Tips and Techniques by Joan Bronson

Joan Bronson is featuring our September Creative Kit today with a look into her design process!

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Hello Fellow Scrappers!
Today I wanted to share with you a couple tips to aid you in scrap lifting my layouts using the September Creative kit.  As you well know - I like to use my kit up! Here is a photo of my left overs this month.

(sorry for the less than wonderful photos - with three small boys I tend to do most of my scrapping at night. It doesn't make for the best photos!). Here is a layout I was pretty creative with:

The first thing to share is how I make my kit last so long. I started by only using enough background paper I needed.

See how rather than cutting an entire rectangle I only cut part of it. Since the rest was covered I really didn't need to have the entire rectangle. I also waited until I was about finished with all my layouts to cut my circles. I made my decision on what papers to use for my circles based on what papers I had left. Lastly, I hope you like my borders at the top and bottom of the page. Check out your sticker sheet and you will find a triangle border and a bubble border. I decided to cut them out for this layout. The triangles took a little time but the bubbles at the bottom were super easy. I just cut around the bubbles. For the triangles, I first cut out the entire border from the sticker sheet (with the backing still attached). Then I cut out each triangle and laid them out on my layout as I thought I'd like them to end up. I added some pop dots to the back of some triangles (after exposing the sticky back). I admit I pulled up and restuck several triangles in order to get them just the way I wanted but I love the final look so I'm okay with the bit of work it took. Some pages just deserve a little extra work.

One more thing I really want to share with you is how I made the beautiful flowers in our kit pink! I got out my Gelatos again this month - this time to color my flowers. Here is the layout I used my pink flowers on.

First, I grabbed my craft mat, a little water (should have had it in a dish but didn't have one handy so I just dropped a little on my mat). I also grabbed the paint brush that came with my Gelatos, a pink Gelatos and of course my flowers.

I started by scribbling some Gelato on my craft mat, then I dipped my paint brush in a little water and then in the scribbled Gelato. Separate each petal of the flower and color it individually. I had to dip my brush in water and Gelato several times to complete each flower but over all coloring the flowers didn't take that much time and was fun.

When I was finished I grabbed my heat gun and sped up the drying process as I was so excited to get the flowers on my layout. Aren't they beautiful?

As a kit club member and scrap lifer for several years before joining the design team I know that sometimes designers do little things you want to copy but wonder how to do it (I still think that about the beautiful designs in the Limited Edition kit) Please feel free to visit my blog and leave me a message any time you wonder how I did something or have a comment. I'd love to have you visit. My blog: www.scrappyjoan.blogspot.com. Thanks and have fun scrapping!

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You can see more of Joan's beautiful work in our Design Team Gallery!

Here's the September Creative Kit:

We invite you to join us and experience the possibilities that our coordinated monthly kits offer. To purchase a kit, please visit our website, here.