crazy cousins

Echo Park recently sponsored a contest using their super cute new "A Boy's Life" collection.  Since I had recently purchased this collection from ScrapbookSteals.com and because I had a long weekend, I decided to play along.  This is what I came up with:

 Ever since I created a quilt inspired layout a few weeks back, I'd been thinking of using the same diamond shapes to create my own argyle pattern.  It was a bit intimidating at first, but it turned out to be easier than I thought.  I started by cutting several diamonds with my cricut. In addition to the patterned paper, I also cut some plain ones out of scrap cardstock.  They were useful in creating my pattern.  I lined up the patterned pieces using the plain scrap diamonds as "filler" to help me keep my spacing correct.  Once I had the pp glued down, I removed the plain ones and reset them again, this time using them as guides so that I could draw out my lines for stitching.  Once I had my stitching lines penciled it, I pierced the paper at every corner and started  hand stitching my lines.  I originally started stitching with a dark gray embroidery floss that I found in my stash.  Apparently, I'm not very good at estimating how much floss I'll need, because about half way through my stitching, I ran out of that color of floss.  Back to the drawing board for me.  I cut out all of my aforementioned stitching and grabbed some gray and white twine, which I was sure to have plenty of.  I stitched over the entire pattern and then glued on the mini buttons just for fun.  I loved the way the argyle pattern turned out, and I was even more excited when I learned that I was chosen by Echo Park as one of three winners for this contest.  I had been keeping an eye on the competition all weekend, and there were some super talented ladies who made some beautiful projects, inspiring me even further to create more with this collection.  As a momma of boys, I'm obviously in love with boy themed collections, but I really think these papers are versatile and useful for all kinds of projects.  Now I can't wait to receive my prize from Echo Park.  Since I won the contest, I was lucky enough to win a collection kit of my choice so I went for their new This & That Charming collection, another great group of "boy papers" that I will surely put to good use!