A Call to All Scrapbookers!

Have you ever heard of My Creative Classroom?

I stumbled upon it a few months ago and it is really cool! There is a free class you can join just by signing up for the newsletter and every 2 weeks you can download new pdf tutorials for that sessions craft theme. I think it is glimmermists right now. There is also a whole slew of classes that you can sign up for (these have a fee).

So the first one I took was Cricut Expression 101. I've figured out quite a bit on my own, but I wanted to make sure I was doing this correctly and see if I was missing out on anything. There is also a 102 starting in two weeks that I plan on taking.

Well, the last assignment was to use the cricut to make a scrapbook layout. Hello?!?! I don't scrapbook. Yes, I am totally obsessed with scrapbook items and can't help buying them. I bought my cricut because I had been hearing about, watched the infomercial and fell in love. Since I'm a good student, I went ahead and tried my hand at a layout.

Apparrantly there are things called page maps and my instructor showed us this site - Page|Maps by Becky Fleck
How cool!  I used one as a very loose guide for my layout - here it is:



I need your advice!! Please tell me what I can do to make my layouts better. This was pretty fun and I'd to keep trying out new ones.

This is what I did:
I knew I wanted to use the mountain border since they recently moved to Colorado.  I picked out two colors to use for the mountains and another that worked as the background.  I cut out the mountain range in each color, and glued the negative of the brown onto the tan.  I found this sticker ribbon that looked good and then felt I needed a strip of the brown underneath for balance.  So I glued the mountains and the strip the paper and placed the ribbon over the seam.  

I printed out the two pics I wanted with a white border(the kids faces are disguised for this post only - I don't know if my aunt wants their faces out there).  Then I used the same color as the mountains to make a mat for each.  I fiddled around with placement and glued them down.  I totally love tags, so I cut the white one and also cut the little circles to go around the holes.  Stamped CO on the tag first with a light color and then with a dark one (this was a happy accident - the first color was too light)  I lifted the ribbon back off to thread the tag on and then stuck it all back down.

I wanted it to have a kind of rustic/western theme and I also wanted to stick the Plantin School Book because that is what the class is using.  I cut out a bunch of stars on red and white paper in varying sizes and layered them together.  I punched two tiny holes in each and used embroidery floss to tie it all together with a button - no glue.  Just a little glue stick on back to stick them to the page.

Finally the big tag.  I cut this one out a while ago and painted the glaze from my family sign onto it.  I used the leftover floss to make the tassel.  I cut a square of the red paper and glued it on.  Then printed the location and date from computer.  Cut that down the size and inked the edges.  I placed it on the tag and used the remaining sticker ribbon to make two parallel stripes underneath it.


If you read all that - THANK YOU!!  I know it was a lot.  If you have any tips, please please please share them.  And any suggestions for further decorating this layout are much appreciated as well.

Thank you, xoxo,