Maya Road Design Team

Flowers to fluffy clouds

Hey Roadies! Mandy Kay Starner here to share my epiphany moment with you.

So lets start at the beginning...I already had my photo and basic design in mind. Plus, I had been wanting to put some paint on paper for some time, so I got out my paints and mists(White out and  Orange Spice)and created my background...

While that dried, I inked up my chipboard birds from the Birds and Cages set and my Lisa Lowercase alphas for my title. I snipped some chevron shapes from my Chocolate Plum Vintage Tape Measure trim and layered them up under my photo with a Stitched Linen Heart. Once, I laid it all out, I could see that it was missing something... I stared... and stared... Finally, I decided that I wanted to add some fluffy clouds to my layout. I wanted to mimic the clouds in the photo. But how was I going to do it?... and then BAM! It hit me! The Afternoon Tea Blossoms could be cut up into fluffy clouds! So I cut a couple of them apart into cloud shapes...

I layered them up here and there. And this is how it all turned out...

Here's a close-up...

So there you have it. I hope this inspires you to look at your supplies a little differently.

Maya Road and Fiskars Swap, Day 5

Hi Roodies,

Hope you guys have been having a great week so far and enjoying all the inspirations from the ladies as we have fun during this Maya Road and Fiskars Swap week.  I had a chance to work with the new 3 in 1 corner squeeze well rounded punch and love how you only need to reach for one tool to get  3 different sizes/designs.  And on my layout, I used this punch to help me create the two floral designs that you see on the top portion.

I first started by cutting out 2" squares and using the punch on the two opposite corners, before adhering them down (square corners to the middle). 

Then of course comes the yummy maya road products. Once I had the base of the floral design completed, I then went to work punching out a few circles for the flower center and used the decorative button and doilie flower chipboards along with a bit of the yellow/canary paper twine cording to create the smaller flowers.

Next came the kraft goodies (I can't resist adding these kraft products to almost all my projects - love the color contrast and the varrious designs that Maya Road has).  Here I used the black kraft decorative journaling tags, kraft die cut butterflies, kraft layerable flowers, green kraft note envelopes, black kraft mini kraft jotter tags, kraft shipping tags and black kraft tpography numbers.

Then on the bottom of my page, I create a fun flower cluster using the large doilie flower chipboard and a few pieces of the kraft layerable flowers. I misted the chipboard pieces with either seafoam green or granny smith apply green mists and finished off with a black wood bingo motifs and some trinket pins.

Thanks everyone for stopping by and don't forget that you still have a chance to winning some gorgeous  maya road products.  More details of the giveaway HERE.

Maya Road and Fiskars swap, Day 4

Hello and welcome!  It's so nice of you to stop in to see another project combining Maya Road and Fiskars. It is a great combination.

I decided to make a layout with a photo of the beautiful blooms on the snowball bush that is in my backyard.  It is one of my favorite signs of spring.

The little banner near the bottom of the page was made using the Fiskar's Square-A-Licious Punch.  I just folded the punched pieces over some of the Maya Road Twine Cording.  I think that the banners are so sweet.  They also include a Vintage Wood Spool, chipboard Mixed Blossoms, a Scalloped Frame, Love Pennant Banner pieces, and a Velvet Resin Blossom.

I also used a Fiskars Notebook Border Punch, which is used on the patterned paper that is behind the photo.  You can do so many things with punches and of course Maya Road products.

Other Maya road items used: Vintage Kraft Envelope, Cream Ruffle Blossom, Sentiments Black Rub Ons, Gingham Fabric Tape, Trinket Pins, Grey Velvet Pleat, Vintage Edge Mum.

Thanks for joining us today for our blog swap.  Don't forget that you still have a chance to win our giveaway!  Make sure to go read the details on this post

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One big, flowery cluster

Hello there!

Ania here with a layout for you this time.

When looking through the photos from this past Christmas I made a mental note to scrap these photos of my grandma and my children. Fast forward close to five months later, and I'm pleased to be able to say I've accomplished just that! =)

Right! I love the organza tea garden trim, so broad and lush, it sort of builds a comfy bed to add stuff on top of and is perfect for building a cluster around! So sad it's discontinued from Maya Road, so if you see some in your LSS, grab a couple of yards! You won't regret it, I promise! I added a strip of regular mini organza roses trim right beneath the bottom tea garden trim.

Otherwise, I layered my cluster by mixing stamping (gotta love the antique love doilies stamp set), fabric and kraft atop.

And I couldn't resist adding this satin scallop edge blossom to the layout, it's simply gorgeous!

