She Can Sleep Anywhere - Start to Finish

We are now focusing on stamps in The Curious Scrapbooker's Field Guide. I am loving this! I love stamps. I buy them all the time. I have a special shelf for them. They make me smile. But, you know what? I never use them. Why? I am not totally sure. For one, I think I forget about them until too late in my project. Also, I am not much of a card maker, I am more of a layout person. And for some reason, the amount of planning it seems to take me to incorporate a stamped image just isn't worth it. But, this week I am changing that! Change is good. So, let's get to it shall we?


I have grabbed my new Miss Caroline collection from My Mind's Eye. So pretty:

I have been eyeing the new file tab punch from Jenni Bowlin and it dawned on me recently that I have a file folder die cut! Surely I can use this in the same manner. So, I cut some strips to lay across and run through my sizzix:

Well, lookey there... file tabs! Yeah!

Now for that stamping. I love these doily stamps. Even searched high and low for them on ebay. Let's give them a whirl:

Oh, lookey there. It appears the one and only time I have ever used this stamp before, I used red. Oh, well... it'll work :)

Working on a nice background and foundation for the layering of the file tabs:

Oh, I am having fun!

Let the layering begin!

I layer, stitch, layer, stitch, layer, stitch:

Now for some embellishments. I would really like to try altering some chipboard as shown in the latest video from Glitter Girl - she made it look so fun! I grab an assortment from my stash:

Out comes some tape:

Well, that's kinda fun. But, not sure where to go from here:

Perhaps I should do some more stamping, then punching:

Kraft doily found, now I am playing with the layering:

Hmmmm, not so much. It is starting to look a bit too vintage for my taste:

Shuffling:

Now, at the risk of overloading this post with pictures (I have about 10 more showing my shuffling of bits), I will now admit - I am stuck. Totally stuck. Perhaps a night's sleep and an early morning trip to the craft store will do the trick...

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Ok, back to the studio. I have returned with a super cute Jenni Bowlin birdie punch - hooray for coupons! Will this be the inspiration I need to finish the layout?

I don't know yet. But, what I do know is that I want to stamp some dots around to give the page some movement. Think faux confetti. To the pencil eraser I go:

Oh, fun - let's do some more of that!

I like it! But, I still feel a bit stuck.... drat!

Maybe working on the title will propel my creativity forward a bit. I think it needs a place to land, so, back to the sizzix I go to cut some labels:

Pretty, but too small: grrrr...

Ah, there we have it:

Oh my, I reach for my letters and find this. I suppose this is what happens when I'm stuck and too many supplies are pulled, then rejected. Moving on...

I did manage to find the letters in that mess:

I am happy with the title, so lets play with some birds:

Oh, they are just not right...

Forget the birds. They will be fabulous on some other project. Back to the butterfly. I like that. But, I still feel like this is lacking something:

I reach for a chipboard sticker sheet and like the circles. But, I only have one left. It makes it on the page. Then, to create more circles, I cut around the outline from the chipboard sheet. OOOH FUN!

Now to stamp the date with my new Dear Lizzy stamp:

There we go:

Journaling:

And, done. Finally!

Despite my struggles, I am super pleased with how this came out. I had some words with the chipboard elements and as you can see, most of those did not make the final cut. So sorry, Glitter Girl. However, I do believe in forgiveness, so they have been set aside for another project. Do you get stuck mid-layout? How do you forge ahead to the finished project?