Friday, October 30, 2015

Scrapping A Large Photo

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

I love the impact scrapping a large photo can have on a layout. It can be a bit tricky, though. There's a tough balance between not making the layout too plain and not overwhelming the layout with a large photo and too many embellishments. I tried to strike a balance in today's layout.


I decided I wanted a large photo (8 x 10) of Kylemore Abbey because I wanted to be able to see the details of the gorgeous building, but I didn't want to crop out the setting it's in. I wanted to leave the lake and the hills in the picture so you could get a feel for the beautiful landscape of the area. A large photo helps keep the details from being lost.


I've found that with large photo layouts, clusters of embellishments work really well. For this grouping I used a journaling card from We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer, some burlap embellishments from Simple Stories DIY collection, and a journaling card from Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack.


The patterned papers for my layout are from Simple Stories The Story of Us. I liked how the papers kind of mimicked the elegant but rustic feel of the photo. A little bit of shine surrounded by nature.

What are your go to tricks for scrapping large photos?

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Travel Map

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Today I have a really fun project that can be a fun way to remember a road trip or track places you've traveled. I created this travel map project to mark our road trip through Ireland.


I started with this plain, laminated map of Ireland. I wanted a large piece for our bedroom wall, so I went with a pretty large map (30" x 36"), but the beauty of this project is that you can pick the size that fits your space. You can use any map, but the key is to use a laminated one. I wanted to mark the cities we stopped in and the cities where we spent a night, so I chose 2 different colors of vinyl.


When I had my colors of vinyl picked out, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut a bunch of colored vinyl circles. I placed the aqua circles on the cities where we stayed overnight and the green circles on the cities we stopped in.


 I needed a way to hang them map. You can buy all sorts of map rails, but since I have a husband who's pretty handy, I recruited him to make me some. They're super simple to make. He cut 2 pieces for both the top and the bottom of the map. He stained them to match the wood in our bedroom. You just sandwich the map in between the rails, and keep them tightened with a couple of screws.


 The best part about this project (besides being really simple) is that it's an inexpensive way to mark your travels and keep your memories close at hand! What trip would you want to mark out on a map? 

Friday, October 23, 2015

Grocery Shopping

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

I have a confession to make: When my husband and I travel, we love to go grocery shopping. Seriously, the farther away you are from home, the better the grocery stores get. We love browsing all the food we don't have at home. When we were in Ireland, we found a grocery store in every town we spent the night in. Usually we picked up our breakfast for the morning, a few snacks for the hotel room, and some candy to bring back for the kids.  


I ordered Pink Paislee's Atlas collection specifically to use for scrapping Ireland. It's a fantastic travel line. The colors are rich and bright. Pops of white and gray are accented with teal, yellows, and greens. I really love the Atlas Instagram Cards. They're a mix of photo frames (that I like to use for journaling) and acetate embellishment cards.


You can see there are bits of memorabilia mixed into this layout. There's a receipt from one of our store trips in Belfast, and the only candy wrapper I remembered to save. My kids were totally weirded out by the fact that European Smarties are candy coated chocolate...nothing like the smarties here. If you want to try out the Nestle Smarties, you can find them here. Our favorite candies were more of a fruit snack called Randoms. The best part was that, about a month after we got back from vacation, they started selling Randoms by us in the US. Do yourself a favor and try them out some time, they're delicious!


 Do you like to visit different grocery stores? I'd love to hear about your favorite find (or strangest find!).
Thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Bits and Pieces

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Sometimes I build a layout from bits and pieces of paper that are leftover and sitting on my desk. It's fun, because sometimes it makes me combine papers and patterns that I wouldn't normally put together. Today's layout is one of those layouts.


 This layout came together from a mix of Crate Paper Maggie Holmes, Crate Paper Notes & Things, Simple Stories The Story of Us, and Simple Stories Gold Snap Pack. I love how kraft, gray, and gold all make appearances in this layout. I'm not sure I've ever used these 3 colors together, but I know I will again in the future.


Pops of deep pink washi tape help add a bit of color to the layout and keep it from appearing too washed out, and clusters of enamel dots help tie everything together.  


Have you ever tried creating a layout from leftovers sitting on your desk?
Thanks for stopping by !

Friday, October 16, 2015

Zoo Layouts

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

Every summer we try to get in a trip to the Omaha Zoo. It's about 3 hours from where we live, so it's not too far, and it's a really amazing zoo. Today I have three zoo layouts from that trip to share.


A trip to the zoo was, of course, the perfect reason to use the newest zoo collection at A Walk Down Memory Lane, Safari by Bo Bunny. Safari has a lot of distressing built right into the paper, so I tried to work with the pre-printed distressing and texture as much as possible.