 

Hope you enjoyed this layout inspiration :)

Embellishing with stamps

Hey Roadies! Mandy Kay here, to talk to you, about stamps. I LOVE stamps. You can use them over and over, change the color and texture whenever you choose, and they are a great way to add something to your project without a lot of bulk. I have to admit though, that even though I love using stamps, I don't love the risk involved when adding them to a project. I am always afraid of the dreaded stamping shadow, or missing my mark just a bit. BUT I have found a way to use my stamps without fear! Come on, I'll show you!

  First, I collected my Perfect Shot Arrow Stamps, Vintage Camera Stamp, Say Cheese stamp set, my ETC. set, my inks, some embossing powders, vellum, and a couple scraps of patterned paper. I laid out my papers and photos, then I got started with my stamps...

I stamped my cameras on scraps of patterned paper, with some black ink and my ampersand in a deep orange on white cardstock. For my arrows, I stamped them on vellum with VersaMark and embossed them in matching colors. I cut or punched them all out, and added them to my layout. Since they were stamped on paper, I could move them around until I had it just the way I wanted, before gluing it all down. Here is how it looked in the end...

And a few close-ups...

I hope you enjoyed my tips and tricks today and I hope you'll be busting out those stamps on your next project! Thanks for stopping by the Maya Road Design Team blog!

When You Swim, You Shine

Hi everyone,

This is Karen and I am back to share another layout with you. Ordinarily, my husband is the one who takes my older son to swim class but on the rare occasions when I go, I make a point to bring my camera. I loved capturing this particular moment where he's wearing his goggles and his teeth are half fallen out, half-missing. These are the moments I will never have again and so, my favorite moments to scrap. 

I'm a big fan of the pins and just putting a whole bunch of them together. I like stitching through them and layering them. Great way to add just a tiny pop of color.

 

I also love adding stuff to the edges of my layouts. A whole bunch of tiny pops of color.

Since I had a theme of strips of ribbon and pins, I added some to the bottom of the layout, too. Just to make sure the whole piece felt unified.

And here's one final look at the middle section with all the cute ribbons.

Thank you for letting me share my layout. I'd love for you to link me up to one of your latest layouts, too!

make it monochrome

Hey, Roadies! Leah checking in with a layout post today - I thought it would be fun with Valentine's this week to share a layout that I created featuring a photo from my parents' wedding!

One of the current trends that I have fallen in love with is monochromatics. I love color any {and every} day of the week, but there's something a bit timeless about a project or layouit created with this look. 

The whole metalic thing is sort of growing on me as well - as long as it's used subtely! For this page, I combined linen, raw chipboard, untouched wooden pieces, and kraft tags on a white background to let them shine just as they are. 

I finished by layering flowers in cream, gray, and white near my photo to draw the most attention there. Loops of gold twine, trinket pins, and the metal accent frame were a great way to pull in a subtle hints of  metalics.

I hope I've given you a few ideas on how to apply this beautiful and subtle trend to your scrapbook pages and projects! Have a lovely, creative Friday!

Make Mine a Mini

Hey Roadies! It's almost the weekend!

One of the great things about working for Maya Road (besides getting to work with all the awesome products!) is working with Caroline. She loves to give the DT assignments for CHA that push us out of our creative comfort zone. While I hate it at the time, she's always right on with the request. I think she has a crystal ball or some such.

For me, that means doing minis. And not just one mini, I got to do multiple minis for this last show. I whined and complained mightily to Ronda--aside: did you know we live just 2.4 miles from each other? I did a layout about that for the show too, I'll share that at the end of this post!

But by the time I was done, I had a couple of minis I was really proud of. I'm going to share one with you today. It's for my daughter, Annie, who will be graduating from high school this year. I put together this mini using the linen 4x6 Art Journal Album from this Winter's new releases. It uses a bunch of quotes that I felt would be good reminders for her of who she really is, once she heads off to college and I'm not around everyday to remind her.

Because I don't really go messy and painty, I needed to find a way to make this album work for me. I do stitch and stamp a lot so I took a bunch of the kraft envelopes (white polka dots, squares, and rectangles) and stitched them into the journal to use as extra pages. I stamped a lot as well using a permanent black ink (worked great on the linen!) and two of our alphabets, the new Varsity Uppercase Letters and a great standby, the Just My Type set. 

To help the viewer move through the album, I used our new Perfect Shot Arrow set. When there's an arrow, you lift the flap to read more.

I misted our Vintage Wood Mini Butterflies with our Maya Mists in Green Apple, Fig Magenta, and Lemon Metallic. I did the same to our large Natural Wood Buttons.  

I trimmed down the frayed edges of our Burlap Trim in Fuchsia and used that throughout the album as well.

 

I love how the flaps of the envelopes make cool design elements, and here, how it supports the jouranling.

