Chris' Review	Renee's Review	Tammy's Review	Stephanie's Review	Pomaika`i's Review

Review by Chris

Around here, the air is warm, the sun is shining bright and those lazy, hazy, crazy days of Summer are on their way! Flair’s new Summer Daze collection is perfect for getting in that bright, cheerful summer mood. This latest collection from Flair just oozes fun in the sun. The collection contains eight bright patterned papers. The swirls and splashes of Walking on Sunshine and Cool Waters remind me of hot sunshine and cool ocean waves; the butterflies and leaves of Flutter By and Walk in the Park make me think of cool mornings and evenings, dogs and children chasing balls in the park; Block Party and Flower Shower have the bright pinks and bold colors of bathing suits and flower gardens; Summer Daze Words and Pieces of Flair both contain all the words you’ll need to translate those great summer feelings onto your cards and scrapbook pages. The shades of blues, greens, pinks, and oranges with white and bright accent colors are absolutely perfect for this terrific time of year.

As if these papers weren’t enough, I also received a sheet of Summer Daze cardstock stickers and Summer Daze clear cut quote stickers, a package of "Ocean Water" ribbon-style paper trim and a sheet of "Summer Time" Fantastic Plastic self adhesive shapes. All that was left for me to do was get down to it, and create some fun projects.

One of my most favorite photos from last summer was this one taken of Matt soaking up the sun on the jet ski. In the true spirit of a summer vacation, he looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world. These Flair papers with the swirly water design and the bubbles were the perfect choice. Flair’s new Fantastic Plastic is a terrific product. The pre-cut, self-adhesive shapes are clear. They can be used as is, or colored with paint, ink or markers to coordinate with your project. The fact that they are self-adhesive means no worries about your adhesive showing through from behind! I added some paint to the bracket and used it to enhance my title. The quotes on the clear cut quote stickers are all so wonderful, it was hard to select just one, so I used two!

Pure Bliss
Products used: Patterned paper (Flair Summer Daze collection, Flutter By, Cool Waters, Pieces of Flair)
Paper Trim, (Flair, Ocean Water)
Plastic bracket (Flair, Fantastic Plastic, Summer Time shapes)
Stickers (Flair, Clear Cut Stickers, Summer Daze Quotes)
Paint (Ranger Adirondack acrylic dabber, lettuce)
Cardstock (Prism Prismatics, intense kiwi)
Die cut alpha (Cuttlebug, Red Tag Sale)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech Permanent Bond Tape Runner)

Still in summer vacation mode, I found some photos of my brother and Matt's best friend on one of their daily fishing expeditions. On this trip, they also had some competition from the local wildlife. The Flutter By paper was just right for these relaxing photos. I cut some of the trees from Walk in the Park to imitate the tree branches that hang out over the edge of the lake. One of the strips from Pieces of Flair was made to order for the title of this page.

Vacation Relaxation
Products used: Patterned paper (Flair, Summer Daze, Flutter By, Walk in the Park, Pieces of Flair)
Stickers (Flair, Summer Daze Cardstock Stickers)
Quotes (Flair, Summer Daze Quotes Clear-Cut stickers; Little Yellow Bicycle, Vita Bella Rub-ons)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech Permanent Bond Tape Runner)

I love the feeling of movement evoked by all the layered circles on the Walking on Sunshine paper and I thought it would make a really fun card. I layered a portion of a strip from Pieces of Flair and cut a butterfly from Flutter By to complete this cheerful card.

Celebrate! Card
Products used: Patterned paper (Flair Summer Daze collection, Walking on Sunshine, Pieces of Flair, Flutter By)
Stamp (Kolette Hall)
Ink (Stewart Superior, Memories, black)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech Permanent Bond Tape Runner)

Flair has hit one out of the ballpark with this summer collection. Summer Daze will suit all your vacation and playtime photos, whether they be at the beach or the pool, the park or even your own backyard. The designs are bright and bold with a distressed look. The layers of pattern and color give depth and dimension to the designs. You’ll love this collection and will think of many great projects to create using it!

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Review by Renee

There is nothing I love better than playing with a great set of patterned papers. It is no secret that I am a paper addict. A bright happy paper just makes my day. It just makes a girl feel all giddy inside. So imagine how giddy I got when I saw the new Summer Daze collection from Flair Designs.

