February | 2015 | Papercrafting with Kelly Janes

I’m so excited to announce that I’ve been selected to join the Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge design team. This is my first week showcasing my artwork as a design team member and I’m hoping that you’ll pop on over to join the challenge!

Here is the sketch this week:

And here is my interpretation:

As many of you know, I’m not a Valentine’s Day celebrator, so when I saw the hearts on the sketch I knew I would switch it up somehow. I liked the idea of stars and creating a birthday theme, so I went through my stash of stencils annnndddd realized I don’t have a star stencil. So I grabbed the Artbooking Cricut® Cartridge and created one using the overlay feature on a scrap piece of cardstock. I then used my craft mat and smooshed my Black Exclusive Ink™ Pad & Topiary Exclusive Ink™ Pad directly onto the craft mat. I grabbed some modeling paste and mixed the ink colors into the paste. The colors were more muted than what I had hoped; I think if I had used re-inkers instead of the ink pads I could have made a more vibrant, rich, crisp color but I was fine with how they turned out. Once I had the modeling paste and ink mixed well, I used a putty knife and spread it over the stencil on a piece of White Daisy Cardstock.

Once the modeling paste was dry {you can use a Craft Heater to speed this process up} I matted the the White Daisy Cardstock onto a layer of Black Cardstock. I cut multiple stars in Black Cardstock and Topiary Cardstock using the Art Philosophy Cricut® Cartridge. I tied a piece of Baker’s Twine onto the card and then layered the paper stars. On the top star I used Versamark™ Ink and White Embossing Powder with the Big Top Stamp Set for the sentiment. After I had all the layers down I added a few black resin stars that are available in the Scaredy Cat Assortment. I had planned on adding some white stitching around the black cardstock base, but I broke the needle on my sewing machine—BOO!! You can cry with me if you like!!

Now head on over to the AHSC Blog to link up your card using this week’s sketch!
-Kelly

If you follow my Facebook page you know that CTMH is offering a limited edition Express Collection, Yuletide Carol, on Studio J®. The Yuletide Carol collection is only available through February 28, but there is still plenty of time to get your layouts designed. I created 11 double page layouts-THAT’S (22) 12X12 SCRAPBOOK PAGES– in roughly 2 hours! LOVE THAT!!! There is no way I could have traditionally scrapbooked that amount of pages in that length of time!

If you’re unfamiliar with how Studio J® works you can click here for FAQ’s. It is really simple to use and I love the pre-designed layouts that the art department at CTMH has created. I wanted to show you a few of my favorite layouts that I created.

As I mentioned above, this Yuletide Carol collection is an Express Collection. Basically that means the layouts are predesigned. The photo wells {where you drag and drop your photos}, the text boxes, the title boxes, and the embellishments are already laid out for you. But you can make some minor adjustments to help fit your style. For example, I changed up the above layout slightly, I added the “on Christmas morning” title, added the journaling to the lower right hand corner, added stitching & brads to the top of the layout on the right, and added the buttons to the bottom corner on the left side of the layout. You can also delete the “stickers”, add extra photo wells, and other minor adjustments including matting your photos.

I really do hope you will try out Studio J®. There is absolutely no fee to give it a try and no software to download either! You really have nothing to lose!

-Kelly