Valentine's Day Decor with Kiwi Lane Designs

Hey there Kiwi Lane Peeps!

Today I've veered from my normal paper crafting and ventured into the land of wood blocks! Ok, so it's not so unusual, but I don't usually share it here. But I loved how they turned out, and I thought you might like to see it. Here's what I made with the help of my templates from Kiwi Lane Designs:

Pretty cute, huh? All I did was paint some wooden hearts, cover with paper, add some template shapes and finish off with some epoxy dots of various colors and sizes. It's really pretty self explanatory, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Mostly.

Here's what I started with:

The paper collection I used is called "Kiss Kiss" and it was Crate Paper's Valentine line a few years ago. The hearts are cut out wood shapes that I picked up at the farmer's market over the summer. They're about 4.5" tall and 4.5" wide and just under 1.5" thick. Before I painted, I made sure I sanded them lightly and wiped off any sanding residue. You'll get a cleaner paint application if you remember to do that.

I also want to point out that I framed my project right on the wood shapes. Who says you can only use your Kiwi Lane templates to frame on your paper?! And just like when you design on your pages or cards, you can change things as you go without ruining pretty paper in the process!

I love the size and configuration of these hearts because you can mix it up when you display them:

And I covered the back with paper so it's pretty from the other side, too.

Looking at the bare paper on the back, I'm thinking I need to go back and add some more layers...

Thanks for taking a look! Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Templates used:

Tiny Sweetheart 2T,3T

Tiny Explore 3T,6T

Mini Abbie Road 3A,3B

Elements 2,7

April BLOG HOP!!! with Kiwi Lane

It's time for a blog hop!  Who's excited? Me, ME!!  Are you excited, too?  Well, you should be!  Why?  Because you're going to have crafting inspiration coming out of your ears AND there's a prize!  Here's the scoop- ONE random commenter from one of the blogs along the hop will win a $25 gift code to the Kiwi Lane Shop.  How's that for incentive?!  So make sure you start at the Kiwi Lane Blog and comment along the way (including the Kiwi Lane Blog)!  You have until Sunday April 6, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. MDT to make you comments.  The winner will be announced on the Kiwi Lane Blog on Thursday April 10th. 

Here's the line-up of blogs, just in case you take a wrong turn along the way:

1. Kiwi Lane 
2. Gail Owens (You are Here!!)
3. Catherine Povec  (Go Here Next!!)
4. Jennifer McDermott 
5. Kristy Lee 
6. Heather Conklin 
7. Misty Buck 
8. Jennifer Nicholes 
9. Barb Rapp 
10. Christina Steel 

For this month's blog hop, we were asked to create something using the Celebrate and Wacky template sets from Kiwi Lane.  Here's the two page layout I came up with:

Supplies: patterned paper (The Pier by Crate Paper); brads (Echo Park); alphabet stickers (American Crafts); wood shapes (Studio Calico); plastic flower (Queen and Co.); stamps (Autumn Leaves); pen (Staedtler); ink (Ranger)

Templates:

Photos

Wacky 1, 3

Celebrate 3, 5, 6, 8

Tiny Celebrate 3T, 4T, 5T, 6T

Tags 1

Tiny Tags 1T

Here's what it looked like when I "framed" my layout:

And a few detailed photos:

I loved the look of this paper for these photos- and I couldn't resist using a collection called "The Pier" to document our walk down the pier at Tybee Island in Georgia!  I loved the look of the weathered wood with the distressed colors that were reminiscent of wind tattered beach umbrellas and canopies.  I wanted to add some whimsy and almost a celebratory feel to my layout and I accomplished this with layering two shapes (the long triangle/pennant from the Celebrate sets and a tag from the Tag sets) in two sizes.  I also tucked the ticket shapes under the photos on one side to add to the fun feeling of the layout.  To add a hint of the sun and sea to the layout, I used a template from the Wacky set to make a "sun" shape on the left page, layered with "clouds" from the Celebrate and Tiny Celebrate sets.  I added a splash of blue in a wavy shape from the Wacky set to mimic the water on the bottom of the right page. 

Sometimes when I get everything on the page, I feel like some of the shapes are blending into each other, when I really want them to stand out from each other.  When this happens, I use a pen to highlight the shapes that I want to stand out.  This time I used a fine tipped black pen to do some quick outlines of the cloud shapes, the tickets, the pinwheel and the banner where I put the title.  I made my outlines quickly and didn't worry about perfection- an added bonus of using shabby-looking paper!

To make my journaling spot, I stamped a lined image on my left page using distress ink.  I thought it looked too neat for the feel of the layout, so I stamped it again- the same image just slightly askew from the original.  Then I used my pen to write my little story.

This layout turned out almost exactly like what I framed it to look like using my templates- and it's exactly what I had in my head!  Don't you just love Kiwi Lane Designs Templates?!  I do!

And for an added bonus for getting to the bottom of my long-winded post (Sorry, kids.  I'm wordy.  It's not gonna change anytime soon.), how about another giveaway?!  In the comment that you're going to leave on this blog post (ya know, the one you need to leave so you can be entered to win a $25 gift code to the Kiwi Lane Shop...), please tell me what template set you've had your eye on.  Or which one is your fave, if you happen to have them all.  You have until Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 11:59 p.m. MDT to leave your comment.  I will draw a winner and announce it on Monday, April 7th.  The lucky commenter will get to choose a template set of their choice from my stash!  Hooray!

That's it for now- don't forget to comment!  Happy Scrapping!