One of the elements that had caught my eye during the year at my local scrapbook store was the Planner Essentials dies collection from Elizabeth Craft Design. I loved the variety of designs available but I'm not into planners, so I had brushed it aside. I later started thinking that instead of doing planner pages, I could use the die collection and use them to make a mini scrapbooking album. That idea had more appeal to me and I kept that on the back of my mind, trying to figure out how that would work. When my birthday rolled around, I was able to go back to the store and benefit from a very generous 25% off my purchases that day, so I looked at the planner dies that were in stock and selected three kits plus a planner binder (champagne and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the inside is Tiffany blue). I got home and it was the first thing I was excited to try out. I quickly realized that the pages are very narrow and can't accomodate a standard picture. Hmm... That one is on me, I got excited and didn't do my research properly. So I put the binder aside and since I had my picture and papers selected, I reverted to making a full-size page.
Today, I revisited my planner album idea with a smaller picture. I was given a picture of my niece's kindergarten graduation, but since the parents get an assorted size pack, the parents and grandparents got the bigger size and I got a wallet-size picture. I don't mind, my sister knows I'm equipped to scan it and print myself a bigger size if I want to - which I would have needed to do if I had wanted to make a full 12" x 12" page as the wallet size would have looked ridiculously small on it. On the mini album, page, though, it works very nicely. The new School Days collection from Doodlebug Design was also perfect.
This page is very simple. I die-cut the page itself out of the Spelling Bee paper and I cut a ruler strip out of the Good Measure paper and ran it with the die again to make a border where the holes are. I die-cut the owl image from the Color Me Happy cut-apart page and added Glossy Accent over the glasses. At the top, I placed an Essentials wood accent and added an apple Icons sticker over it. The journaling block was die-cut out of Limeade Gingham-Linen Petite Prints paper. I've said before that one of my struggle with the Doodlebug Design is that they are very busy (über cute, but also über packed). A year or two ago, I invested in a couple packs of Petite Prints papers (Milk & Cookies and Booville). I realized that Doodlebug sticks to a specific colour palette for all of their collections, so it doesn't matter all that much which Petite Prints pack you select, as chances are, you'll be able to mix them with a lot of other paper collections. That's a good example here, since I picked a green paper from a Christmas Petite Prints collection and worked it into my school-theme page. It should also be noted that the die I used it part of the Ornate Frames collection from Stampin' Up! It's hidden in the Halloween section, which is too bad in the sense that I think it will be overlooked by a lot of crafters who don't do Halloween. The tag shapes are different and versatile. There's eleven in there and the variety of sizes and shapes is great. Worth a look... (p. 53 of the 2019 Holidays Catalogue)
The picture was matted with Blue Obsidian mirror cardstock from Tonic and added to the page, and I finished it off with a few more Icons stickers. I spaced out and purchased two of the same sticker sheets without meaning to, so I decided to make the best of it and this has given me the freedom to use the stickers liberally. Either way, I know my niece will be more than happy to get the second sheet if I don't use them all myself. Case in point, when she came over to craft last weekend, she spotted the Doodlebug Stickers in my supplies (the school ones and the travel ones) and mentioned how cute she thought they were. She's all over Doodlebug stuff. No surprise there, with the cutesy patterns and colorful designs.
Supplies
Mirror Cardstock: Blue Obsidian (Tonic)
Patterned Papers: School Days, Milk & Cookies Petite Prints Paper Pack (Doodlebug Design)
Icons Stickers: School Days (Doodlebug Design)
Dies: Planner Essentials 12 (Elizabeth Craft Designs); Ornate Frames Dies (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories: Essential Wooden Shapes (Stampin' Up!); Glossy Accents (Ranger)
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