justem: little bits of this and that

Thirty-Four {Gossamer Blue Pinspired Layout}

Happy Friday!  My monthly "Pinspired with Gossamer Blue" post is up on the GB blog today!  
This month my inspiration came from a very unlikely place...a cake!

source: Martha Stewart Weddings

 The cake inspired this layout, which features layers and stripes just like the beautiful cake!

For more details on how I made this layout, as well as a chance to play along with the challenge, check out my original post on the Gossamer Blue blog!  Tomorrow, my friends and I are having our annual Bake-a-palooza! I will be sure to share photos of this great (and slightly crazy) holiday tradition!!  Have a great day! :)

 

seriously... {december gossamer blue}

December's Gossamer Blue kit is filled with all kinds of pretty papers and fun products.  I haven't had as much of a chance to work with it as I would have liked...but today I wanted to share with you my "Main Kit Only" layout for this month!  I love that for a December kit is is not filled with just Christmas product - but that you CAN buy some fun holiday add-ons if that is your thing! ;) This layout includes a lot of great Basic Grey, Webster's Pages, Chic Tags, and Carta Bella products. (Wildflower!! Designed by Kaitlin, who I had the pleasure of getting to know when I was on the first ever Ormolu DT way back when!!!)

 

This is totally not a great quality photo (taken with my phone) nor is it exactly a stellar photo of me - but I guess that is the point! Having a newborn is tiring...and I wanted to document just that!!

Have a happy Thursday!!

We Are 5

Hello!  I had a new layout up on the Gossamer Blue blog on Friday for my monthly "Pinspired with Gossamer Blue" challenge!  I knew before I had the baby that I would need to post this right after he was born, so I made the base layers before we went to the hospital. I had a "boy" and a "girl" card from the Fancy Pants ephemera pack ready and waiting, along with a bunch of coordinating embellishments to finish off the layout!  When Oliver turned out to be of the boy variety, it was very easy to just piece the rest of the layout together!!  I noticed that all of the layouts I've made recently have used the exact same color scheme. ;) What can I say?! I love me some aqua and orange!!

For more information about the layout, including the original inspiration piece AND a chance to play along, be sure to check out the original post on the Gossamer Blue blog! :) Have a great day!

Playing with Slime!

Happy Tuesday!  Sunday was the debut of the September Gossamer Blue kit!  This kit is filled with all kinds of fun products including lots of new Carta Bella, My Mind's Eye, Teresa Collins and tons of great Gossamer Blue exclusives!  This is the layout I made with the Main Kit only. :)  It's a little wonky, but when you're making a layout about slime, is there any other way to be? ;)

I didn't have a chance to take any close-ups of this one...but I think most of the time my layouts are pretty self-explanatory! ;)  Hope everyone in the U.S. had a great Labor Day weekend!  Be sure to enter the Pebbles giveaway below!!! 

If at first you don't succeed...

Happy Sunday!  Today I want to share with you one of my Gossamer Blue layouts for this month.  The Gossamer Blue kits come with so much goodness, and I try really hard each month to use the majority of the product on at least one layout, but sometimes it just doesn't work for me.  I started creating this particular layout one evening when I was out cropping with some friends. I wanted to include the cute Carta Bella alphabet stickers that were included in the Add-on Kit 2, but I just wasn't feeling the layout at ALL. The title didn't look right to me, and I had outlined the letters, only to screw a few of them up, of course. So now I had a layout that I not only didn't really like, but it also looked terrible!  Want to see... ;)
(Pardon the bad iPhone photo! Notice the top A...see...looks terrible!)

After hemming and hawing over it for awhile, I asked my friends what they would think about me just creating a large banner and completely covering the awful title.  My friend Barb, whose honesty I appreciate, said, "Well, I don't think it can get much worse!" ;)  So I did just that. Of course, this was not as easy at it seems because the outlined arrow on the original was showing under the bottom opening of the banner. I cut a tiny piece of matching patterned paper out and covered up the arrow right in the open triangle of the banner.  I raised up the ends of the banner to give it a little more detail, and I gave up completely on using the alphabet stickers and instead used my Cameo and a few other stickers that came in the kit!!  The result? MUCH better!!

In fact, this is one of my favorite layouts made with the February kit!  This was actually a kit full of mishaps! ;) I'll share another one with you later this week! Hope you are having a great weekend!