{experience life wisely}

Hello and welcome to my stop on The Sampler's Blog hop! Have you seen April2012's kit from The Sampler yet??? Well, along with a load of goodies, this month's kit included a little baggie of adorably teeny tiny brads. You know, those little ones we loose before we use? Yea, those! Well, have no fear, the design team is here to show you our best with brads.

I wanted to start off by sharing MY essential tools for working with brads. I MUST have the following when working with brads: a good number of brads (duh), an Xacto knife, metal ruler (or one of those fancy grid rulers from tim holtz! i keep loosing mine....), an awl (aka. hole pokie tool), and a self-healing mat....  oh and possibly a pencil...and maybe some band aids for good measure...

 

Now that I have my tools and materials I want to work with, I need to actually poke some holes for my brads. This means I have to  figure out where i want the brads to end up. On this layout i wanted to add some texture on top of existing layers and in a straight line. So, on top of my self-healing mat, using my metal ruler and hole pokie tool, i measured out my spacing. 

Often I will not poke all the way through when measuring, but instead just leave a mark. You can do this step with a pencil even. Once i have made my marks, i will pick up my layout and VERY CAREFULLY finish making my holes with the hole pokie tool. (if you fail to follow the VERY CAREFULLY part of the instruction, apply band aids...) The hole pokie tool is also good for separating the brads on the back of your project....

So now that my layout is full of holes, its time to put brads in. Why did I bother poking holes you ask? Well, these are teeny tiny brads and would never in a million years go through all my layers with out completely destroying the brads, my layout or both.

So pre-made holes give me control of where the brads are actually going and aid in a more polished finished project. actually, this goes for all types of brads... rulers are your friends...

Those few holes and brads give this layout a very interesting texture that meshes splendidly with the title which is popped up (although you cannot really tell in this photo... shoot.)

Another way i like to use brads is to make shapes and frames. On this layout I added hearts by simply making sketch marks/dots in a rough outline of my heart. Then poked my holes.

A very ordinary element on any layout, but totally jazzed up on this layout!

Now that you've stuck it out with me this long, I HAVE GOODIES TO GIVEAWAY! Follow me (there is a button on the right! no your other right... oops) and  leave a comment  on this post on or before Friday, May 4th, 2012! That's all you have to do to be entered to win amazing goodies from kits past, present and future!

ok, enough of me! head over to Shaunna's blog for a smashing good time!

thanks for stopping by!
sunshine&bunnies,
holly*