The Last of the the July Kit

If the number of layouts and projects I manage out of a single kit is any indication of how much I love a kit, then I clearly adored the July Inspire Me kit from my LSS. Of course, it was filled with one of my favorite manufacturers - Cosmo Cricket. Today is club day, so here are the final bits I put together. First, the layout. I totally love this layout with one small exception. That being the adhesive. BLEH!!! I am entirely out of dry adhesive. All I had left was a bottle Fiskars clear gel adhesive. I don't have anything against liquid glues. They are great for a myriad of projects. Layouts, however, are not one of them. It seriously warped like crazy as it dried. I ended up tucking it under a couple of heavy books and that helped some. It will eventually go flat once it's in the album, but for now, it's all wavy. Most annoying! Aside from that, however, I adore it. It's all about my favorite girl. These are pictures from 4th of July weekend. She was sitting and coloring at one end of the table while I scrapped on the other.



One of the things that was included in the kit was a set of die cuts. I used a few on the She Adores Him page, but I pretty much had the whole sheet left. I was blog hopping a couple of weeks ago and came across a blog that showed a cute little book done with left over chipboard frames. Inspiration struck. I've been wanting to do an acrylic book and I knew this would be perfect. I stopped by the LSS for a sheet of Clear Scraps clear acrylic and went to town with it on the Accu-Cut with the Tags die. I ended up with a great handful of clear tags ready to go.

The book was not without it's struggles, however. First off, the die cuts were only printed on one side. Very typical for die cuts, not terribly great for acrylic books. Secondly, my beloved KI Gloo failed me. I've never had a problem with KI Gloo and acrylics until this project. I could not get it to dry. It showed through the acrylic, oozed everywhere and was generally a mess. I was frustrated and ready to call the project a loss, even before I took the sneak peak pictures. I decided that a few embellishments and maybe some paint sponged on in key areas would do the trick. I took photos and zipped a mail off to a girl on one of the message boards (never got a reply from her though). I knew I would need a couple of tags to replace two that were just completely beyond repair, so I stopped by the LSS and picked up another sheet of Clear Scraps (her last one!) and cut a few replacement tags, plus some scalloped circles for a future project. While I was there, Shanel turned me on to Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue and loaned me a bottle to try. (I just realized I left this at home even though I swore to return it to her today!) Fabulous stuff! Stinks like crazy but it holds! And even better, it DRIES! Here's a close up of one tag, showing how you can see through to the others -



Even with the new glue, I still had the problem of lots of white showing through the tags. However, since KI Gloo failed me, I was able to salvage 80% of what I'd done. I gently pried the die cuts and photos off the tags, backed them with patterned paper from the kit and then glued them back on. Some were well enough covered that an application of some BasicGrey swirl heart rubons did the trick. Others just needed a little embellishing with buttons and those green flowers that were originally on the She Adores Him layout. A few tags were unsalvageable and I pulled out the spare wallet photos and redid those. Thank goodness you get two wallet photos! I usually stash the spares away for later projects, but this time I needed them. A Creative Cafe binder ring and white and that same ribbon from the Socks layout, plus a bit of black and white ribbon from my stash completed the project. I LOVE it!! Here's the finished tags -