonder as I was cutting out the letters from patterned paper (to glue to the chipboard) why I wasn't just going to glue them directly to the page. I mean dimension is nice but is it that important? After they were glued and dried I sanded the edges to clean them up a bit. Overall this process did involve liquid glue which is messier than I like but it wasn't too difficult or time consuming.

Glittered chipboard-This project made me realize I am a lazy scrapbooker. I think this is why I never got into painting on my layouts (a popular trend right now and paint was included in my kit so I will probably try it out eventually). I am to lazy to deal with the mess it leaves, and the time waiting for things to dry. The glittered "D" did not go well at all. I think I used the wrong kind of glue the first time and when I tried to go back and fix bare spots the letter turned out all lumpy and gross. So I scrapped off the glitter to try again but first I practiced with the star. This time I used a glue stick and it worked better so I tried the glue stick on the D as well. It worked ok. I ended up sealing the glittered items with diamond glaze because I didn't trust my glue to hold in the long run. This I may never do again. Really messy and it probably took an hour to make the 2 glittered elements. That is way more time than I am usually willing to spend on embellishments.

Here are some close-ups of the layout.

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I also got some new paper trays but am having a hard time incorporating them into my scrapbook area. I really could use some more space BUT that isn't going to happen so this tells me it is time to purge purge purge my area. I do love organizing! But it is nice to have my 12x12 cardstock up off the floor. I was thinking this morning that I could put my 8.5x11 cardstock on the trays with the larger pieces. That would at least free up a quarter of a shelf.