December Stamp of the MonthBlog Hop

It's time again for another SOTM blog hop! We once again have 60+ consultants participating, so I know there will be tons of great ideas shared. If you've come from Caren's blog, you're on the right track! When you're done here, you'll want to head over to Lori Miller's blog and check out her great dry erase board this month.

This month's stamp set is Notice the Details, a versatile set of 41 stamps with an "office-y" feel. I say versatile, because this great stamp set can work with ANY paper! You'll see what I mean below...

I opted to create a 2-page layout for my main item this month. Thanks to my son's preschool, I have some great pictures from when the fire department visited them at school:
These stamps added a great touch to the pages. I even used the torn spiral edge stamp to make it look like the two smaller photo mats were torn from a notebook. I thought it worked well for the "school" theme.

Tips & Techniques:
I didn't have the exact colors I wanted in my papers, so I modified what I had some, plus I used patterned paper & My Stickease letter stickers from 3 different kits! The key to combining papers (whether from our kits, adding different brands, or whatever) is to use common color elements. The letter stickers I used are from Free Spirit, which just retired (& has already sold out!), in Colonial White. The star paper is from Game On, and the main colors on this paper are Black and Bamboo (with a bit of Grey Wool).

The striped paper is where the technique part comes in. The original pattern is from Silhouette, and contains the colors Black, Bamboo, and Colonial White. I needed to add in some Cranberry for a shot of color, and the stripes are the quickest & easiest to modify. So here's what I did: I measured the width of the stripe I wanted to make cranberry and cut strips of paper that width. I ran my paper strips through my Xyron for speed, but it would work just as well to use your Tombow or Bonding Memories Glue. Then I simply stuck them over the area I wanted to cover on my paper.
Now you just use your modified paper as you would any pattern paper:

Additional stamps used on this layout are from Headline Alphabet.

Now, if you want to see what this stamp set looks like with a much more feminine paper pack, check out this previous post. (It opens in a new tab/window, so just close that to come back here & move on.)

Now, don't forget to hop on over to Lori Miller's blog next!