For this review, I received two sheets each of cool waters, Summer Daze words, Walk in the Park, Block Party, Walking on Sunshine, Flutter by, Flower Shower and Summer Daze Pieces of Summer. I also received one package each of the coordinating cardstock stickers, clear quotes stickers and the new Fantastic Plastics stickers. These clear plastic stickers offer the look of acrylic embellishments without the usual worry as to how you will stick them down. I also received a package of the fun new paper trim, a ribbon-like paper trim that is self sticking.

I fell in love when I saw the new papers from this collection. While they have a definite summer “feel” to them, they don’t scream summer. They make for an outstanding summer layout when used with bright summer pictures. But they are also equally as well suited for any number of other types of pages, including birthday, boys playing and even teen pages. In this economy, there is nothing I like more than things that do double duty. I also fell in love with the paper trim and the Fantastic Plastics. The Paper Trim looks like all my favorite “go to” trims, but without the bother of figuring out how to stick them down. I have a whole collection of large ric racs in many colors. But I also have the same difficulty getting them stuck down. This ric rac has its own sticky backing to hold it down. Likewise, the Fantastic Plastics is wayyyyy easier to use than acrylic embellishments as they stick on their own. And they still work with any type treatment you give them like the inking that I did.

For my first project, I pulled out a set of photos taken at a recent art festival in our area. The feel of the papers really spoke summer to me. I looked through the papers and pulled out the Walking on Sunshine paper as my background as the circle embellishments really made me think of summer and warm sun on my shoulders. I also LOVED the blue and turquoise mix of colors from the Flutter By papers and felt that they made a perfect complement to the warm yellows of the other sheet. A little bit of blue paper trim, a clear quote sticker and an inked swirl from the Fantastic Plastics sheet finish off this layout for a hot summer look.

Title: Art Show
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics)
Patterned Paper (Flair)
Paper Trim, Carstock Sticker and Fantastic Plastics (Flair)
Bingo Card (Jenni Bowlin)
Paper Flowers (Prima)
Ribbon (May Arts)
Ink (Ranger)
Die Cut Cartridge and Machine (Cricut Lyrical letters)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

For my second project, I used the Pieces of Flair paper to create the easiest card that I have ever made. The Pieces of Flair paper has a mix of all the papers of the collection on one sheet with phrases dealing with the particular theme. I cut a section with the phrase Sunshine on my Shoulder on it to use as the basic design of my card. I also used a small amount of the paper trim and a I had a perfect summertime card. Another small section of patterned paper makes the perfect envelope liner.

Title: Sunshine on My Shoulder
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics)
Patterned Paper (Flair)
Paper Trim (Flair)
Paper Flowers (Prima)
Brad (Karen Foster)
Glitter Glue (Stickles)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I really enjoyed working with the Flair Summer Daze collection. It is fresh and fun and most importantly, very versatile. When you pull out your summer pictures, this is a definite line to try.

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Review by Tammy

What can I say? Flair Designs continues to provide easy to use embellishments and designs that are sure to please everyone from the novice to even the most advanced paper crafter.

Flair’s newest collection, Summer Daze, is sure to put you in the mood for summer, but don’t think that you are just limited to using summertime photos with this collection. I will show you how I used this collection for a fall photo, and everyday projects.

First, there are 8 beautiful patterns to choose from in this new collection. The colors contain everything from cool ocean blues, beautiful grassy greens, to sizzling oranges, pinks, reds, and much more! Secondly, Flair has designed 3 different sheets of embellishments that coordinate with this collection; Summer Daze cardstock stickers, Summer Daze Quotes Clear-cut stickers, and Fantastic Plastic Summertime Shapes. And last but not least, the Trim w/ Flair Citrus Tree coordinates perfectly with the Summer Daze collection.

I have been using Flair Designs products in my scrapbooking and paper crafting projects for several years now, and I was delighted about the two newest products that Flair has introduced, Fantastic Plastic and Trim w/ Flair. The Fantastic Plastic product is group of die cut shapes that are transparent and self-adhesive. This is why this plastic is so “fantastic”. Trying to find the right adhesive for transparent embellishments is always a struggle due to the adhesive showing through the piece. Since the adhesive is already on each of the die cut pieces, these transparent shapes were a dream to work with!

Another new product from Flair Designs is the Trim w/Flair. This is a ribbon style, self-adhesive paper trim that is packaged in a clear plastic wrapper with a cardboard backing that is perforated for easy dispensing of the paper trim. The package contains three different colors and styles of paper trim that are hand rolled onto a cardboard roller prior to packaging.

