Celebrate 14

Hello!  It's all about celebrating today!  I absolutely adore this month's swag bag kit from Paper Issues and couldn't wait to create a fun birthday page with it.  

April is my birthday month, so it's all about throwing the confetti around to whoop it up! 

 Evan my 14 year old may not love the colorful page design, 

but I went with the inspiration from the candles on his birthday pie!

Here's my rainbow confetti birthday celebration:

Here's a look closer at the colorful details:

I printed out a large number 14 from my computer to layer the paper strips over.  I then flipped it over to cut using the dark outline of the numbers as my cutting guide.

 Finished with the paper strips.  These are all from the 3x4 papers included in the April kit. 

 Plus, there are still several I didn't use in this design. 

Gotta love a swag bag and the ability to use it for several projects!

Layout with the "confetti" splatter- Nuvo mists from the Paper Issues store, Heidi Swapp Shine from past swag bags, and Shimmerz mists.I loved the ephemera piece that said "happy" to tuck in above the yellow birthday paper.

I loved the puffy glitter ephemera from Shimelle's Glitter Girl collection.  It adds the perfect dimension in the vertical stack of paper layers.

The Pebbles Happy Hooray chipboard banner stickers worked

 so well to create a banner across the entire middle of the design.

So that's my pop of colorful to start off your day.  I hope you are inspired to grab an April Swag Bag kit from the Paper Issues store and create your own "Party on a Page".

Save 20% off of all of your order at Paper Issues with code: Stacie

Fab You lous Today

Today it's all about the titles at Paper Issues.  Amanda set the challenge to use a banner in your title this month.
I love any reason to have to think of a title. I find that sometimes I am title-less lately and actually using a title as the design focus of a layout is quite fun! I think Fab-You-lous Today is fitting for this fun birthday layout.

I have hoarded this amazing woodgrain with grays and teals from the summer release by Pink Paislee Summer Lights. It was the perfect time to paint a Dear Lizzy chipboard word to match and pull in the Pebbles Happy Hooray text paper. It's pretty much tone on tone, but I love it with the black and white photos!

The Pink Paislee Summer Lights paper was also used in backing the banner.  It obviously was an easy choice as it complemented the background paper. The today title chipboard was painted using a gelato and watercolor mix to match the papers.

My husband's face by the third picture of Ryan attacking the candles--priceless. Oh, Ryan. Grab the free Paper Issues cut files.  This is a mix of fab you lous florals and the banner is from Merry Wishes.

We hope you'll play along! You have until February 4th to join the challenges at Paper Issues.

Swag Bag September: Today was the Best Day Ever

Swag Bag kit in the house! Go check out the newest kit in the Paper Issues store 

and then check out the PI blog for inspiration on how to use the swag bag kits. 

 I used the newest swag bag for September and it was 

perfection for this colorful shave ice pic from Hawaii last month. 

I was inspired to make this background based on the Seek Rainbows patterned paper

 from Shimelle's Glitter Girl collection.

 I think you could totally cut the rainbow patterned paper into a circle for a similar look!

Here's how I started this layout-- gesso and a circle of rainbow watercolors using the packaging technique.  I just kept on layering shades of the colors until I had similar matches to the papers in the September swag bag kit. I added splatters of watercolors after I had stitched all of my circles and ephemera down.

The Shimelle Glitter Girl made a splash in this fun swag bag kit--see the fun lenticular camera ephemera--it says snap when you tilt the page! I love the speech bubble hello and all of the little circle faces paper with glasses.  I had so much fun punching circles from lots of the paper cards this month.

I love the title card also from Shimelle's Glitter Girl ephemera pack.  See the cute gummy bear paper circles--those are from the Happy Hooray collection by Pebbles. The glittery shooting star embellishment with little ribbons--totally adorable and you can get it from the Dear Lizzy Stargazer collection.

Happy Hooray puffy stickers are in the kit, see the balloon animal? 

Also some ephemera is included from Pebbles Happy Hooray.  

It all works so well together. After I stitched everything down, I added enamel dots for dimension and little circles to scatter in the ring.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! 

 I hope you are inspired to try a swag bag kit for the first time or use a kit you've been hoarding!  

Grab your circle punches or your die cut machine and get pops of color from the rainbow of papers and then start layering.

Save 20% today on your swag bag and all of the items I tagged above at the Paper Issues store.

Use code: Stacie  this will save you 20% everytime you shop!

Go check out the swag bag kit and quick!  They sell out so fast each month.

I love that Cassie includes bits from all of the newest lines and matches them with papers that make it so easy to use in several projects. I still have so much left from this month's kit!