Friday, October 2, 2009

Cosmo's Flueriste Comes Outta da Stash!


Too many ideas for the amount of time I have to scrap! This is one of those layouts that has been in my head for a year. The catalyst to finally get it scrapped was a word challenge at A Cherry On Top to use the word "book" in your layout.

This layout is about the very first time Abby brought a chapter book home from school to read. The teachers were doing their best to find challenging books that were age appropriate. Abby was so used to breezing through her reading assignments, and she was not happy about having to bring a chapter book home. She didn't have to read the entire book in one evening, but just the image of all those words on ONE page set her off. ;-)

She lay on the couch, this way and that. Feet up on the back, then on the side rest, squirming every which way. Because of this I chose to use my Hangin' Around owl chipboard shape by Magistical Memories in an upside down position.

Rather than paint this chipboard shape I chose to color almost the entire piece with heat embossing. I happened to have my embossing powder case set out from a previous project, so I figured "why not!". I used embossing ink markers to wet certain areas, sprinkled with chosen color, and heat set. For the branch I simply used Ranger Distress Stickles, and for the body I cut the patterned paper design sample off the Cosmo Cricket Fleuriste crafting kit packaging. It just seemed appropriate to have an alphabet covered owl for a layout about reading. The googly eyes by BoBunny were perfect - reminded me of Abby's eyes the day she brought a chapter book home, rolling her eyes, and asking, "Do I have to read all this!!?"


Again, since embossing powders were out I chose to heat emboss Cosmo's blackboard letters. I chose to emboss a lighter pink on top of a burgundy color. I used Making Memories glitter stickers for the word "chapter" and used my white Signo pen to create drop shadows.

I punched circles and placed along a border strip. On these smaller circles I wrote some key information so that Abby's achievement as an accelerated reader might be remembered through the years.

Cosmo Crickets journaling cards always offer ample room if you tend to write a lot, as I do. This one in particular was the perfect choice in creating a layout about reading a story.


To this day Abby loves to read, including chapter books. She loves Magic Treehouse and has recently discovered the fun in reading Junie B Jones. She is even using her wonderful imagination to write her very own stories, using a stapler to make a "book". I am quite impressed with her story writing and ideas already - I really do think this little girl of ours is going to have a story that continues on, and on, and on...