I used a Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue to hold everything in place, it worked very well. I also used it as a fray check on the Burlap Trim edges.

 

The last flap encourages her to look forward with faith.

This project was a lot of fun, once I had my idea down and started executing it. I used photos from her senior photo shoot and tried to match them to the quote. I then split up the quote and with sticky notes, I place set everything. The only suggestion I wish I'd thought of was to stamp it all out, THEN add the bumpy embellishments. A few places where I stamped were tricky because I had a button or butterfly on the other side already.

I love how this turned out, I have a wonderful gift for my daughter when she heads off to college, something I hope will bring her comfort as she starts this new journey. I made an art journal work with my style. I need to stop whining to Ronda. And I need to tell Caroline how much I love mini albums. Maybe she'll stop asking me to make them... ;)

Here's the layout about how I get from my house to Ronda's.

Supplies for Directions layout:

• Avocado Green Maya Mist
• Fig Magenta Maya Mist
• Lemon Metallic Maya Mist
• Metal Vintage Trinket--Our Home
• Fabric Leaves--Medium
• Trinket Pins--Vintage Pearl Butterflies
• Burlap Trim in Fuchsia
• Burlap Trim in Smoke (NEW!!!)
• Lisa Uppercase Alphabet
• Lisa Lowercase Alphabet
• Ruffle Blossoms in Turquoise
• Wood Mini Clothes Pins
• Fabric Tape in Sun Yellow Gingham
• Tulle Pleat Trim in Slushie Blue
• Mini Tag Canvas Pieces

 

 

"Krafting" Things Up!

Hi Roodies,

Hope you guys had a great weekend, all rested and recharged! I thought I would kick off the week here with some "krafty" inpirations and sharing some of my layouts that I created for CHA.  

The first one here was all about those cute white kraft journaling tags, not only are these great for journaling spots but also make a fun background.  I really like the contrast between the white an kraft colors and the different variations available. Also the kraft typography numbers were the perfect addition to help me list out my journaling details.

Also used a mix of chipboard alphabets and elements and the butterfly clip is from the new release (isn't it adorable). The large letters are from the Lisa uppercase alphabet collection and the smaller ones are Danielle mini alphabet chipboard set.  The banner chipboard can be found here and stay tune for that butterfly! The mists that I used here are Antinque Paltina Metallic, Mustard Yellow Metallic and Cherry Metallic.

Also having some fun with the wooden embellishments. The wooden spool (new relase) was just the right size for the kraft butterfly die cut and can't get enough of those wooden buttons (I think I've gone through 3 packs of these already). LOL

And sharing another layout, where this time the focus was on the kraft shipping tags and layerable flowers.  Also included one of the alterable wood bingo motifs and love how these are carved out just right that you can easily (lightly) press these against an ink pad to color or paint on a little bit of mist.

And check out the new trinket pins, turquoise star (finally) and an adorable sweet pink pearl. 

Thanks everyone for stopping by and be on the look out for the new maya road goodies at your LSS or online stores!  Hope you guys have a great week ahead!

Omg srlsly?

Ania here, wanting to share a few thoughts behind some of my CHA creations with you :)

You know what makes a confirmation speech good?
When you surprise, embarass (only ever so slightly, not outright, and not in a mean way!) and make the confirmantee (is that a word? ahwell!) happy and feel loved - all in the course of a speech that doesn't make you fall asleep. My sister is pretty good at these speeches, and I loved documenting every aspect of the reactions of my niece..

Things worth noticing: LOve the exclamation stamp (which I embossed with red-orange embossing powder), the transparent camera (seriously, need lots of these!) and the embossed bubble speech stamps which interacts with the photos. Oh, and the ILY chipboard (it spells out the letters I, L and Y at once in the American Sign Language alphabet, and stands for I love you...but I'm sure everybody knows that :) ).

Now, I'll freely admit shaped chipboard albums terrifies me a teeny little bit. I'm just not really a themey scrapper, sort of, so these typically challenges me. Nevertheless, I turned this house mini book into a custom chocolate box - perfect little house warming gift mayhaps? Maya Road sure have a number of embellishments which will fit the theme perfectly, like the various key shapes and the kraft houses (there's house stamps and chipboard houses too).

Here's the inside - I believe Kinder chocolate is one of my fave chocolates! I just made a custom box formed around the bars sort of.

Love how the cream burlap trims looks here, binding the lid and box together.

Another idea for a house warming gift is to decorate the cover of the chipboard house..

And attach a towel to the back, as a mini gift.

Right! That's it for now :)

If you fancy seeing more of my CHA creations for Maya Road, feel free to drop by my blog :)