Echo Park: Dinosaur Adventure Mini Collection

Nat here to start off the week with some layouts I made with the Echo Park "Dinosaur Adventure" mini collection.  I love collection packs for the obvious reason: there is no fuss or stress with matching patterned papers. These are great for "one-stop" creative planning if you are in the mood to power through and get a lot of layouts and projects done.

Let me share some tips on the method of my madness.

• I don't put a lot of focus on the actual content and/or pictures I will be scrapbooking when I am "power scrapping" with a collection pack. A collection like this was perfect for some zoo pictures and some misc pictures I had on hand. Of course, if the collection pack was truly themed (holiday, birthday, etc), I would pick pictures accordingly.
• I lay out a patterned paper that has all (or most) of the colors represented in the collection.  Some collections you may pull colors from 2-3 sheets; a mini collection is limited on papers so 1 generally does the job.  From my stash, I pull about 5-7 pieces of cardstock (more if you have a larger collection kit) that coordinate with the colors in the collection. These will generally be my base pages/photo mats. If you want to "power scrap" try not to use a full 12x12 patterned paper as a base page….especially in a mini collection. It's a little easier to do in a fuller collection.

• Collection packs generally come with a sticker sheet and/or other coordinating embellishments. To make the collection go further, I raid my stash and pull some other pieces that will build on to the collection.  Some great ideas include wood veneers, label stickers for journaling, letter stickers, enamel dots, and basic ephemera. 

Now let's get started on how this layout came together.

I started by cutting a 10 1/2" square away from the center of the orange cardstock.  Why did I do that? It's a great way to preserve paper that you won't even see in the finished layout and use it as photo mats.  You can go through all of the math and get everything centered and draw a square and trim it out. OR you can do like I did and cut everything using your Silhouette or comparable die cut machine. I'm lazy.

it's like magic. smart magic.

After I cut the square out of the orange, I layered a 11 3/4" square piece of brown cardstock on top. I cut some photo mats and cropped my pictures accordingly.

you would have never known there was a huge cut out behind that brown cardstock.

I cut some strips of patterned paper and placed on the base page. Don't stress. Just cut and glue scrappers. Cut.and.Glue.

I started building the page using a cut out journal "pocket card", some golden punched circles, a paper clip with some twine tied in a bow, some golden enamel dots and a kraft journal strip.

I wanted a little more texture on my page, so I used to Scor Tape to adhere some orange rick rak.
From the collection, I pop dotted 2 of the palm tree stickers

I finished my layout with a title using some letter stickers from my stash. For a little dimension I put glossy accents on my title.

This layout came together so quick and easy.  That's my kind of layout when I am power scrapping.

Before I let you go, I wanted to share some other layouts I made using the same collection.  I was able to get 5 layouts out of this mini collection kit. With my leftovers, I embellished a pillow box (to be shared on the blog later this week).  I have a few scraps leftover that will work great for a gift card holder (my favorite things to make next to layouts), a gift tag or card. I may even be able to stretch it and get another layout done.

who said a dinosaur collection had to be ALL "rough and tumble"?!?!

my small stash of scraps leftover!

So, do you love "power scrapping" with one collection pack? I'd love to hear how you "power scrap".

If you are local, The Little Blue House has a great Scraptivity workshop that is catered to this style of scrapbooking: "Scrap a Pack Workshop". If you stress about the creative process but want to get a lot of pages done using one collection pack, this is the class for you.

Have a great week!!!

Nat