Summer Girl - Start to Finish

I have been having a great time incorporating SMASH pages onto my layouts! The other day I was admiring Amy Tan's Daybooks at my local Archiver's, coupon in hand, when it occurred to me that I could do the same with one of those. So, into my basket it went! I took the binding apart as soon as I got home and decided to get to work on a layout.

Here we go!

First, I grab this gorgeous navy paper from Tersa Collins and a couple of pages from the daybook:

After cutting some fabulous yellow flowers from another TC paper, I start futzing with placement:

After a bit of tinkering....I am liking this...

Some of Amy Tan's Daybook tabs find their way onto the page. Seriously, how cute are these?

Before moving further, let's get some splatters on there:

Splatters, butterflies and washi tape tucked here and there:

Now for some doodle twine. But, you know what? It's on a card type package. Those leave creases in the twine. That drives me CRAZY! Let's spritz with some glimmer to get those creases out. Plus, a little sparkle never hurts :)

All spritzed up:

While that dries, I will try a fun little embossing techniques from my class with May Flaum...

Embossing powder is sprinkled around loosely on the page, with nothing adhering it:

And, the heat gun gets applied...from UNDER the page!!! How fun, and rather obvious is that? I have always wanted to sprinkle embossing powder around, like a mist of sorts, and have never known how to stop it from blowing all over with the heat gun. Another, "Why didn't I ever think of that???" moments. HAH!

Note to self: Perhaps this is a bit easier when there are not 4 or more layers of paper for the heat to go through!!!!

After getting the powder hot enough to adhere to the page, I hit the areas from the top to finish the heat embossing. Why did I add bits to the bottom of the photo? Well, that's where my heat gun melted the picture! Oh my. Learning some lessons here...

It's all good...I like what we have going so far....

Title time:

I like that!

Journaling and pen lines....

Perhaps a nice final touch will be to color in some of those great shapes in the background with white...

YES! It is finito!

This was my first time working with Teresa Collins papers. I really enjoyed it! They have a beatiful texture and feel. I also really had fun with that heat embossing. A bit of a learning curve was involved...but, I think I will try that again! 

I must say, I am also having fun using pre-made books in different ways. I will most certainly be using the Daybook pages again - they are great for layering! Have you ever tried this? Share a link to your project in the comments below :) 

Thanks so much for visiting the mailbox today! See you again soon :)