What comes to mind when you think of Mary Englebreit?  I think of patterns on top of patterns, checkerboards, polka dots, posies, and cute catchy phrases or sayings.  Her style allows scrapbookers so many possibilities.  Just by changing the colors, the whole look and feel of the layout changes. 

My favorite things to do are punch art flowers that mimic the “Mary” style.  They are so easy and versatile that any combination of punches can be used to make a great spray of flowers across the page.  There are two easy flowers that are the epitome of this style.

The first one uses the jumbo circle punch and the small oval.  Punch a jumbo circle in a bright color and punch an oval in  bright yellow.  Place the oval piece near the edge of the jumbo circle.  The next step is to add leaves. 

Punch out one jumbo circle in a Kelly green.  Place one of the circles back in the punch half way.  If you turn your punch over, you will see how much leaf you are going to make by what you see in the hole of the punch.  Punch this out of the green on either side.  Use adhesive (Therm O Web) to adhere leaves underneath the flower.  

The next flower is the true posie.  You will need to punch out three jumbo circles in the same color and one in yellow (for the center).  For the petals, each of the three same colored circles will be re-cut by the jumbo circle punch (Marvy Uchida).  Place one of the circles into the punch so that only a little is sticking out.  Place the punch down on your work surface and punch it out.  You will be using the crescent shape.  Continue this with the other two circles. 

You now have three crescents and one yellow  circle.  Place the crescents around the whole circle so that the crescents hang over just a little and you can see a little of the white or yellow in middle.  Punch out some green leaves as described before and add to this posie.  You can use any size circle for this.  Cluster them in the corners of your pages in same or different colors.

There are lots of places to look for ideas.  My favorite is my Mary Englebreit 365 day calendar.  You can also look in magazines and decorator books.  Here are a few layouts inspired from the calendar that aren’t so typical.  If there is anything you can do with the Mary Englebreit style, it’s have FUN!