May Page Maps - Lorena's take

May is here - which means all the pretty flowers are blooming, the weather is warming up, and the days get longer and my kids will be in better moods and I will be once again relieved from "sock matching duty" man do I hate doing that - I hate socks in general - but I hate to have to match them up into pairs and distribute the correct socks back to their owners.  Ah the sweet smell of summer around the corner, oh how I missed you!

This month at Auntie Em's we are featuring the Bella Blvd. line called Sunshine & Happiness and using the Pagemaps Calendar.  We are using embossing techniques.  I found that this collection has alot of bright summery colours too it, in fact in true Bella Blvd. style there are tones of colours, too many really.  I wanted to use some photos of my kiddies from last summer's adventures for this layout.  I chose to pull out the greens and oranges from the layout.  I did some heat embossing with white embossing powder and my Prima "hex net" stamp - oh how I love that stamp, I looked long and hard for it to!  I also masked off the edge of one of the patterned papers and inked and embossed the edge with Antique Linen distress ink and clear embossing powder.  I dry embossed two styles of polka dots behind each of the photo matings, and clear embossed the orange popsicle as an embellishment.  I added some flowers and done done.

Enjoy!!

~Lorena~

On A Sunny Day

As a mom to a 3-year old boy and a scrapbooker, I love to use bright coloured papers. That's why I love the line that the design team was given for May by Bella Blvd called Sunshine Happiness.

Besides the fact that the name of the collection says it all, this collection screams summer. I happened to have a photo of my little guy playing in our backyard with his friend Alanna. Alanna and Sam were running through the sprinkler on a hot July day.

The technique featured this month is embossing. I love to heat emboss! I used chestnut embossing powder in a mat finish to fill some of the white space on the left side of the page:

I used sparkly white embossing powder to create a mini border on the bottom-left of the page, on the edge of the fan flower and in the embellishment cluster on the right side of the photo:

I typically do not create elaborate embellishment clusters. The main reason is that I tend to create layouts featuring Sam and it's hard to find 'boyish' embellishments. These buttons work perfectly! Since there was a little girl in the photo with Sam, I took advantage and used a butterfly:

This layout makes me look forward to summer. It's coming soon and I'm sure I will have more pictures of Sam running through the sprinkler in our backyard to scrapbook!

Happy scrappin'!

May I present to you some Sunshine Happiness

May is here, and as I promised you April showers brought the May flowers ... in the form of Bella Blvd.'s Sunshine Happiness!

What a beautiful way to bring in the summer than with this paper line.  Full of pinks, purples, flowers, and fruit. 

Lets see what your Auntie Em's design team has come up with to inspire you to utilize the May sketch from the Scrapbook and Cards today calendar!


Nancy's take:

I decided to create a simple clean line layout and used the embossing to add another polka dot pattern. I created my blue embossed strip at the bottom using one of my favorite tools the cuddlebug. it added just the right amount of detail to a simple clean layout.

Sarah's take:


I love to heat emboss! I used sparkly embossing powder in the embellishment cluster on the right side of the photo, on the border of my fan flower and on the mini-border at the bottom left of the page. I also used mat embossing powder in chestnut for a more muted look.

Stephanie's take:


I really like dry embossing, but I don't do it very much, since I usually forget about it until it's too late.  For this layout I dry embossed the small strip of paper on the bottom right corner.  I originally used heat emboss for the little fish, in a translucent colour, but when I was done my page I was disappointed with the result.  So I decided to embossed the little fish with Liquid Pearls in white opal.  Is that wet emboss?  I don't know...

Lorena's take: 

I played up the greens and oranges from this line to bring out the colours in my kids clothes. I heat embossed the popsicle and the border on the cherry paper as well as the chicken wire on the orange paper. I dry embossed on the background of each of my photo matting. 

Remember you too can play along by bringing your May sketch using Auntie Em's product into the store - there is a fantastic prize to be won if your layout is selected as this month's winner!