Happy Camper

Hello all, it's Louise here with 4 LO's to share. A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to choose the stash I wanted to work with in real life rather than online. I'm so glad I did because I immediately fell in love with the Happy Camper Stew and Irish Farm House Soup ranges by Jillibean Soup. These are not something I would have been likely to look at had I have been buying online, but I really loved the colours and the designs of the papers.
I also chose a sheet of American Crafts, Cut & Paste, Heart Throb paper. I usually struggle with what embellishments to choose, but I was drawn to these Amy Tan Cut & Paste, Bits Die Cut Tags. They may seem pricey at first glance, but you get 12 good quality tags with designs that are really usable. I will definitely be buying another set before they go out of stock.

My first LO was of the three boys taken sitting on one of the fab sculptures at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. A couple of my fellow DT members said I had to use the map side of one of the papers, and it actually went really well with this photo. I cut off the water and key parts of the map, so that I was left with a woodland map. This became the perfect paper for the Sculpture Park LO.

I used the heart tag, stitching in lines and using French knots as well as running stitch. I folded over the tag and stapled the fold in position, and embellished it with washi tape and a heart cut from the Amy tan paper.

For my title I used these Die-Namics dies. They're paper thin and these were just the right size to use in my Sizzix Side Kick... which had the cobwebs blown off it and will be used much more often now I've seen some of the great dies from this company.

If you haven't used a die cutting machine before they're really easy to use.

You put the die on the cutting plate (and a spacer if needed).

Put your paper over the top of the die.

Sandwich with the other cutting mat and roll through the machine.

Ta Da! a perfectly cut title with very little effort.

You may have looked at these dies and thought that they were quite expensive, but when you think that you will have them forever, can cut titles in any coordinating colour/pattern for your LOs, never running out of the letters you need... you can see that they're a very good investment.

My second LO is of a fun photo of Drew taken in the park in the summer. We often take chalks with us to draw on the pavement, and on this day I drew him a crown to make him the prince of the park.

The rainbow swirl was created with quilling papers. I often think how pretty they are when they're all stuck together unused in the pack, so kept them together and stuck them straight down to my LO. I love the result.

I used the arrow from the dies cut tags, stitching around the outside, and creating a curve using straight lines in one corner. I added a couple of the cute little arrow stickers from the Project Life range, and used a roller phrase stamp.

I raided my stash and found some really old crown rub ons that I thought I'd never use, and added 3 to the LO.
This little pink clip has also been in my stationary collection for years, but was perfect to add just the little touch of pink needed in the corner of the LO.
I cut out the air mail detail from a sheet of paper, and added a few arrows along the edge to lead your eyes in to the LO.
A few random circles were doodled on to the LO and the hand cut hearts were doodled round with a black pen.

My next LO is another of Drew... this time with his friend 'the naughty goat' from the birds of prey park we visited in the summer. The boys (my own terrible trio and the Garratt boys) had great fun winding up the goats, and thought that it was hilarious when they stole the stamp booklets they had and ate them!!! It was definitely the highlight of Drew's day.

I used a Studio Calico days of the week snippet behind my photo (I knew I absolutely needed these moths ago when I bought them).

I punched mini stars from a card cut from one of the papers. I love how subtle they are because of their teeny size.

On this LO I used the speech bubble tag, cutting the detail from the tag and using the positive shape as a mat for the start of my title.
The negative shape was tucked behind my photo.

My final LO is of Harry. Its a just because LO of a photo taken when he was just being Harry, having fun outside. I misted the green patterned background paper with yellow and orange, splattering a few drops of the orange.

This love tag detail was cut from a sheet of patterned paper and embellished with 3 strips of tape. I also used the negative shape of the letter H from a die cut.

I stitched a chevron design in two colours onto one of the tags, leaving the ends long and fraying them for a messy look. My title was die cut from the grid paper, and also from the packaging of the tags... waste nothing I always say!   I'm really happy with these LOs created from ranges that I would have dismissed due to their names. It just goes to show you really shouldn't judge before taking a close look. I hope I've inspired you to be a Happy Camper or a Irish Farm House Soup lover.   Be sure to come back every couple of days to see what the rest of the DT have been busy creating.