I knew that I wanted to use the Walk in the Park paper but I wasn’t sure how to make it work with this photograph that was taken of me last fall. That is when I got the idea to hand cut the tree from the paper. The Pieces of Flair paper was filled with warm rich colors that reminded me of fall so I used it for the shape of my tree. I wanted the phrase “Sunshine on my shoulders” to be more prominent so I cut around the phrase to allow the corner of my photograph and the tree branches to slip neatly behind. On the Walk in the Park paper the trees have little flowers on them and I decided to mimic that by adding some cardstock stickers to the branches of the tree. The round flower embellishment was made from the leftover Pieces of Flair and because the Summertime Shapes were self-adhesive, I backed a small flower with glitter and attached it to the center of my larger flower with a small adhesive dot. I added two different Citrus Tree trims to the bottom of my photo and then attached my handmade flower along with some additional flowers cut from the Flower Shower paper. The vine was made from the Summertime Shapes by adding alcohol ink to the front and glitter to the adhesive side. My title was cut from the Walking on Sunshine paper and with a few more embellishments and some Stickles for added sparkle - my layout was complete.

Title: Just Me
Products used: Cardstock (Prism Prismatics)
Summer Daze Paper (Flair)
Citrus Tree Paper Trim (Flair)
Sumer Time Fantastic Plastic (Flair)
Summer Daze Cardstock Stickers (Flair)
Glitter (PK Glitz)
Stickles (Ranger)
Alcohol Inks (Ranger)
Machine Stitching
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I designed this photo frame as a gift for my cousin. I began by applying gesso to the entire frame and I added a texture using an old toothbrush. Once the gesso was dry I painted the frame with an acrylic paint then applied the Block Party paper using a gel medium. I added one of the Citrus Tree paper trims to the right side of the frame and a cardstock sticker to the left. I die cut the flower from the Flower Shower paper and edged the petals with ink. To add some sparkle I used a glitter pen to make some doodling on the petals and also to add color to the plastic transparent flower found on the Summertime Shapes sheet. I had some leftover pieces from the tree that I cut from the Walk in the Park paper so I added them to the flower for leaves and all I needed to do was add the photo and my frame would be complete.

 
Title: project 2
Products used: Patterned Paper (Flair)
Paper Trim (Flair)
Cardboard Sticker (Flair)
Fantastic Plastic (Flair)
Glitter Pen (Atyou Spica, Copic)
Gesso (Liquitex)
Acrylic Paint (Claudine Hellmuth)
Gel Medium (Claudine Hellmuth)
Colorbox ink (Clearsnap)
Frame (Hobby Lobby)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I often wished I had a tag to add as an embellishment or to use on a gift bag so I decided to use some of the leftover pieces to create these three tags. The butterfly tag was made using Summer Daze Words and adding a strip of trim to the side. I cut out a butterfly from the Flutter By paper and used alcohol ink on one of the plastic pieces before applying it to the cut out butterfly. Then I added a clear cut quote and a cardstock sticker to the tag and used the rick rack paper trim as the ribbon (I did not remove the paper backing so not expose the adhesive).

The blue tag was made using the Cool Waters paper and I added a clear cut quote sticker to a piece of Prism cardstock. I used alcohol inks on the swirl transparent piece and adhered it to the top and bottom of my quote. A few strips of bling, a ribbon, and my tag was done.

My last tag is sort of a tag/gift all in one. The base of the tag is made from the Walk in the Park paper and I made a pocket from the Block Party paper. I added a piece of paper trim to the bottom of the pocket along with a cardstock sticker and a hand cut flower from Walk in the Park and I have a great little gift card holder.

Title: Tags
Products used: Patterned Paper (Flair)
Paper Trim (Flair)
Cardboard Sticker (Flair)
Clear Stickers (Flair)
Fantastic Plastic (Flair)
Colorbox Ink (Clearsnap)
Alcohol Inks (Ranger)
Bling (Paper Studio)
Ribbon (Misc)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

The new Flair Fantastic Plastic and Trim w/Flair are a welcome addition to the Flair Designs product line. The Fantastic Plastic has so many possibilities and responded well to the various mediums that I used with the pieces. The Trim w/Flair has a thin paper backing that when removed exposes the adhesive. The adhesive that is used seems to be more along the lines of a removable adhesive meaning that it was easy to reposition the trim after it was placed on the project. Once the trim was in place, I pressed down firmly and the trim became permanently adhered to my project.

The Summer Daze collection from Flair along with the new Trim w/Flair and Fantastic Plastic should be put at the top of your shopping list.

