Two things got me through the unusually cold winter that we experienced over the past few months: scrapbooking, and my book of recipes which includes all of our favorite hot soups, stews and chilies.

Jillibean Soup, which I discovered in early January, combines these two loves of mine.  Their wonderfully broad line of coordinating products include everything you need to cook up a fabulous layout or paper project including beautiful papers, ribbons and trims, buttons, acrylic stamps, alphabet stickers and journaling spots.

One of my favorite Jillibean Soup products is their “Soup Staples” papers.  These basic papers include a polka-dot pattern on one side, and a tight graph/check pattern in the same color on the reverse. These staple papers coordinate with all the other Jillibean Soup paper collections, or work beautifully on their own.

In the example layout I created below, I used the “Soup Staples” paper in red, and paired it with the 12×12 Kraft paper that Jillibean Soup also offers.

Tips:

• I had scraps of Jillibean Soup papers left over from another project.  Since all of their papers work so perfectly together, I used my QuicKutz to cut some flower circles to accent the side of the layout.
• I used my Heidi Swapp distresser to rough up the edges of the Kraft paper, but the sharp edge of a pair of scissors does the job just as well (be careful not to distress your fingers though!)
• I layered two of the Jillibean Soup “Journaling Sprouts” to get the perfect look.
• I stamped directly on the Kraft paper with Colorbox Cat’s Eye chalk ink, and the resulting images were bright and colorful!

Supplies used:
Paper: Jillibean Soup “Soup Staples: Red Sugar, Olive Sugar, Green Stock” “Lentil Soup: Vegetable Broth,” “Alphabet Soup: Alphabet Pasta”; Journaling Spots: Jillibean Soup “Journaling Sprouts”; Adhesive: Beacon “Zip-Dry”, Tombow “Mono”; Die-Cuts: QuicKutz Revolution, “Nesting Flowers” dies; Stamps: Technique Tuesday “Big Timber Line,” Hot Off The Press “Flights of Fancy (heart),” Stampendous “Perfectly Clear Brackets (small flower)”; Embellishments:  Heidi Swapp Ghost Symbols; Stickers: Making Memories “Tiny Alphas,” American Crafts “Thickers”

For more inspiration using Jillibean Soup products, be sure to check out the March/April issue of Scrap n’ Art Magazine, available now!

Anyone who has a little boy, nephew, or even a younger brother has seen him in “Super Hero” mode – pillow case safety-pinned underneath his chin, running around the living room in his Spider Man pajama pants, on a desperate quest to rid the world of evil.  Heck, even a few of us girls may have donned that pillow case a time or two!

Rusty Pickle’s “Shazaam” line celebrates the Super Hero in all of us.  These brightly colored papers and embellishments, reminiscent of all those colorful comic book heroes and heroines, are bold, bright, and perfect for documenting photos of your littlest crime-fighter.

Being the “out-of-the-box” scrapper that I am, I immediately started thinking of additional ways to use this exciting line.  As I was going through my photo box, looking for pictures to use with the Shazaam products, I found one of my favorite photos of my husband and me.  As I looked at it, I thought of how amazing he is, and how he rescued me from a broken heart when we first met.  Naturally, I knew right then the page I was going to create.

Tips:

• I wanted the photo to really stand out against the super-bright paper I matted it with, so I used an American Crafts Bold Slick Writer to scribble a black border around the photo.
• For added color, and to maximize the comic book effect, I used two sheets of paper for the background.  I ripped the top sheet of green dotted paper at an angle, and simply adhered it on top of the blue star paper.
• I wanted the “Kabooom!!!” burst to literally pop out from the page (just like in comic book art) so I used foam adhesive dots behind it to raise it off the page.

Supplies Used:
Paper: Rusty Pickle “Shazaam: Take That, Super Hero, Flamin’ Hot, My Hero”; Die-Cuts: Rust Pickle “Shazaam: Shazaam Tags, Cardstock Coupons”; Chipboard: Rusty Pickle “Wrong Turn Chipboard”; Adhesive: Beacon “Zip Dry,” Martha Stewart Crafts “Foam Adhesive Squares”; Ink: Colorbox “Cat’s Eye Chalk Ink: Charcoal”; Pen: American Crafts “Slick Writer Bold Black”