Laura Vegas

i was thrilled and honored, when nichol magouirk asked me to contribute to her scrapbook stamping class for may, over at two peas in a bucket. i've been a huge fan of nichol's for years now, and always look forward to seeing what she creates for her classes each month. this months theme is incorporating border stamps into our layouts.

i have to admit, i have gotten away from stamping lately. i have tons of great stamps. even tons of brand new stamps, that i really do want to use. i have a big collection of inks and embossing powders. but for some reason, i just don't think to pull them out all that often. so working on this layout was really fun for me, because it reminded me how fun and easy stamping can be. and i'm proud to say, i have stamped on a few other projects since then.

i soon realized that i don't own that many border stamps. lol! but i found two in my stash that i thought would work on my layout. the first one is a scalloped edged stamp from stampin up. it's an older stamp, and i can't seem to find a link to it. i thought it would be fun to create a frame for my photo of alyssa.

i decided to heat emboss the border, to add some extra texture. i stamped the border 4 times onto white cardstock, using versamark ink. then i poured american crafts zing embossing powder, in mustard, over my stamped images and heat set them. you end up with a nice shiny image, with a light texture to it.

i printed my photo as a 5×7, and my borders were each 6 inches long. i adhered my photo to a piece of red pattern paper, using pop dots. then i adhered two of the 6 inch borders along the two sides of the photo, centering them. on the other two 6 inch borders, i cut a little bit off of all the ends, and then adhered those to the top and bottom of the photo. i took all four of the end scallop pieces that i had cut off, and used one in each corner. just a creative way to make a full frame, by piecing it all together.

i also used this fun circle border stamp from hero arts. i heat embossed it with black zing, on a scrap piece of the word search paper, and then hand cut around the circles. btw, ALL the papers are from crate paper. i cut that "jane goes to school" paper from THIS sheet of pattern paper. the paper had this "book spines" all across the page. if you cut them up, they make fun borders. i wanted a red one, and this went with the school theme. i adhered my stamped border directly below that piece, using mini pop dots. 

i love this set of friendly flag stamps from hero arts. the flags are not a border stamp. but by lining up all the individual pieces, side by side, it gives the illusion of them being a border. just because a stamp isn't meant to be a border stamp, doesn't mean you can't get creative and make it into a border "stamp". i picked out a few of my favorite flags, and stamped them using a mix of ink and embossing powders. i cut each flag out, leaving a very small border, and then adhered them all side by side across the page.

for my title, i used some american crafts glitter foam thickers in turquoise, and some jenni bowlin alphabet stickers that i added to a studio calico sticker. the two blocks of paper there are from THIS sheet of pattern paper, that has lots of journaling blocks and title pieces. i thought the fill-in-the-blanks piece would be fun to use, and went with what my layout was about. without that, i probably would have journaled more about this photo and what it meant to me. but this was a fun way to journal as well. i used my tiny alphas from making memories, to add the words. and yes, it took me forever. lol! some of those words, i had to cut each sticker shorter, so that it wouldn't cover up anything above it. but it was worth it. a few veneer stars from studio calico finished off the layout.

i want to thank nichol for inviting me to play along with her class this month. you can check out her classroom HERE, and find all the previous months as well. you can see her project, PDF handout, and video HERE.