I Work in my Pajamas

You guys know that I craft for a "living," right?
One of the perks of this, is that every day is Casual Friday.

Don't be fooled by the photo.
I had to mock it up for an assignment.
Reality would have me sitting in the giant pile of crap--I had to scoot that aside for this photo. My hair would be in a pony-tail, shower optional.
But you get the idea, right?
The beauty of making my own schedule and stuff?
Having product shipped right to my door?
The only better job would be a mattress tester.
"Could you just nap on this every day for a week, and tell us what you think."
Dream. Job.
Which ironically would also require me to be in my pajamas.
For work.

Anywho.
I was recently contacted by Scrapbook Steals.
They wanted me to take a couple of scrapbook kits off of their hands, and make some stuff for them using the kits.
Yes, please.
Then, I got two fantabulously gorgeous kits from My Mind's Eye.
Both kits were from a collection called "Follow Your Heart."
I am not accustomed to working with kits.
Well, let me tell you what, the projects practically made themselves. Everything matched. Everything coordinated. Everything was easy. It sort-of felt like cheating.
I am sold on kits.
You can see the projects I made over on their blog, and if you act quickly (because I understand the stuff over there sells out fast) you can snag yourself a kit or two.
Scrapbook Steals is one of those "we have 100 kits, and when they are gone, they are gone" sites.
Here is the link:
SCRAPBOOK STEALS
But come back, cause I want to show you some other stuff.
I wanted to show you how easy it was to make a layout that looks like it took a long time, but really didn't.
Like when you make cookies using a mix.
Here was what the paper looked like right from the kit:

That shape is a big trend in scrapbooking right now.
I call it "chicken wire."
That shape has a name, but I am not 100 percent sure what it is.
I would say hexagon, but there is also a pentagram or pentagon or something. Remember I am a failure at math, and that would include geometry.
I did not master the shape-sorter as a child either.
It seemed like a lot of work, with little-to-no end satisfaction.
Like Golf.
I was more of a Cheerios-eater.

So, chicken wire it is!
I was inspired by the chicken wire. I chose to cut it up, and make mini-frames from it.
So I randomly selected areas to cut away.

Then I mounted the cut paper, with pop-dots onto a sheet of neutral patterned paper from the kit.
In some of the empty spaces I added photos.
The adhesive went down first.

Then the photo. I used wallet sized photos, and cut them down with my Exacto Knife if they stuck out of the side of the paper.

After the photos were added, I filled in spaces with a quote, added a title, and then embellished the whole thing using stuff from the kit.

These scraps were left-over when I cut them from the paper. I punched hearts out of them, and added the hearts to the layout. I am very frugal. It is my pioneer heritage.
In fact, I used only two pieces of paper from the kit for this whole layout.
The background, and the chicken-wire.
You can click on the layout to see it better.
It is a simple layout, but it looks like it took a long time.
In actual time, it took me about five songs on Pandora.

Here is a close-up to show the dimension of the chicken-wire raised up off of the background page.

Here is another layout that I whipped up in very little time too.
The background paper already had most of the elements printed on it. I just added to it with stuff from the kit.

Seriously easy.
You can pop over to Scrapbook Steals and see the other things I made with the kit.
Thanks, Scrapbook Steals, for having me!

In other news, I made some cards for another assignment.
One of them was this one:

Cute, yes?
Here is the back of this card:

Let me take you in closer:

Yes, that is machine stitching.
I sewed the damn thing shut when I was stitching the border.
I am not always awesome.