Lets talk embellishments!

Hey Magpies, welcome to June! It’s Rachel here to start the month off and I want to focus on embellishments this month. I love embellishments, it’s the fun part of the layout aren’t they. When I’m building my layouts I pick my photo, choose the papers and build the foundation up, do the title and then I think of it as the fun part, embellishing!
I have one piece of advice when it comes to embellishing, touching! Anyone who’s done a class with me will know, I bleat on and on about this. But it helps to connect the embellishment with the LO and keep your focus. So I did a quick Photoshop job on my LO to illustrate what I mean. If you look at the LO on the left, you’ll probably find your eye darts around the page trying to see things and the hand chipboard up the top right kind of steals the show and takes all the focus. It is just floating there and it draws your attention. Where as if you look at the LO on the right hand side, the focus is all around the photo, everything is connected. So that’s what I mean by keeping things touching. If you place things on your LO touching the papers and photos, it really helps to ground the design.

Something I love to do is use off cuts of clear acetate (packaging comes in real useful for this), then I stick my embellishments and titles to that, so I can move it around my LO and see where I want things to be. Sometimes I have a whole LO laid out on my desk, the papers and photo are stuck down but everything else in on acetate on top! If you can’t decide where to stick that Flair badge, pop it on some acetate and move it around. When you put it in the right spot, you’ll know.
 
So I wanted to feature some embellishments this month, especially my favourite, rubber embellishments! I love anything that’s a little bit different and rubber is fab! These ones below are the Maggie Holmes Bloom Rubber Shapes and they’re so cool, I’m on to my second pack! I used some last month as well. The banners are so usable, I would love 10 packs of them and the tags are lush too.

I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m a big fan of the puffy sticker too! I’m a long time user (hoarder) of the MAMBI ones and I had to have these Cocoa Vanilla, Free Spirit Puffy Stickers. There’s a great mix of cute shapes and words in some lush colours!

I picked my photo for this LO and decided to use some of the new Simple Stories Sn@p Basics paper because it matched the tree in the photo. I settled on the Elm/Cream Ledger paper and layered my photo over. I wanted to keep all my layouts pretty simple this month and focus on the embellishments. I know I’ve said above to keep things touching and you may be looking at this LO thinking, that tag and fern aren’t touching but they’re nice and close to the photo and tucked up tightly together which also makes a difference and keeps things together. The green tag is from the Maggie Holmes Bloom Rubber Shapes pack and I’ve used another rubber embellishment, the green ‘happ place’ banner is from the Pinkfresh Studio, Life Noted Rubber Charm Stickers pack and I’ll feature them further down the page. The ‘yes’ flair badge is from Fancy Pants Attwell and that’s a great pack of flair as well. My title uses the ‘always’ from Cocoa Vanilla Free Spirit and the ‘Auckland’ is Crate Paper Hello Love Tickers. The airplane and pointing finger chipboard stickers are both from the MAMBI Value Pack – Vacation sticker pack and there’s some great shapes in that pack, very usable. The fern shape I’ve used here is from a pack I got at a shop in New Zealand.

Here’s a close up to see the embellishments better.


 
We got a few new pieces from MAMBI last month and these awesome Clear Cocktail Stickers were among them. Now I am always after big night out type things and these are fabulous!

I’ve added a close up of the stickers I used cause they are great. They have glitter and gems on them, they are a little bit special!

 
I mentioned these Rubber Charm Stickers from Pinkfresh Studio, Life Noted above but here’s what the pack looks like. They are very usable stickers, I love those banner words so much and they’re quite cool phrases as well. You know how sometimes stickers are a bit too ‘best day ever’, I LOVE the blah, blah, blah banner, we could all use that one some days eh!

