Playing Around With Project Life Vintage Travel Kit

I’d been hearing tons about “Project Life”  an innovative line of scrapbook products by Becky Higgins. I was thrilled when I had the chance to play with one of the newest kits  now available at Michaels: Vintage Travel.

This collection features deep blues, reds, browns and dark neutrals, and as the name suggests, lots of travel themed icons. This post is part of a paid campaign with American Crafts, but all opinions are my own.

I have been an on and off scrapbooker, and Project Life is a great way to scrapbook if you are just starting out or if you are a veteran.

Included in each kit are enough themed cards to complete an entire album. Included are cards with suggested layouts. You don’t need scissors, glue, or fancy tools. The albums support the card sizes from the kits and you can lay things out how you choose.

Everything coordinates with everything else and all of the cards are double sided. But kind of like how life is what happens when you're busy making other plans, I'm a person who doesn’t like to use stuff for its intended purpose so I decided not to make traditional scrapbook layouts with this cool Vintage Travel kit, but a smaller purse sized album that could then become part of a big 12x12 album or simply stand alone.

For this album, I selected several of the pre-scored cards from the kit:

Folded these along the score lines and then made an accordion style album by adhering the pages together with double sided tape:

Since everything coordinates, I didn’t really plan out a pattern. You could easily choose from one color family or use all of one pattern or theme or whatever you want.

I can’t have paper in my possession without tearing it. Just cannot be done! So I covered two pieces of chipboard with more of the cards from the kit, again, not particularly careful just eyeballed some coordinating colors.

I cut/tore a couple more cards and used PVA glue to adhere them to my album cover, going over the whole thing with some distress inks. Finished with an oversized eyelet on the front and back covers tied off with ribbon.

Here’s the inside where I can jot down notes or paste in ticket stubs, receipts, little things I want to keep or remember. I didn’t make it so fat that I can’t tuck the whole thing inside a bigger scrapbook if I want to. Haven’t decided yet!

This is the back cover. You can go check out the the Vintage Travel kit along with the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic core kits at Michaels, which carries one of the largest selections of Project Life. The Dear Lizzy collection features light blues, pinks, yellows and neutrals with birds, trees, houses, and keys.

As you can see from the pictures of the kit, there are a LOT of cards included in this kit so be on the lookout for some future projects, and maybe even an actual scrapbook !

Glittery Gold Graduation and Retirement Cards with American Crafts

Disclosure: I received products from American Crafts but was not financially compensated for this post. Projects and opinions are mine.

I recently received some glittery gold goodies from the wonderful folks at American Crafts. I love metallics and glitter and the timing was perfect since I knew I had a retirement and a graduation card to make. Both of these occasions just scream gold to me. Yes, I am the paper whisperer.

Gold papers, metallic glitter, gold embossing powder, gold baker’s twine!

For the retirement card, I made a 5x7 card from cream card stock and then cut a piece of the American Crafts  gold and white damask paper to size. I also die cut  a layered flower from the same paper and curled the petal edges.

Since the paper is so detailed with the damask pattern and the glitter, I kept this card simple and just used this one paper for the card.

Layered scraps leftover from my card with AC gold glitter tape and spelled out the word “enjoy” using the gold glitter Thickers alphabet stickers I received. Layered these as shown.

Finished with a gold rhinestone in the middle.

For the graduation card, I used a foiled piece from the American Crafts Atlantic collection along with plain black cardstock, more glitter tape, an embossed image with the American Crafts ZING embossing powder, and the glitter Thickers stickers. I wrapped some of the gold baker’s twine around the card and even made a little graduation tassel with it.

Sometimes working with metallics and glitter you can end up covered in it. I really like the glitter ribbon ( did I mention it’s self adhesive?) because it doesn’t come off on you. Same for the Thickers stickers. The papers are incredible both in the design and the weight. I like making layered, heavy cards ( the post office just loves me) and these work great w/ die cut machines and can stand up to altering etc.

You can see more from the American Crafts line here as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Dear Lizzy Fifth and Frolic Cards...And They Can Be Yours

I recently had the chance to play with a new line of papers  available as of March 17th at JoAnns: Dear Lizzy Fifth and Frolic by American Crafts. This is a new line from designer Elizabeth Kartchner. Playing with these papers just put me in a happy mood and how could they not?

The papers are all double sided in shades of light blue, pinks, yellows, naturals, greens and they all work with each other. I decided to make some cards and went with a really random process in doing so. I chose a couple of the papers and cut several different shapes using my Expression. The papers are great for manual and electric die cutting machines.

I had some coordinating blank cards in my stash and just kind of started putting pieces together.

The collection also includes great embellishments like these coordinating brads that I used in the cards:

You can see the entire line here as well as follow the frolicking fun with American Crafts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, or

JoAnn Stores on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

And since I had so much fun making them just because, I’m giving them away “just because”. Super simple. Leave a comment and a winner ( US or Canada only) will be randomly selected.

Disclosure: I received the products used in this post from American Crafts. Opinions and giveaway of cards are my own.

To Everything There Is A Season: Damask Sympathy Card

A friend of ours recently lost his father so I made this card to express our sympathy.

I used a paper from the Paper Reverie line by Making Memories. Hard to see here but the damask design is glittered. The quote I used on the card is on a Hero Arts stamp that I have used before for sympathy cards:

This seemed appropriate because our friend’s dad struggled with age related memory loss and I wanted to remind him that while his dad is gone and may not have remembered some things lately, all the days they shared together are still with him.

The upside to being a stashaholic is that you have things on hand that may not have been intended to go together but do. Like this paper and these oversized brads by American Crafts.

I kept the design pretty simple with layers and clean edges ( mostly …had to use one torn panel and a decorative adhesive scrapbook border)

To everything there is a season…

Sharing At: