Lobster Night & Giveaway Winner!!

Sometimes, being a student sucks. It's right about finals seasons right now, which means that my life and energy are slowly getting sucked up by school. BUT there are definitely times that I love being a student. Like... when there's Lobster Night at the dining hall, for example. Yeah, I really love being a student at times like that..

You might ask, "they have lobster at dining halls?" Well... they have lobster at THE BEST dining halls ;) Sorry, is that too much obnoxious school pride?

Lobster Night was kind of like a party... an amazingly delicious food party. So I thought banners were appropriate - they make the page seem like a party, right? Hehe.

Oh, how I love lobster. And beautiful pennants. I used papers from Crate Paper's The Pier collection.

Just look at all those fun layers! I popped some edges up with foam tape for more dimension.

So there it is, a quick layout about student life - which fits in perfectly with last week's Paperclipping Roundtable episode about "Scrapbooking Uni" :)

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And last off today, let's announce the winner from last week's giveaway!! I took a random number including both Instagram comments and blog comments, and got the number 32, which is:

@hodgepodge200 !! 

Congrats!! :) I contacted you on Instagram so that you can send me your address.

Thanks to everyone who participated - this was my first [relatively successful] giveaway haha, and it was fun! I'll be sure to do more in the future so make sure to keep posted :)

Banners and such

Today I’ll be talking all about banners! These things are such a great design element, and without meaning to, I did THREE layouts these past few days, all using banners.

My first layout is inspired by one done by WaiSam Ho about a month ago. Honestly, I was having a hard time on this layout - I had just gotten home from a week long Thanksgiving vacation in Texas, and hadn't crafted in a whole week! And then, out of nowhere, I thought of Sam’s layout because I had loved the design of it so much - talk about a lasting impression!

I just absolutely love how the title takes center stage (especially with these gorgeous, bold and graphic thickers).

And I got to play with all sorts of fun banner goodness at the top and botton.

I cut up one of the journaling cards from my last set of printables to make a banner shape, and then cut out the other flowers from the bottom of the card to use as an embellishment elsewhere. That’s a great thing about printables – you can feel free to cut and manipulate them because you can always just print another if it goes wrong!!

I’m currently making my way through Art Class 1 with Wilna, and am absolutely loving it. There’s a whole chapter on washi and glitter, and one of the ideas is to make a washi banner.

Though I don’t have a huge stash of washi, these banners don’t need much so I could really make a THOUSAND of these banners and still have washi left over!! It’s such a great way to make a statement with minimal supplies.

Still absolutely loving (and actually using) these resin flowers. They were a bit of a splurge (for me), but totally worth it. They are gorgeous. I think I may need to treat myself to some more ;)

My last layout also has a washi banner, but on the vertical.

If you didn’t know, Silhouette America is having a great sale, and it seems all their shapes are 50% off. I downloaded a few, including this intricate background. I love designing my own SVGs, but with something this intense, sometimes it’s just more worth it to spend 50 cents, haha!

In the end, though, it ended up being too distracting for the background layer – but a thin layer of white paint muted it a bit and fixed it right up!

I love that you still get lots of texture from that die cut. And it’s just appropriate to use my Cameo on a layout that’s about getting my Cameo ;)

I'm also really loving making washi bows right now - what can I say, I'm just going washi crazy these days!! You can't blame me when they're so cute and versatile! :)

Have you made any layouts lately with banners? Give it a try, because it’s an easy way to make a really fun layout! Share with me if you do :)

Oh, and before I leave, I just wanted to share a picture from when I was in Texas. Just because I really like it and I'm missing that Texan sunshine. ;D You might have seen it if you follow me on Instagram.

I wish it was sunny and warm like this in Boston... Have a great week! xx