You can picK you friends and you can picK your nose, but you can't picK your friend's nose: ScrapbooKing tips on exploiting the letter "K"

Here's an idea for a totally unique layout... try using a HUGE letter as the main background, and coordinate the title accordingly.  This "K" is actually a punch out from an alphabet kit that I have.  K happens to be my favorite letter... I'll give you one guess why. 

Anyway... I have a few prerequisites when choosing friends.  If your name starts with the letter K, you get to bypass some of those.  Luckily, my friend Kelsey's name starts with K, otherwise that girl would have never had a chance.  *Kidding, Kels.*  Kelsey notoriously picked me up at a nightclub about three years ago by complimenting my blonde curly hair.  I had spent the better part of an hour to get the "I totally don't care about my hair but it looks perfect anyway" look.  How could I not be friends with a girl that had such incredible taste? 

I figured it was about time I did a layout dedicated to my very bestie in the whole world.

Here's some specifics on this layout.  I chose very simple journaling... The pattern of the "K" is pretty busy and I wanted one elegant statement that says it all about Kelsey: "Beautiful inside and out."

For the fancy-shmancy ribbon underneath, just take a long strand of ribbon and use a glue dot roller to adhere one end.  Then continue to double it back on itself putting a dab of the glue dots on each fold so the ribbon stays put.  To create some dimension, don't glue the ribbon down completely, just glue a few key spots and the rest will stay nice and fluffy (like Kelsey's hair). 

Next, stick on some rhinestones... these gold and silver blings happen to work perfectly for a layout featuring Miss Kelsey, whose newest nickname (courtesy of another hot blonde, Melissa) is Sparkling Cosmo. 

We all know how addicted to flower embellishments I am... so here's a quadruple layered beauty for your viewing pleasure:

And now for the real fancy shmancy of the layout: the layered paper on the left. 

Here's how to do it. 

1) Cut a wide strip of patterned paper.  I picked black and white to coordinate with the "K" and also because I didn't want to detract from the flecks of yellow by picking another color. 

2) Choose a semi-transparent tissue-like paper and tear  a long strip.  This particular paper was given to me by Jacque who picked it up during her recent trip to Japan.  (Yaaaaaay for Jacque: she also knows how much I love receiving scrapbooking supplies as gifts.)

3) The reason for choosing a transparent paper is so that you can lay it on top of the patterned paper chosen in Step One.  The pattern will show through the transparent paper.  Adhere it to the patterned paper using glue dots or vellum tape, if it's super transparent.

4) Using the same patterned paper from Step One, cut a long skinny strip and lay it over the transparent paper.  This gives you a nice woven effect and tons of texture.

5) Slap that extra-large letter over the top, and you're done!  Unless, like me, you feel like your letter doesn't stand out quite enough (and I really wanted the "K" to P-O-P off the page), so I outlined the left side with a black marker.  Popping achieved.

And finally, some fun trivia about Kelsey:

1) She's a dancing machine.  I'm serious. A dancing MACHINE.

2) Her laugh is more contagious than pink eye in an elementary school.

3) She will listen for hours and hours, even if the same story is repeated 13 times.

4) She's a smart cookie and a dentist, to boot.

Love ya girlie, and miss you tons!