Tutorial with Monique!

Hello My Creative Scrapbook fans! This month I (Monique) received the August Creative Kit featuring the Let's Go collection from Simple Stories, which I totally adore! I just love all travel collections and this one is definitely this year's favorite! As I just got back from a vacation to the south of France I had photos a plenty! 

Here's one of the layouts I created with this wonderful kit:

And here are a few photos of how this layout came together. Using a plate I drew a circle on a sheet of white cardstock.

I chose the tangerine colored map paper (called "Pack Your Bags") to mat the white cardstock with. From all 4 sides of the cardstock I tore a small strip of paper. Using my sewing machine I stitched the cardstock on top of the patterned paper. Except for the sides I also stitched the circle, twice. Next I distressed the sides of the cardstock. 

I printed & matted a large photo of my kids just returning from an afternoon filled with swimming and jumping in the river. I decided I wanted the photo on the left side of my layout. 

Now all I had to do was to fill the circle with numerous stickers, die-cuts and chipboards.

This month's Creative kit is filled to the brim with embellishments; I had a hard time choosing and not just including everything! Below the photo I wrote a few lines of journaling and stamped the date. 

Last but not least I added a few drops of yellow ink.

And now I thought I was done, but when I put the layout out of sight for a while and looked at it a day later I decided it wasn't quite right. So I pulled some of the embellishments off and rearranged them, just a little. For example, the car wasn't right where it was, it was just too high and then there were too many die-cuts above the word "destination". So after a bit of pulling and tearing my layout now looks like this: 

What do you think? Do you like the first version better? of the second? Would love to know! 

Here's a photo of the August Creative Kit I used: 

For more information about this kit (and the other 3 kits of this month) please visit the My Creative Scrapbook website and if you want to see the photos of all projects created by the design team with the various kits, please visit the Design Team Gallery.

Wishing you all a wonderful day! 

xxx Monique