Mothers and Daughters Layout

Hello, we are in the second day of our week long Mother’s day inspired project share. And today I’ve decided to pay tribute to the Mothers and Daughters in my family.

We all have mothers and daughters (that soon will be mothers themselves) so why not pay tribute to them.

In this page, I’m photographed with my mom and my sister in law. I also have two sisters and although I love them dearly, they were not photographed at this time. I’m sure there will be another photo opportunity with them in the future plus a layout for them too. :)

I added the lace cardstock behind some pattern paper here. I love how it gives that elegant border around my page. To make the most of this lace cardstock, I had cut the inside of it since only the edges will show on the page. This gives me the chance to use the lace on other projects that you will see in later posts.

I’m so in love with the Couture line. The soft colors and elegant designs are perfect for feminine layouts. I used my die cut machine here to create the layered flowers. If you read my tutorial yesterday, I pretty much did the same treatment with the paper flowers in the frame as I did here. The only difference is, I used some pretty pearl brads that is in the White Elegance embellishment line.

I also added some swirl stickers that is part of the Couture line. The swirl stickers weren’t long enough to go around my flowers so I cut them in half and stuck the cut up edges underneath the flowers. This way, I was able to extend them without making it obvious to the viewer.

I also pleated some paper to create my subtle and soft border. For my journaling I wrote about how lucky I feel to be surrounded with strong feminine examples in my family. What special things do you share with your mother, sister or friends? Make sure you document those special relationships in a layout soon.

See you tomorrow.
Grace

Not So Perfect Day

Audrey's Corinne layout makes us smile. Sometimes we may have tendency to scrapbook only the best occasions. Audrey shows us that it's good to preserve those "not so perfect days" too.

This detail shows the fun way she used different alphabets to mix her title. What a good way to accent different words. The long title easier to read broken up too.

Misting the blue background adds to the airy feel. This little group of embellishments is a playful addition and a great spot for journaling.

Come back tomorrow to meet next week's guest blogger!

May Sketch Challenge

Julie created another great sketch challenge for you this month. We are excited to see what you do with it, so make sure to link up to our next link party at the end of the month.

Here is the layout she based the sketch on. She didn't use a ton of embellishments but cut and layered papers instead. This creates interest and dimension without taking away from the photos.

Spring Flowers

Lori is back again with two more Couture projects, as promised. The first Lori describes as, "a very simple layout documenting my tulip love in the spring time and how I love to bring them in the house this time of year for a little SPRING inside!"

How did she do it? She "used samples from the paper collection to piece together to form a quilt together.... Love all of the colours in this line... so pretty and soft and perfect for spring layouts."

"I made my flower by accordion folding my paper and then layering it on top of a die cut accent and then adding some of the pretty embellishments from the Couture Sundries."

The second project for today, from Lori, are these pretty altered flowers. She says, I "made this flower bouquet from an altered kit I had from years ago. Just coverd some chipboard flowers with scraps of paper and then used all of the pretty buttons and brads as the centers. A very simple project but so much fun to make! I used my paper crimper to crimp my scraps and used them to fill the bucket."

"It is a perfect gift for mothers day as an extra splash of colour and the perfect type of flowers to give - the ones that won't die!!"

Thanks for the reminder, Lori! Mother's Day is a week from tomorrow. Is anyone making a gift this year? What is it? We'd love to hear your ideas!

20 Years

This beautiful layout is the first of three Couture projects Lori created for you this month. We love all the tumble dye misting and painting techniques she used on this layout.

Lori says "This layout is featuring 2 quick photo's that were snapped of my DH and I on our family vacation in Florida last summer - just a month before our 20th anniversary... so I used them to document our anniversary together."

"I love the look of mist and paint on all of my layouts and I love that this paper had it already done for me!! I played a lot with the purple dye that was provided to me and used it on the canvas heart (with acrylic paint) and on my tags and journalling strips."

"I also experimented with the mist and sprayed the SEI acrylic letters... spread it around with my fingers and then let them dry overnight and it became a marble effect on the letters.. LOVE how cool they turned out!!"

Check back tomorrow for two more lovely projects by Lori. They are sure to get you excited about spring!

Fun with Flowers

Audrey has two double-page layouts to share today. When choosing which papers to use on her layouts, she carefully considers the colors in her photos and uses papers that will compliment them. We hope you enjoy reading her thought-process in the papers and accents she chose.

FUN WITH FLOWERS

"There were so many busy colors in my photos that I needed to use a background that was dull so that the photos would stand out. I used some greys from Couture and some greens from Corinne. But to highlight what was going on in my photos, I used a lot of bright colored accents."

