Cosmo Cricket Layouts

Sometime last year I purchased a Cosmo Cricket 8x8 kit from QVC. This thing came chock-full of yummy Cosmo goodness...papers, embellishments, ribbon, chipboard pieces and stuff to make little books, frames, and wall hangings. The brochure that came with the kit sure does sum it up, "You know you're an artist if: inspiration comes in a 9,000 piece kit." Yes, it is a huge kit!

So anyway, I've filled one of the two albums that came with it so far and I thought I'd share a few of my favorite layouts.

I love absolutely every piece that came with this kit so the fact that the papers are double-sided worried me. But then I came up with a solution: I just made double-sided layouts! Wherever there were items like brads poking through I just made sure to embellish in that spot. I got quite creative at times but it was fun! So, each of the 4 layouts I'm going to show you are actually only on 2 sheets of paper.

This first layout showcases one of the last pics I have of an at-the-time increasingly rarer event (and which has disappeared altogether *sigh*): the tandem afternoon nap. A nice, simple layout but in my opinion supremely beautiful because you don't need a lot of embellishment when you start out with such rich supplies. I thought my inking of the ric rac was a cute touch.

On the back of that layout is this one entitled "Toes!" This documents our first family pedicure - an yes, the blue toes belong to my son, to my husband's chagrin. I got quite "fussy" cutting some of the flowered paper. Many of the flowers have seed bead centers. The letters in "Toes!" are covered with Ranger Crackle Medium which I thought was befitting of the aged look of the papers.

This next layout documents my son's penchant for unique food pairings which he got from me. (I love me an onion bagel with strawberry jam, among other oddities.) Here he's eating an american cheese slice with Redi Whip on it. Oh, no, this was not a one-time experiment. He loves this combination. (OK, even I say that one's a bit weird!)

May 2011 issue

Finally, on the flip side is this layout entitled, "Old Guys Are Brown". This is another story that my husband isn't too fond of. (But, aren't those the best stories? The ones you will forget if left undocumented but the ones that will be the most appreciated later?) The long and short of it is, my husband is really tan, I'm really fair. My son is light like me (but tans, thankfully) and my daughter is lightly olive skinned, but apparently still qualifies for "pink" in my son's eyes. This is an excerpt from a conversation I overheard between the two of them one day in the car. They were discussing how they were dressed alike, had the same eye and hair color, etc. Then my son finally said, "You are pink. I am pink. Mom is pink. Dad is brown. Old guys are brown." That still makes me laugh out loud every time I read it.

I covered the letters in "brown" in Crackle Medium, also. I thought it was befitting of something old and brown. (Oh, I hope my husband isn't reading this! Tee hee!) The swoosh is covered with coordinating seed beads, which I think looks pretty cool.

Details: Paper - All items Cosmo Cricket unless otherwise noted: The Paper Co. paper, Heidi Swapp tape; Stamps - Stampin' Up!, Sassafras Lass, Autumn Leaves; SU! ink; SEI and unknown brads; Zig Milennium pen; seed beads; foam squares.

Well, thanks for putting up with this long post. I figured no point in not showing off some of the "older" stuff just because I didn't create it the day I was posting!

TFL!!

Heidi