Paper Made Bakery: April Kit Reveal + Blog Hop + Giveaways!

The Hop:

Welcome to Paper Made Bakery's April release blog hop! If you've just arrived from Ryann's site, then you came to the right place. If you would like to start from the beginning, please hop on over to Paper Made Bakery's blog. If you are lost, this the blog hop order:

Paper Made Bakery

Stephanie

Savannah

Ryann

Michelle (←you are here)

Lisa

Ashley

The Reveal:

I've always wanted to make a layout using a Paper Made Bakery Kit. Even though this kit is designed to make 10+ cards, I thought it would be easy to utilize it for a layout, and it was. The only thing I added besides the usual ink pads for stamping was a piece of 12 x 12" cardstock for my base and my photos. The 6 x 6" Lawn Fawn Petite Paper Pad was perfect. There are 36 sheets of 12 different patterns in one pad so I had a lot of fun colors and patterns to choose from. If I was shopping à la carte, I'd never buy the entire collection nor have 12 different designs to use for a single paged layout. I ended up really liking the use of a petite paper pad for a layout. 

Layout from April's Fresh Baked Kit

The Kit:

April's Fresh Baked Kit is entitled, "A Walk on the Bright Side" and contains many fun elements from Lawn Fawn including their "you've got mail" stamp set, bright side paper pad and natural hemp cord. I've always thought Lawn Fawn stamps were especially cute and I am so excited to work with their products this month. The embellishment pack that is included in the kit has been upgraded and contains more pieces than in past kits. I made 4 projects already and I still have a large pile of embellishments left.

April's Fresh Baked Kit

The Details:

I actually received my kit and my Silhouette Cameo at my hotel in San Diego, where I made my 4 projects, otherwise I couldn't have finished in time for this hop. Thanks Shannon. While in SD, I had the best sushi ever at Sushi on the Rock in La Jolla Village. The head chef, Robert Cassidy, was one of my husband's original volleyball players from 1995, and he created custom dishes just for us like the one pictured below. 

Sushi on the Rock

During dinner I kept looking at the design of the sushi bar in front of me. There were thin slices of bamboo embedded in resin and I thought that would make a really cool background for a layout.

Silhouette Pieces

Back at the hotel, I cut some concentric circles to make the rings. It hardly used any paper as you can see above. I also cut the title twice, once in my main color and another time slightly larger and welded together in white as an outline. This was the first time I used a Silhouette and it was really easy. I just drew circles in the program and used my existing font, so I didn't even buy any elements from the store. 

Title and Background Circles

I really liked cutting out my title and gluing the letters on a background piece. I could move whole words around until I had a placement I liked. I normally use sticker letters, and just hope that I calculated correctly and that the letters fit in the space I allotted. If not, I have to carefull peel up each letter.

The Journaling

I finished things up by using the stamp set. I stamped a post card with the matching details for my journaling. I stamped some circular cancelation stamps and interspersed those within my background circles. I tried some new things with this layout and really liked how it turned out. I've never used a 6 x 6" pad for a 12 x 12" layout before, nor the Silhouette and I associate stamps with cards instead of layouts. I encourage you to try new things too, you just might surprise yourself. If you are interested in purchasing a Silhouette, just email Shannon from PMB at papermadebakery@gmail.com. 

The Giveaway:

As a way to say thanks for participating in today's blog hop, Paper Made Bakery is giving two prizes to two lucky participants. Here are the different ways you can win:

1. Comment on each blog, the more you comment, the better chance of winning!  

2. Share this hop on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or in an email.  

3. Comment on PMB's Facebook wall. 

A winner will be announced on PMB's blog on April 4, 2012.

Good luck to all! Your next stop is Lisa's blog. Remember there are daily inspiration projects and tutorials on the PMB's blog all month long. 

Thanks for hoppin' by,