Create with Eight

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Have you seen the new Ella Publishing eBook Eight is Enough? Five designers from the Studio Calico kit club were challenged to gather eight products from their stashes and create four unique layouts with those items. Staples like fonts, pens, machine-stitching, cardstock, and

(of course!) staples were free items, as was ink or spray mist if you choose a stamp as part of your supplies. (What good is a stamp without ink?) Hey, any little extras can only help, right?

I decided to give it a try myself. After all, as a scrapper who attends crops regularly, learning to scrap with less could be very helpful to me! But I have to admit that I have a couple advantages. First, I scrap 8½ x 11 pages. This means that I get almost a page and a half out of every piece of 12 x 12 patterned paper! And second, I'm already a very simple scrapper. Most of my pages include a title, some patterned paper, and some buttons. I'm not a heavy embellisher, and I rarely use more than eight different items on a page anyway. Hmm, this might be easier than I thought…

The Products

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First, I selected the four stories I wanted to tell, and then I went searching for products from my stash. Unlike the approach the designers took in the eBook, I challenged myself not to add any tools to my list—no punches, electronic die cutters, decorative scissors, or anything more exotic than a paper trimmer. I think I might have changed my mind more than a dozen times before settling on this list:

• One sheet camera-themed patterned paper, double sided (F-Stop by Studio Calico)
• One sheet strip-style patterned paper, double sided (Compilation by Studio Calico)
• One sheet red lace patterned paper, double sided (One of a Kind by October Afternoon)
• One package buttons (Citrus Splash Grab Bag by Buttons Galore)
• One package black puffy letter stickers (“Honey” font Thickers by American Crafts)
• One sheet mini alphabet stickers (Mini Market Stickers by October Afternoon)
• One sheet label stickers (Thrift Shop by October Afternoon)
• One package vintage ephemera cards (Ancienne by 7 Gypsies)
  

Tip: Selecting double-sided papers will give you twice as many patterns to work with.

 

The Challenge

I scrapbook with kits a lot; I find that they keep me from getting overwhelmed by too many creative options. Kits are also a great solution for working at a crop. Just grab a kit and some extra cardstock and you’re good to go!

Assembling my list of eight products was a lot like creating a mini-kit, and that's how I approached it. I planned my pages out a little bit so I wouldn't regret cutting into paper that I could have used on later layouts. For example, since I chose the camera patterned-paper specifically for my “Second Shooter” layout, I created that page first. I knew I didn’t want to cut into the other side of the camera paper for another layout until I figured which camera to use here.

First Up

	added supplies: fonts • yellow cardstock • thread • 8½ x 11 layout by Celeste Smith
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With three photos to include on an 8½ x 11 layout, my space was limited. So I set the photos up in a collage in Photoshop. At first I thought that I would leave them in a block, but right before printing I separated them by about an inch to leave room for a title. I used a piece of patterned paper and both sets of letters for my title.

Without a punch among my list of supplies, I traced buttons on the word paper and hand-cut a border to add interest to the bottom of my title block. I printed my journaling on a card from the ephemera pack and added a piece of the card to the top of my layout. The camera and a couple of threaded buttons complete my design.

Bonus Idea: Be careful how many fonts you use on a page. Since my title used two fonts and the patterned paper used another, I chose a journaling font that was similar to patterned paper's font. This made my page more cohesive.

I Second That

	added supplies: font • kraft cardstock • thread • 8½ x 11 layout by Celeste Smith
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Patterned paper with strips is so versatile! You can use large pieces together to make a blocked look or cut the individual strips and use them elsewhere on the page. On this layout, I used a block of the strips and I love how eclectic the mix of patterns is. If you look closely, this paper even has faux stitching printed right on it—a great detail!

I had to get creative with a lot of the finishing touches on this page. To decorate the “2” tag, I traced a large button on the lace patterned paper and cut it into a circle, which I then folded over the top of the tag before adding a smaller blue button. To create the pinked edge on the bottom of the layout, I cut a thin strip of patterned paper and adhered a piece of graph paper (set on the diagonal) to the back of the patterned paper. Then I just used my scissors to cut along the now-diagonal squares, creating a perfectly straight diamond-edge on my patterned paper.

Bonus Idea: For the date-label sticker, I grabbed a scrap of paper leftover from the journaling block I used on my first layout and ran it through the printer. Then I adhered the date scrap on top of my label sticker, anchored by a green button.

Three's a Charm

	added supplies: pen • grey cardstock • thread • 8½ x 11 layout by Celeste Smith
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For my third layout, I decided it was time to mix it up with a more feminine look. I fussy cut a couple of flower-like designs from my patterned paper and layered them into unique accents. I even drew a flower on one of the ledger arrows from the camera paper and cut it out, finishing the center with punctuation from my Thickers alphabet sheet.

I decided to handwrite my journaling on this page. I’m not wild about my handwriting, but I try to include it in my scrapbooks every now and then, since it adds such a personal touch to pages. I selected one of the ephemera cards with lines and wrote my journaling in pencil to be sure it fit. Then I wrote over the journaling in pen before erasing the pencil.

Bonus Idea: To create this decorative border, I typed a curly bracket in Photoshop then rotated it 90 degrees. I created a few copies of the bracket and linked them together in a line, printing them on the reverse side of the paper I wanted to use. Then I cut out the bracket border.

Four and No More!

	added supplies: pen • yellow and red cardstock • machine sewing and thread • 8½ x 11 layout by Celeste Smith
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For the last layout, I didn't have a plan. I figured I would just work with what was left as best as I could. I had this large photo of a recent sunset on Cape Cod. A large photo meant I was covering about half my page, so I knew the bits and pieces that were left would work perfectly.

To create the quilt-like background behind my title, I used my trimmer to cut out tons of squares from all my chosen patterned papers; I even cut a square from one of the label stickers! I then adhered the squares like diamonds on a piece of scrap cardstock that I had previously cut to size. Then I used my sewing machine to create an argyle like effect on the squares.

I used the back of one of the ephemera pieces to create a neutral resting place for my title and journaling. In a nod to the old days of scrapbooking (before I owned a die-cutting machine), I printed out my “sunset” title in reverse on the reverse side of my red paper, then hand cut the letters out. I can't remember the last time I did that!

Bonus Ideas:

• Selecting just eight products would be an easy way to put together a mini-album. The album would come together quickly with fewer product choices to make!
• Adding an electronic cutter as one of the eight products would open up a world of design possibilities. Titles, elements, borders, and frames would just be the push of a button away.
  
• Choosing patterned papers that have elements that can be cut out really adds to your design choices.
  
• Adding pop dots to paper elements makes them more dimensional and can add a lot of interest to your pages without a lot of effort.

Your Turn

It's your turn! We hereby challenge you to come up with your own list of eight items from your stash of supplies and to stretch your list into four great layouts. (Absolutely no shopping allowed.) Make sure you include a mix of papers, accents, tools, and alphabets—whether stamps, die-cuts, or stickers. You can only use the items on your list, but cardstock, fonts, and standard tools (such as trimmers, journaling pens, or a sewing machine) are freebies.

When you’re done, e-mail us pictures of all four of your layouts, plus a picture of your eight original supplies, and an explanation of how you stretched them, and we’ll pick one winner each month through March 2011! Winners will be featured on the Ella blog and will receive a prize package from Ella Publishing Co. and the Studio Calico monthly kit club. E-mail questions and entries to submissions@ellapublishing.com, with “Eight is Enough” in the subject line. We can’t wait to see your work!