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Review by Stephanie

Flair Designs is a major name in the scrapbook industry. Flair Designs creates light weight pattern papers in all kinds of themes, each of which contains lots of color, lots of designs and some fun word art. They also create stickers that mirror the theme of their paper lines and now they are creating some fabulous paper trims. If you haven’t had the pleasure of working with any of Flair’s products, you are in for a lot of fun with their new Summer Daze collection. This collection just yells SUMMER and it has really brought some sun into the rainy, cold days we are still enduring here in New York. With names such as Block Party, Flutter By, Flower Shower, Walk in the Park, Pieces of Flair, Summer Daze Words, Cool Waters and Walking in Sunshine, you can’t help but get into a summer mood.

The Summer Daze collection I received consisted of 16 sheets of single sided 12x12 light weight pattern papers (2 of each design), which are perfect for layering and inking. I also received a sticker module containing approximately 30 matching cardstock stickers, a set of clear quotes, a set of clearly transparent Plastic Shapes and some Paper Trims. The clear quotes easily adhere to a photo and look like you journaled right on the photo. The Plastic Shapes are amazing, and since they are transparent, you can do anything with them. The Paper Trim comes in a 3 pack of different colors and shapes and are a nice extra to add to your projects.

As I said, it has been pretty cold around here, but you wouldn’t know it from the layouts I created with this line. In my Together layout , I took the Cool Waters sheet and created a bracket design from the paper. I then overlayed a strip cut from Pieces of Flair. Adding stickers, a clear quote and some plastic letters set the tone of my layout. I added glimmer mist on a white flower for a touch of bling.

Title: Together
Products used: Cardstock (Prism, Island Mist Dark)
Pattern Paper (Flair, Summer Daze Collection)
Stickers (Flair, Summer Daze Collection, Clear Quotes)
Font (Flair, Plastic Alphabet)
Flower (Heidi Swapp)
Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels)
Ink (Ranger)
Stamps (Molly Stamps)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I have had these pictures of my nephew for at least 3 years and I have always wanted to scrap them, but I could never find just the right papers. Well, Flair has done it again. This sheet of Summer words was perfect to use for these sequential photos. Cutting the photos into uniform long strips helped to tell the story of my nephew getting ready to dive into the pool.

Title: Sunshine
Products used: Cardstock (Prism, Herbal Garden Dark)
Pattern Paper (Flair, Summer Daze Collection)
Stickers (Flair, Summer Daze Collection)
Stickles (Ranger)
Stickers (Flair, Clear Quotes)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

I always love to create an assortment of cards from Flair’s papers and I love mixing and matching the various papers.

Title: Cards
Products used: Cardstock (Prism, Baby Pink Light, Razzelberry Dark)
Pattern Paper (Flair, Summer Daze Collection)
Paper Trim (Flair, Summer Daze Collection )
Plastic Shapes (Flair, Clearly Transparent Shapes)
Flowers (Bazzill)
Brads (Making Memories)
Punch (EKSuccess)
Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner)

Flair has a way of mixing and matching colors, designs and fonts, which makes any collection they create stand out. And this Summer Daze Collection is no exception! It is a wonderful line and can be used in so many different ways. Thanks Flair for another great collection.

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Review by Pomaika`i

Flair Designs is well known in the Scrapbook Industry for their theme papers. They are consistent in high quality, beautiful and practical designs that can be used for more than just a few theme specific pages. This year’s summer collection has recently debuted, and the following review is based on my experiences with it.

This year’s Summer collection is called Summer Daze. The collection is brightly colored with lots of oranges, yellows, cool blues and greens with accents of turquoise and pink. Designs include whimsical sea and sun papers with lots of swirly designs, full page one-direction papers with a tree scene, and another with vines and butterflies, a pink page with orange and fuchsia flowers and more!

Included in this collection is a 12 x 12 page of “Summer Daze Words”. I like this design a lot. Large words in different colors and fonts are placed around the borders and corners of the page over a background of tiny summer related words.

To round off the paper collection, Flair designs has created a 12 x 12 title/border page that features full color titles that span the length of a 12 x 12 sheet (in various widths). These are great to use for your page titles instead of costly letters.

For this review I received the papers mentioned above (2 each of 8 designs), medium weight 12 x 12” papers , one sheet of cardstock stickers, one sheet of Clear Cut Sticker Quotes that features sunny summer related quotes, a brand new product called Fantastic Plastic (transparent stickers) and Trim with Flair (self-adhesive ribbon style paper trim).