 There are lots of deep earthy tones in this collection, so I tried to keep things light by playing off of the cream colors in the paper, and by matting my photos with light colors.


Just a few fun photo scrapped and ready for the album!
Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Christmas Banner

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
I know it might be a little early for a Christmas post, but did you know there are only 73 days until Christmas? And, honestly, I got the idea in my head for this Christmas banner, so why not just make it? Now I'm one step closer to being ready for Christmas!


 The idea for this banner came simply from falling in love with Photo Play Papers beautiful Christmas line, Dear Santa. I knew when I saw it that I just had to make some kind of Christmas decoration with it. When I saw the lovely 6 x 6 paper pad, I decided to combine it with the card stock stickers and make a Christmas banner.


My go to tool for banners is the We R Memory Keepers Banner Punch Board. The punch board cuts pennant, crest, and flag shaped banners. I especially love how easy it is to cut layered banners. I think it really helps a banner stand out when there are layers. Plus, I always have a hard time narrowing down which papers to use, and when I add layers I get to use twice as many!


I decorated the banner with stickers from the Dear Santa card stock sticker sheet. There aren't any alphabet stickers on the sheet I used, but there was the word "Believe". I cut it apart carefully and used it as the letters for the banner.


 I added a bit of baker's twine to hang the banner and for decoration.


 Are you working on any Christmas decorations yet, or do you wait until the season is a bit closer?

Thanks for stopping by!

Friday, October 9, 2015

Scrapping a Large Photo

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.
I'm still working on our trip through Ireland, and I've finally made it to the night we spent in a castle. To say I was excited to spend a night in a castle would be an understatement. This will be the first picture of Belleek Castle in my album so I wanted it to be a big one. Scrapping a large photo can be fun, but it can be a bit difficult to find balance on the layout. I'll talk a bit about that today, as well as show you how I used the We R Memory Keepers Heatwave Pen to free hand my title on velum.


All of the patterned paper on this layout is from Ken Oliver's Studio collection. I loved the rich colors and vintage feel for my castle layout.  I talk a lot about keeping my photos the focal point on my layouts, when scrapping a large photo, that usually isn't a problem, but finding places to put some embellishments, journaling, and a title can be a bit more tricky. I've found that clusters of larger embellishments work really well with large photos.


The bold gold Lovely word sticker from We R Memory Keepers Wildflower collection is a great grounding point for my cluster of embellishments, and feels to scale with the large photo. I used the new WRMK DIY Party Tag punch to create a journaling tag out of vellum. I love the vintage-y look the vellum gives to this layout. Just make sure to use a Slick Writer on the vellum so your writing won't wipe off.


To pull the vellum up into a different area of the layout, I decided to use my Heatwave foil pen on vellum to create a title. I know it's a bit hard to see in the photo, but it turned out really lovely, and in person it's not hard to see and read the title...it just doesn't like to photograph well!


There are all sorts of great stencils that work with the HeatWave, including alphabet stencils, but for this title I decided to free-hand it. So all I used was the HeatWave pen, vellum, and gold HeatWave foil.


I like to tape my foil to my paper (or vellum) with a little bit of washi tape. This helps everything stay in place while you're writing. I don't have nice handwriting, but even my handwriting looks nice in gold foil!


When I was done, I just trimmed the vellum down and added it to the layout.


Do you like scrapping large photos? I'd love to hear your best tips for large photo layouts!

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Pumpkin Layout

This is a personal blog. All editorial content and projects are intellectual property of Taylor Stamped. I do receive financial compensation and material product from American Crafts and  A Walk Down Memory Lane to develop my craft posts, but all ideas and opinions are my own. Some links are affiliate links.

My kids love picking out their pumpkins, and I love seeing what they carve from them. Their personalities always seem to shine through in their design. Today I've got a pumpkin layout using  Photo Play Paper Autumn Day documenting their jack-o-lanterns from last year. 


Sometimes when I'm working with patterned papers that are a bit busy (like that awesome pumpkin paper), I like to design on an angle, or find a way to split up the paper. You still get to use a lot of the fun patterned paper, but the area where a busy paper comes together with a not so busy paper creates a natural focal point that draws your eye. Place a photo(s) in that same area, and your photo still takes center stage.


 I've mentioned that I love using metallics on fall layouts, especially layouts using Photo Play's Autumn Day, and this layout is no exception. Here I used a Heidi Swapp Minc tag and covered it with some some mint Minc foil.


 Such a fun time of year to scrap. I hope you're enjoying fall so far and taking lots fun autumn photos.
Thanks for stopping by!