Mondays with May in May!

I so often wish that I had more vintage trinkets that I could bear to craft with. Often things are either too expensive or too precious to part with on a paper craft project. You can imagine my delight when I came across the French General line of embellishments and papers at the last CHA show – I was over the moon!

I’ve long been a fan of Kaari Meng and her exquisite Los Angeles shop – but when it comes to paper crafting her wares are just too expensive to justify for a scrapbook page! So this line brings together my love of French General and my love of scrapbooking with special bits and pieces. I knew I had to feature this line here in my final installment of Mondays with May (in May)!

I love that every bit of the product, down to the packaging, is useful to my crafting. To get myself warmed up I’ve started by making a card.

I envision making lots of cards like this and sending them to my friends – designing them so that elements can be removed from the card and re-used on their own craft projects.

I took the packaging sheet and tore it down to card size, then mounted it on a blank (4 ¼ x 5 ½) card. I used a favorite Parisian Tim Holtz background stamp and some watermark ink, along with some sunflower sparkle perfect pearls to add another layer of sparkle and text. In the right light the pearls sure do shine!

Supplies used:

I really love the creative challenge of making cards that could be re-used on future projects – and I think my French General stash will be perfect for that!

I’ve got to sneak a second project in here – and work in some ephemera too! Above you see a napkin that I adhered to wonder tape and then onto my layout – gotta say I love sheets of wonder tape for this kind of ephemera rich layout – almost as much as I loved using French General for it!

For my first ever layout with French General, scrapbooking a visit to a macaroon shop (that was established in Paris in the 1800s!) seemed the perfect choice! My photos are smaller than usual – they were iPhone pictures and printing at a smaller size just helped with the quality in this instance.

Each piece of this line is so lovely – and each piece will also work splendidly in a number of ways. The tags and the (adhesive backed) strips have to be my favorites. When I’m not dazzled by the cameos and jewels, that is!

Supplies:

Sometimes a favorite to look at isn’t always the easiest to work with – I’m thrilled with how easily I can incorporate the bits and pieces of the line into my own crafting, and I love it all right down to the packaging (which I’ve used again in this layout, as you can see).

While the projects I’m creating here feature mostly French General, I believe I will most use this line to accent my projects. I love that while it is so very unique, it also lends itself to working with many of my favorite brands and lines of product. I also appreciate that the designs are timeless, vintage inspired, and will be useful for many years to come.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at one of my favorite lines of 2012, as well as my guest series here at Simon Says Stamp. I’ve had a great time sharing with you all! For more of my creations, and for more info on my new (free) on-line class Camp Scrap coming to my blog in just two weeks, come visit me at www.mayflaum.com

 
Congrats to weekend blog candy winners!
From: A Sparkle Birthday with Lisa Spangler:  Message Keeper!
From: 3 New Collections from Bo Bunny: Maureen Chandler!
From: La La Land Crafts Dies: Frozenstamper!

Please email Steph@SimonSaysStamp.com with the name and link to the blog you won from!