American Crafts Projects: More Info

Back after two days' worth of tornado warnings and sirens and calming down anxious children. Thankfully, our part of the city was not directly affected, and the parts that were affected suffered only minor damage, hail damage, and flooding.

If you missed it, on Wednesday I shared my American Crafts guest designer projects for Vintage Week. Today, I'm back to share them again, but with additional details. 

Let's start with my "New York" layout:

I love this vintage New York map-print patterned paper and used it in two ways on this layout. One use is obvious: the two blocks of patterned paper. As for the less obvious use: I die cut an apple from the paper and inked it red. If you look closely you will see that I die cut the apple stem from woodgrain patterned paper and the leaf from the same green ledger-print paper I used to die cut the Statue of Liberty. I used American Crafts hemp baker's twine in solid red and green on the kraft DIY Shop tags to balance the color across the two halves of the layout. 

Next up is my "Let's Go Fly a Kite" project, which is a framed 8" x 10" art piece:

I recently rectified a parenting fail by showing my kids "Mary Poppins" for the first time. The kite song got stuck in all of our heads. Here, I used my die-cutting machine to create a kite image. I first die cut the diamond of diamonds from scrap cardstock and placed it over dictionary-print patterned paper, inking each of the diamonds a different color. I adhered the inked patterned paper behind the diamond shapes on the cardstock I had run through both my printer and my die-cutting machine. A black twine kite string is adorned with burlap bows inked to match some of the diamonds. A small key detail here: the center diamond contains the word "fly," and yes, that was intentional! :)

My "Travelers" layout is a simple layout with a fun twist: map-print patterned paper dolls:

This is one of those layouts that evolved slowly. Initially, I die cut the paper dolls from the background patterned paper, backed them with the map-print patterned paper, and had color photos, all with Thickers geotags anchoring them to the layout. The layout wasn't sitting right with me so I let it sit. Three "a-has" struck that improved the layout. First, I die cut the paper dolls again from black cardstock and laid the strip of cardstock over the paper dolls on the layout, making the colors in the map print pop. Second, I changed the photos to black and white to create a more uniform look, correcting the clash of colors between photos and between photos and paper dolls. Next, I varied the "anchors" for the photos, keeping one geotag, but swapping out the other two for a clothespin on its side and a chalk badge. My edits made for a more cohesive and visually pleasing layout.

I had a lot of fun creating a card with this line:

I used five different patterned papers here: a whitewashed text collage print (it comes printed with the whitewash effect - isn't that cool?!), a woodgrain print, a dictionary print, an airmail strip print, and a denim print. I die cut or punched all of the elements, elevated the heart with a foam adhesive dot, and finished the card with more of the twine.

Last up is my most meaningful project. When you look at it you will see why:

I would recommend buying the DIY paper pad for the family tree diagram paper alone! It is the perfect size for writing names (even long ones - there's a Tabachnick side in my family!) and is a great document to either fill out on its own, or, as I did, to use as part of a two-page spread. I documented our ancestry in general on the left side of the layout, creating a collage of some of my favorite family photos going back to my great-great grandparents and my husband's great-grandparents. (Don't worry, none of those are the original photos - all are printed from scans!) I added pops of color and a "who's who" key by punching stars from colored cardstock and adhering them to the photos, with circles punched from the same colors of cardstock adhered to the family tree page. I don't have the entire family tree filled out - still missing some great-grandmothers' maiden names, but I plan to finish filling that information in once I can track it down. 

So...there you have it...the stories behind all of my projects! Be sure to visit the American Crafts blog for additional Vintage Week fun!