#23 & #24

So you know how I had a bunch of layouts posted that were all Christmas themed?  It was because I never had Christmas paper on hand.  Well, I'm finding the same to be true of 4th of July- I had years of 4th of July celebration photos that weren't scrapbooked because I didn't ever have the right paper (I know that some of you reading this are in disbelief that *I* would not have a certain type of paper on hand!)  Well, I happened to see a 50% off sale for 4th of July themes paper and embellishments at one of the online stores I frequent (one of the MANY stores I check on at least a weekly basis), and FREE shipping- now who could resist that?  Certainly not me!  So I grabbed some Authentique, Pebbles and Echo Park paper, put it in my virtual cart and waited for my goodies to arrive.  After having them sitting on my (messy) desk for over a month, I finally got the chance to play last night- Yay!  And I took photos today- bigger yay!- to share with you!

#23
This was based on a Midweek Mojo Sketch at Scrapbooksteals.com- Pearl 5b

Supplies: patterned paper, stickers (Echo Park); journaling cards (Pebbles, Inc.); felt ribbon (Creative Imaginations); border punches (Martha Stewart Crafts); ink (Ranger); pen (Zig)

Kiwi Lane templates: Large Brackets 2 (and after I made them, I realized that I should have used the tag templates for my tags- it would have saved me some time trying to do a perfect cut freehand)

#24
This layout was based on the August monthly sketch at Authentique-

Supplies: patterned paper, stickers, (Authentique); card stock (Core'dinations, craft supply); jewels and stars (Jo-Ann); thread (craft supply); pen (Zig)

 Kiwi Lane templates: Cascade Trails 3 A&B, Adventure 1 & 2, Accents 3T

I LOVE how this layout turned out- and really, photos don't do it justice!  I distressed the edges of the stars and the wavy borders and I used my sewing machine to sew around the page and along the borders.  I also stitched the red star.  I added a few stickers from the collection, some jewel stars and did my journaling on the background paper.  What do you think?  I will admit, it kept veering off course along the way and didn't end up exactly like the original sketch, but I still like it!   Here's a more detailed shot of the stitching:

I guess that's all for today.  I have a pile of 4th of July photos and paper on my desk right now that I hope to be able to work with today... if only laundry did itself {sigh}

Thanks for stopping by and happy scrapping!