My Mind's Eye Mini Album by Craft Warehouse Design Team Member Amanda De Jong

Hello there! I'm Amanda De Jong with the Craft Warehouse Design Team and I am so excited to be sharing a couple projects with you today! I had the opportunity to create with the My Minds Eye Market Street collection, a mix of Nob Hill and Ashbury Heights, and when I was going over all the product I thought the best way to highlight all the bold patterns and embellishments would be through a mini album.

I absolutely love the touches of gold in these collections. So much so that I wanted to bring even more gold in to my album, but in a more subtle way. One of my favorite things to do with mist is to create a simple watercolor effect on my background paper.

I spray and/or tap my mist on to my nonstick craft mat, spray it with water, then lay my paper over this mist and press down. I especially love doing this with gold spray as you get this gorgeous shimmery watercolor look that is subtle but adds shine. You can do this with a mix of colors as well. Play with different concentrations of mist and water and see how they turn out, it's different every time!

Once my misted papers were dry I cut them down to 4x6 sheets along with several of the Ashbury Heights papers I knew I wanted to use. I quickly went through and lightly tacked my photos down where I wanted them to get my pages in order and ready to punch the holes for my rings.

After that it was a matter of adding more accents of the patterned papers and many of my favorite pieces from the chipboard and die cuts in the collection! We had a huge snowstorm in February that was out of the norm for us. We were used to the occasional inch of snow, so when we were snowed in for 3 days and reached nearly 9 inches it was a pretty exciting and fun time for us! This mini was the perfect way to document that.

When I was done with my album and looking over the pieces of the collection I still had left, my eyes kept falling on the globe chipboard piece from Nob Hill. I knew I wanted to create a layout with that as a focal point. I decided to use my Cameo to cut a design directly on to my background paper so I planned the layout in Studio so I could see where I needed to cut. It comes in handy when you can pull in your photo and build around it, there's no guessing game!

I chose these flags and offset them so that I would just get a peek of the paper behind them.

I did end up changing up the placement of the globe, I love it front and center! And decided not to cut out flags on the photo itself. That's the beauty of pulling a photo in to Studio. You know exactly how it's going to turn out!

So there you have it! I hope you've enjoyed my projects and are inspired to go create! Thanks for looking!

~Amanda

Mini Album Supplies: White Cardstock, Twine, Enamel Dots, Mr Huey Gold, Mint Julep and Opaque White Mists, My Minds Eye Ashbury Heights 12x12 Paper, Label Stickers and Flair Pins, My Minds Eye Nob Hill Chipboard Elements, Washi Tape and Foil Mixed Bag Die Cuts
Layout Supplies: My Minds Eye Ashbury Heights 12x12 Paper and Label Stickers, My Minds Eye Nob Hill Chipboard Elements, Washi and Foil Mixed Bag Die Cuts, White Cardstock, Enamel Dots, "Flags" Hero Arts, Design ID:  #48372 cut file from Silhouette