Artbooking Made Easy: Nursery Layouts

From the first moment I held my sweet babies in my arms and looked into their pure and freshly opened eyes, I was deeply in love. Motherhood is an astounding gift, and often its greatest moments are witnessed by mother and child alone. Thank goodness for the blessing of photography that allows mothers to capture those moments in time and share them with others.

You will tug a little more on the heartstrings of those who see your photos by using adorably paired patterns and shapes to complement them. Today’s episode of Artbooking Made Easy will give you ideas on how to enrich your layouts, nursery-themed or not, by using the nursery-themed keys from the Cricut^® Artbooking cartridge. See them for yourself on pages 84 and 85 of your booklet as you watch the video.

If the stork has made a recent delivery to your home or to the home of a loved one, you need these keys! A bitty bundle of joy packs a lot of punch into your layouts, and you’ll be happy to see tiny fingers, toes, and button noses take the spotlight in your albums.

Did you notice the owls from the “Sweet Baby Girl” layout had a little glimmer to them? Using the Cricut^® Artbooking cartridge as you saw in the video, you can cut 2 overlapping shapes that perfectly pair for an adorable animal. The bottom layer here is cut from paper recently released by Close To My Heart: the Paper Fundamentals Basics Assortment. The glossy print of this paper is eye-catching and gives a textured look to the owl—just as real feathers do! For a more obvious texture, make the upper layer from this fun paper rather than the lower.

The subtle look also has its place on these layouts. Recall the intricate background of the “Hello World” layout: 2 kinds of overlays were sized down and cut in exactly the same colored paper as the base page. The tone-on-tone look is most definitely subtle. Take a close look: they’re attached with stitching! Doesn’t that help immensely with giving the shapes some dimension? If they were adhered fully to the page, they would be hardly noticeable. Stitching them through their centers allows their edges to curl up a little and cast a slight shadow, contributing dimension. If you prefer to create the same kind of dimension with colored paper instead, the look would be just as attractive!

Take another look at the “Hello World” layout, where the theme of the page is no longer centered on new arrivals, but the same nursery-themed keys are used. The same bracket overlays that have been used as the background are used as borders on the tiles throughout the center of the layout. Those in the background are set on a diagonal, while the central tiles are not. Each little square becomes a wonderful journaling spot, or simply an accent for the page with its beautiful Background and Texture designs!

And did you notice the overlay that we saw earlier in the video nestled behind the journaling? It flows in with the rest of the layout so easily! I just love that the same shape can be resized, recolored, and repurposed for any number of crafting uses. Overlays are so fantastically adaptable!

Recall the instruction in the video concerning Cricut^® Craft Room: using the “hide contour” feature of the program, you can cut shapes that normally have empty spaces within to be solids. On the “Baby Boy” card, the paper pieces underlying the owl are bracket shapes that can be made by this process. They can also be the negative space from the bracket overlay or photo mat 2 (see page 85).

Keep in mind that you will want to use the Real Dial Size on these smaller cards and projects. The recommended 11" linked size is perfect for doing those 12" x 12" pages, but here, the owl, the "baby boy" title, the tree branch and leaves were all cut at 1 3/4" using Real Dial Size. That feature makes it so simple to customize all your projects! 

There are plenty of creative spins you can take on the artwork you’ve seen here. Once you’ve pieced together your works of art, others are sure to coo over the faces—and the flair—you’ve put into them!