Soak up the Sun

Today I am up on the Paper Issues blog with a Working with Water Colors post. 

I used the Sun and Fun free cut file and turned it into a stitching cut file. 

The water colors are the focal point of the sun center and the background, 

as well as a way to add a vintage look to the title word strips.

Here are a few close ups of the layout: If you have never turned cut lines into stitching marks for your needle, check out my cut file stitching tutorial post here to show you more!

The foam adhesive keeps the layers separated and casts slight shadows to create depth above the water color background.  Water colors are also a focal point of the center of the sun cut file. I love how my children's beach sunset photo worked so well with this sunny cut file and water color splash background.

Adding watercolors is easy by using the packaging technique. Here's how it looked under the cut file and photo. It is important to layer the colors and dry the area in between the layers. I use a hair dryer to dry the paper quickly and this minimizes paper warping.

Here's another background showing the packaging watercolor process.  I cut a scrap of plastic packaging and add water color to it. It naturally beads up/pools on the plastic.  Press it onto the paper where you'd like the color layered.

When it is sufficient, I stop and dry the area with a heat device such as a heat gun or hair dryer.

On this example, next I moved onto a golden yellow stripe. You can see slight variations of yellow and gold I layered in varying places before drying it.

I added the light blue-green color after setting the yellow stripe. You can see the small scrap of plastic used for this.

Here's the final tutorial picture of this now dried watercolor packaging technique! Pretty cool look to build a layout design on!

I am excited to see your water color magic! 

 Post your projects on Paper Issues July challenge album 

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Free File Friday: Summer Adventures at Magnolia Market

Today on the Paper Issues blog, it is all about documenting your summer adventures or travels with Paper Issues cut files. 

 I used the butterfly cut file as a stencil with acrylic paint to get a patterned yellow background. It's ok to be messy! I love the imperfect look as it is just an added texture to the background and you can usually cover up spots that you are not fond of with layering or more embellishments! 

I thought the butterflies were a good choice for documenting my trip to Waco, Texas to see Magnolia Market and the Seed Supply gardens.  Since this photo was of me standing in the gardens I was able to use up lots of the SS Summer Days florals and sun icons as it was over 90 degrees!  I used Simple Stories Summer Days and added two cut file arrows from the Magical cut file set.  Arrows are always a fun idea when documenting a travel excursion or local road trip. 

Project Life style pocket cards work great as titles, layers, and to fussy cut around.  I used several Simple Stories cards in this grouping.

I love these Dear Lizzy Thickers that were part of her last collection.  The colors coordinated well with Simple Stories.

It was a fun day in Waco, TX stopping at a bucket list location for me!  I love all design shows especially watching Chip and Joanna Gaines.  It's a definite 'worth the trip' location! The people were so helpful and kind.  It made our visit so very pleasant.  More of the close up of cut file mixed media background.

Thanks for stopping by for Free File Friday!  I sure hope you will join us and try out your cutting machine with one of the fun designs from PI! Tag us on social media if you use a cut file.  I can't wait to see what you make!

Don't forget to load up on free file downloads and buy all the new things in stock now!  

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Summer Fair Fun

Happy Father's Day to all of the amazing guys out there! Today we are celebrating and scraplifting an amazing design by Anna.  Here's my take using new Simple Stories Summer Days. Go check out Paper Issues blog post for everyone else's cool design variations on this scraplift.

A few more to get a closer look:

I was messing around with various stitches as Anna has stitching on her layout.  I was using the We R Stitch Happy machine and was not watching the tension settings--so I stitched a few times on some spots to make it look purposeful and messy!  Sometimes you just have to embrace the mess. I super love my new We R pink sewing machine! 

The photo's shadow angle from standing under the midway fair games tent gave the perfect design nod to an angled layout. It was fun to mix a bunch of Summer Days prints and papers together to go with the bright and playful photo of Ryan winning at Whac-a-mole!  I sprinkled ephemera pieces and stickers from Summer Days around to mimic Anna's Pinkfresh design elements.

Thanks for taking a peek!  

I have been missing playing with paper and

 was so happy I could play along with this week's scraplift!

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