Spring is just around the corner…

Are you ready?

I’ll be honest I have mixed feelings at this time of year. See I love hockey which is played in winter, I love snow which is found in winter and I miss home (I’m a transplanted Canadian) which is always snow covered – ok so that one isn’t true but I do love winter and all it entails. But Spring and the joys of the first Robin, the first flowers and the green grass that my bored 6 year old can go play on without being bundled up is awesome too. What’s a girl to do?

Well this girl gets ready for spring by planning for the new MemoryWorks Catalog release and all the goodies that will bring. I, like some of you, have limited space and even though I am taking an AWESOME organizing class at the moment I realize to bring in new I have to move out some of the old to stay organized (if I ever actually reach that goal…).

So I am looking at my current MemoryWorks products with an eye to using them up to make room. Sounds easy right? Well it is except for a couple of things – I love the wonderful colorful patterned paper but often think what a shame to cover it up or cut it and ‘ruin’ the design. And I’m a simple scrapper – there I said it and am officially out of the closet. Whew that feels good and things are much brighter out here. So how do I reconcile this all?

Easy start with the wonderful Prism cardstock – it makes color matching basically idiot proof as they have done most of the hard work. Each pack comes with 3 color shades and on the front of each pack is a list of coordinating cardstock. So I grab a color that will enhance my photos then find patterned paper that works well with it. This is made so easy when you pull out the coordinating cardstock they list for you on the cover sheet and use it as a way to see if something will work with your foundation color. For example I came across pictures that just screamed they needed to be scrapped – so I pulled out my cardstock and found the perfect shades in the Herbal Garden pack. Then because the photos had my son in his dino jammies I wanted something masculine but with a fun side – that took me to my BasicGrey theme kits which took me to my BasicGrey chipboard alphas and so on. After I had placed it all on the page I realized I was missing something and thought of Rub-ons which co-ordinate with the paper line.


Supplies:
Prism Cardstock Herbal Garden Pack PR021
BasicGrey Archaic Theme Set BG174
BasicGrey Archaic Rub-ons BG112 (no longer available)
BasicGrey Undressed Chipboard - Block Alphas (carried in last year's catalog)
Making Memories Paint - Nutmeg (not a MemoryWorks product)

I dry brushed the photo mat and the journaling block with the paint to make it stand out more. The tip of the arrow and the journaling mat were also raised to give more dimension.

So although this is not what first envisioned when I saw those pictures or when I looked at that paper as ‘I can’t cut’ the lovely patterned paper because I’d ‘ruin’ the design. I am LOVING where I ended up – I have paper that complements my photos and I can see the great design of the paper. I can’t imagine having this layout any other way now.

So grab some of your stash and cut it up to go with those photos just asking to be put on paper because you have to make room for all the yummy new releases – right?

If you want to see the cards I made from the ‘scraps’ visit us on Facebook