DELIGHTFUL DANDELIONS

"When I do pages, I usually use papers that are oppisite in color of my photos so that my photos pop off the page. But in this case, the colors of Sunny Day just matched my photos so perfectly that I had to use them, and my photos still stand out! I stamped a flower image with some grey ink on my background cardstock, and used some swirly metal accents and a pearl gem for the middle to add some 'movement' to the flowers."

Next time you are creating a scrapbook layout, don't forget to consider the photos you are putting on your page. Thanks for your insights, Audrey!

The 2 of Us

Although Julie used the Couture collection for this layout, it isn't too feminine at all. She did this by choosing patterned papers that work great for either gender. She created a great color combo by accenting the neutral gray papers with splashes of green.

Thanks, Julie. Happy weekend everyone!

Dig Layout & GIVEAWAY!

TGIF! Thanks for hanging out with me all week everyone! I had a blast! I hope you'll pop by my blog (www.marcypenner.com) and visit.

Today I have one more layout to share with you... my favorite out of the bunch! When we go down to Florida we plan to visit the beach at least once. But even still my boys are totally fine with playing in the condo sandbox! Ha. Go figure.

I used some more of the On the Coast line for this page. I'm in love with that grey dot paper! I'll be using it for quite a while I imagine! I'm also addicted to making little banner tags. Sigh. One of my favorite things is how subtle title works with the light blue paper. Love that! Probably one of my favorite layouts to date!

So, thanks again for having me SEI! I had a blast!
Marcy

Thanks Marcy! We have learned so much this week about you, paper-crafting, and photography. You have such a great style and fun personality.

GIVEAWAY ALERT! Would you like to win some of the paper-crafting products Marcy used this week? Ok. Just leave a comment on this post by Sunday, April 17th at midnight MST. Tell us which of Marcy's posts was your favorite this week...if you can choose just one! The winner will be announced Monday so check back then.

Florida Condo Layout

Hi there everyone. I'm back with a layout to share. The minute I saw the On the Coast line I knew it'd be perfect to highlight photos from our recent Florida trip. I especially love that there's so many lovely subtle patterns that compliment the more bold ones in the collection. I added some old SEI letter stickers (from Dill Blossom). The color just matched perfectly!

I really like companies that put out pretty packaging too! I couldn't resist punching into the white with blue circles for one of my hearts!

I have so many vacation photos to blog and scrapbook yet. I'm sure this collection will find itself on many more pages!
Marcy

April Sketch Challenge + Winner

Thanks to everyone who linked to the link party last month! Remember, this is a monthly tradition. At the end of the month, you can link any project you create that includes an SEI product. Sometimes there is a giveaway too. This is also the perfect time to share the layout you create for our sketch challenge.

Are you ready for another challenge? Julie created this layout sketch for our April challenge. So, to participate in this month's challenge, simply design a layout based on this sketch. Be sure to use at least one SEI product and link up at the end of the month.

This lovely layout is the one Julie based her sketch off. The 10.75 x 6 inch photo has a big impact, but you could also use the same grid with multiple photos in this spot.

Ready for the winner of our link party giveaway? As usual, we used random.org's random integer generator to pick... number 6!

Congratulations, Ann Jobes! Now just send us your e-mail to seiblog{at}shopsei{dot}com and we will get you your gift card.

Strive

When Audrey sent us this layout we were surprised because it's not her usual style. It is so great that she was able to stretch herself and still come out with a nice layout. This is really hard for most of us to do, but we can learn so much when we try something new.

Audrey explains the journey, "When I got the White Elegance papers, I KNEW they would be perfect for misting or distress inking, and that the silvery images on the paper would resist the ink. They turned out just beautiful!! I have to admit that this purply-blue background paper was supposed to be just an 'experiment' piece to see how the paper would mist, but I loved the way it turned out, so I used it on my page. I also used another piece of the White Elegance for my base and inked the edges with a light brown ink. It, too, resisted very well. Papers and die cuts are from Moonrise, and more tickets from En Route. The flowers and butterflies are Monsterville yellow cardstock, and the flower centers are brads from Claire."

Dreams

Kate created this beautiful layout using elements from the Couture & White Elegance collections. She also added lace paper.

Kate is a brave and artistic paper-crafter. We can get so many ideas from her layout... use lace paper as a frame, cut a flower out of paper, attach an monogram sticker to a tag, make confetti, cut out circles to place behind a butterfly, put your title right on your photo...

Take a little time to really study a layout you admire and learn from it!