I didn’t mention before but all my LO’s this month are 9×12″. Studio Calico does this size albums & page protectors and I decided to give it a try. I LOVE this size! It’s just a touch bigger than 8.5×11″ but I like it better I think. I have bought an album this size for my LO’s but as I do with all page protectors, if I want to put a LO this size in my 12×12″ albums, I just add it in there. If the holes don’t like up with my binder, I just punch new ones. I put all size page protectors in my 12×12″ albums from 6×6″ right through to 12×12″ and pocket pages too. I like to mix it all up.
This LO is really simple. I found a 3×4″ card I wanted to use in the Pink Paislee Fancy Free line and trimmed it the same size as my photo. My title is made up using Thickers including the fabulous Dear Lizzy Happy Place Pink Thickers which I feature below. The ”so much fun’ sticker comes from another new sheet of clear stickers from MAMBI, Best Friends and there’s some fab stickers on that sheet too. I used some offcuts of the Illustrated Faith, She Blooms Clear Cuts Trasparency sheet because the colours in that sheet are so lush and vibrant and really matched my friend Claudia’s dress in this photo! I also used some of my very favourite paper ever, an old chevron pattern from Amy Tangerine. That pattern is so usable I have been hoarding some sheets forever and I hope someone brings out a similar pattern soon. My finishing touches include a flair badge from HLM, the #always, a rubber banner from the Pinkfresh Studio Rubber Charm Stickers pack and the ‘love you’ rubber banner from the Maggie Holmes Bloom pack which I talked about above.


 
There’s one more pack of rubber embellishments in the store at the moment, these ones are by Amy Tangerine, Better Together and they’re lush as well! I hope more manufacturers come out with rubber embellishments, they really do add a special touch to a layout. I know they are on the expensive side of things but they are so worth it. I always watch people when they’re looking through my albums and they would always reach out and touch certain embellishments, even through the page protector, rubber was definitely one of them. So I think they’re worth splashing out on for definite! This pack is great as well. It’s much better in real life and the pieces are very usable, I love the layering on them.

Now these Crate Paper, Hello Love, Epoxy Thickers are a bit late to the party. They didn’t arrive with the collection last year but they are here now and they’re so worth buying. The colours go with so much so you don’t need to be working with the Hello Love collection to use them. The words are fab and the shapes are ones that you can use on pretty much any LO, arrows and hearts always fit! These arrows are lush as well, I could use a whole pack just filled with the arrows everyday!

Another simple LO, I just layered up some papers under my photo. I started with a 6×6 sheet from Basic Grey, Urban Luxe because I thought the floral pattern matched the dress my friend Pippa is wearing in the photo. Then I used a couple of different sheets from the Fancy Pants, Attwell 6×6 Paper Pad. The fab puffy frame is from a new pack of puffy stickers from MAMBI, Love This Frame and then I’ve used the Dear Lizzy Pink Thickers again and an old Amy Tangerine word. The ‘simple moments’ rubber banner and XO circle are from Pinkfresh Studio, Life Noted and the ‘you + me’ heart, small heart and XO rubber are from the Amy Tangerine pack I featured above. The arrows are from the Hello Love Epoxy Thickers pack.

Here’s a close up to show the layering on the rubber embellishments.

And a close up of the fab puffy frame from MAMBI.

 
 

I’ve used these hot pink Thickers quite a bit this month so I have to feature them. They’re from Dear Lizzy, Happy Place and they’re so much better in real life! The colour is gorgeous and obviously, I liked using them for the word girls cause I’ve done it twice this month! They are an epoxy Thicker so they’ve got some texture to them and they’re nice and shiny. I liked them so much, I ordered a second pack!

My last featured product is these exclusive Flair Badges from Hey Little Magpie. You won’t find these babies anywhere else! I loved the #hastag ones so much, I bought the Whole Pack and saved myself some money. I am sure I’ll use the heck out of these and will no doubt be investing in another pack soon. You can buy them all individually if you would like to pick and choose which words you’d like too.

My last layout this month has a right mixture of papers on it. I layered up some offcuts I had on my desk and the put the whole lot on some really old turquoise corrugated card from Amy Tangerine.  I did use some papers from Illustrated Faith too. My title uses the amazing Dear Lizzy Thickers and then I popped that super cute ‘how sweet it is’ rubber banner from the Amy Tangerine, Better Together Rubber Shapes Pack under the title and put a couple of Enamel Hearts from Illustrated Faith on either side. The chipboard stickers are all from the MAMBI Instalove pack and I used the #awesome flair badge from my pack of HLM Set of Hastags pack.

A close up of the embellishments.

And another of that super cute banner from Amy Tangerine.

 
I enjoyed focusing on the embellishments this month, especially the rubber ones! I hope I’ve given you some ideas on making embellishments shine! I definitely think it’s worth investing in some special embellishments, they do give a LO that extra bit of sparkle!