The Summer Daze Cardstock stickers are coordinated to complement the patterns and colors of the paper collection. There are words on tabs and various shapes that can be used as subtitles or embellishments as well as brackets, frames, swirls and little hearts and flowers. The stickers are sturdy and easy to use, just peel and stick to your layout for an instant accent. This sheet of cardstock stickers has a generous helping of shapes that I found really useful.

The Summer Daze Clear Cut Stickers with Flair is a collection of 10 short quotes perfect for Summer pages. They are clear plastic with black words in various fonts. Each quote is printed on a different sized rectangle depending on its length. Because the background is transparent, it is easy to place the quote on piece of cardstock that will coordinate with a layout. The only problem I had was that I need to remember to have very clean fingers so that junk from my fingers doesn’t stick to the back of the sticker when I am placing it on the cardstock. I tried using tweezers instead of my fingers, but I still I needed to touch the other side of the sticker. I think that two tweezers would work best as my hands don’t really stay clean during altered projects. This is not the fault of the stickers, just a heads up for you.

The next two items are brand new to me, Fantastic Plastic and Trim with Flair. Fantastic Plastic is an assortment of thin clear plastic shaped stickers (flowers, butterflies, an arrow, waves and the word “Summer”). I like the look of the clear plastic on my project, but you could also jazz it up with alcohol inks or sharpies. I received the Citrus Tree pack of Trim with Flair. There are three different rolls of ribbon style trim, each different in style and color; orange ric-rac, yellow or green lace. Each roll is 1 yard long. Note that the package can be used as a dispenser for this trim--don’t open it the usual way, like I did. Slit the dotted lines and you will have a tidy experience.

I couldn’t wait to create my first project--a slipper album. I created my pages by tracing one side of a slipper on a folded piece of cardstock so that each page was made up of two slippers connected down the middle (I cut four of these). To make a book, I lined all the folded pages side by side, then attached the backs of the pages to each other. I decorated the pages before adding the covers.

To alter the slippers for use as covers, I pieced together various patterned papers over the surface to match my album’s pages. The orange rick-rack Flair Trim worked perfectly to cover the seams between the different patterned papers and created a finished look. I used gel medium to adhere and seal the papers onto the slipper surfaces.

I wanted this to be a real simple album, and the Clear Cut Stickers quotes mounted on cardstock were an excellent complement to my photos. I was happy to find really great quotes that captured the mood of my photos perfectly!

Title: Slipper Album
Products used: Products used: Cardstock (Prism)
Patterned Paper (Flair Designs Summer Daze)
Stickers (Flair Designs Summer Daze Cardstock Stickers, Summer Daze Quotes Clear Cut Stickers)
Trim (Flair Citrus Tree)
Flowers (Prima)
Buttons (SEI)
Floss (DMC)
Ink (Adirondack by Ranger)
Matte Medium (Claudine Hellmuth Studio)
Other (pair of rubber slippers)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner, Joann Tacky Glue)

I was very excited about how my second project turned out. This layout has such cheerful colors, and came together very easily. I used Summer Daze Words as my background, distressed the edges of my photo with steel wool and placed it down without a contrasting photo matt. To frame my large photo, I used a cardstock sticker photo corner, the Fantastic Plastic sunburst sticker, and Trim with Flair along the bottom edge.

I cut portions of photos to fit into slide mounts and embellished them with cardstock sticker hearts. My finishing touch was a Clear Cut Sticker Quote as my title.

Title: Memories Will Last Forever
Products used: Cardstock (Prism)
Patterned Paper (Flair Designs Summer Daze)
Stickers (Flair Designs: Summer Daze Cardstock Stickers, Summer Daze Quotes Clear Cut Stickers, Summertime Plastic Shapes)
Trim (Flair Citrus Tree)
Stamps (Queen Kat Designs)
Other (Slide Mounts)
Ink (Adirondack by Ranger)
Adhesive (Adhesive Tech, Permanent Bond Glue Runner, Scotch foam tape)

I love the Summer Daze Paper Collection by Flair Designs. The designs and colors are cheerful and beautiful, and perfect for a variety of layouts, not just Summer. Flair Designs also helps to make my projects come together in a snap with all their wonderful coordinating goodies including stickers, quotes, plastic stickers and paper ribbon trims! I really love those paper trims! I just wish they came in larger quantities they are so cool!

Crafters of all types and all levels will find uses for these products. If you wish to create cheerful layouts or projects, you’ll find what you need with Flair Designs new Summer Daze Collection of paper and goodies!

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