Greetings and Salutations Fancy Pants visitors! What an amazing honor it is to be joining you here as today’s official “Fancy Pants” guest designer—my name is Christine Middlecamp. I might be a familiar face to some of you since I’ve been a long time scrapbook designer alongside various companies, though most commonly that of Crate Paper as a design team coordinator. My passion and following of the hobby has been ongoing since the very first day I stepped foot inside a local scrapbook store nearly four years ago. From that point forward, I’ve been sold on pretty papers and embellishments from favored manufacturers, and have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know that scrapbook community at large through my personal blog, Retrospection, where on occasion, I post images of completed projects and snippets of my daily life.
In preparation for guest designing on behalf of Fancy Pants, I put together a small production of three projects and corresponding technique ideas to try with Fancy Pants' latest releases. I’m a huge proponent of alternate applications when it comes to scrapbook supply usage—maybe you’ve a stash of Fancy Pants nearby to follow along with what I’ve to share with you today? Most of the ideas are easily doable and fun to try if you’ve not taken to them already ... also, I’ve gone about working with the latest, most popular themes, so if you’ve a enlisted a “Fall Festive” scrapbook plan for yourself in the coming months, make sure to feast upon either FP’s Summer’s End, Off to School & Oct. 31.
With the arrival of Autumn, our sidewalks are filled to the outskirts with fallen leaves. They’re scattered about everywhere and yearn to be collected by the little ones whom can’t help but greet them with their busy hands. This latest set of photos, from last Fall, encompasses a passing moment of Ethan taking heart of the piles of leaves around my parent’s home—and to be accentuate the moment, I used FP’s “Summer’s End” collection.
This layout is really a spontaneous, scattered assembly of varying elements that are hand-created from the numerous offerings of “Summer’s End”. Most the flowers are trimmed from the patterned papers “Windy Day”, “Changing” & “Mother Earth”. The lollypop flower got a good spritzing of gray opaque mist prior to being put together. Each flower is than topped off with a combination of Fancy Pants Buttons, misc. brads & rhinestones.
Sometimes, it’s the bits and pieces that make the details come alive! The banner chipboard pack, die-cut pack and rub-ons are filled with itty-bitty things that when partnered, take on a whole new meaning! Don’t discard the extra mini stuff, instead, set them aside in a divided tray or a small cup for easy grabbing later on.
Rumor has it that the school bell has already rung for some of the kiddos out there, though my dear Ethan hasn’t made the leap to Kindergarten yet. I’m still scrapbooking images of him from last year’s first, official preschool experience. Not surprisingly, Fancy Pant’s “Off to School” helped out with this latest layout, Getting Ready to Learn. It’s another sporadic sprinkling of layers!
The title alone is catchy enough, but the added chipboard pencil border further defines and emphasizes the underlying message of the title. The two themes easily coincide.
FP’s glitter transparencies take the dirty work out of having to break out a jar of glitter and glue to create a hint of pizzazz on one’s project. This close-up look demonstrates just how “sparkly” the glitter really is! Love that it’s on transparency, too! It can pretty much go anywhere!
This particular die-cut journal spot has conveniently positioned holes along it’s edge, so I went about inserting grey velvet brads through them. To further dress up the spot, I applied the “First Day” rub-on along the top and a chipboard apple near the bottom, right corner.
Tiny buttons are good for sharing space in tight corners and crevices. As a sort of surprise factor, I went about trimming a window from this blue tag and tucked beneath it a pair of the collection’s retro glasses. I covered the lenses with dimensional adhesive.
And as a final project, a quick, eye-catching card for the spooky Halloween visitor or friend. I took on the webbing transparency from the “Oct. 31” Collection and layered it on top a tag trimmed from the “Love Potion” patterned paper. I trimmed an additional small web from the rub-on pack (directly from the plastic sheet that it’s on) and added that as well on top a smidgen of fabric. The entirety of the background is housed beneath a popped up kraft cardstock frame. The remainder of details are as shown.
Thank you for taking the time to visit with us today at the Fancy Pants Blog. I wish all of you a wonderful, craft-filled weekend! And thank-you to Fancy Pants for allowing me a visit—it’s been a pleasure!
-Christine Middlecamp
