Anyone for Tennis?

I'm supposed to be finishing off my Norway 2009 album, but didn't have anything suitable for this sketch, the Sketch of the Week from Shimelle Laine, so I've turned to this year's Baltic cruise, and photos of my children trying to play tennis on the top deck of the ship.

I moved the embellishment cluster below the left photo and extended my title. I also put my journalling on a tag in place of the embellishment at the top.

The photo's bleached out a bit here as the background card is actually creamy-yellow.

Supplies
Card - from Stash
Paper - K & Co Hannah Scrap Pad, C R Gibson Love Letters, Stripes from Stash
Tennis Embellishments - Paper Cellar
Letters - Papermania and American Crafts

North Yorkshire Moors Railway

After the success of Shimelle's Starting Point challenge (166 entries so far) during her online scrapbooking weekend, she is going to make these a regular feature on her blog. 

I don't usually use so many layers of paper as she has on the new Starting Point so this one was good for getting me to do something a bit different. 

I started with Kraft as a neutral background and added the stripey paper and then the other colours. Once I had assembled the layout, the top photo looked rather isolated so I added an extra yellow piece behind it, then more of the yellow behind the horizontal pieces. Usually I faff about for ages trying to find the 'right' paper for my pictures but this time it was surprisingly easy, despite using so many pieces from different manufacturers. Thank you Shimelle.

Supplies
Card - Bazzill Basics Kraft
Paper - HOTP In the Kitchen Kit, MME Happiness is Bliss, The Paper Loft Avocado Dashed Lines, DCWV Natural Stack, MME Bloom & Grow, Basic Grey Stella Ruby

Cute

Shimelle's 'Bingo Cards and Butterflies' is the final challenge that I have time to enter as the deadline is midnight tonight. She asked us to create something inspired by the video of her making the layout on the right. 

I took the butterfly, the painted frame and the overall look from Shimelle's layout but changed the colour scheme to pink and black and used two larger photos rather than the strip and a circle of paper rather than the bingo card. The butterfly was cut from a sheet of paper that I got in a job lot from Sunshine Scrapbooking last year which is stripy with lime green paint splats and these pink glittery butterflies. I thought that I would never use it, but I have been looking at my paper in a different way this week.

Supplies
Paper - Reminisce Chalkboard Fun, Background sheet from Stash (unlabelled)
Butterfly/Flowers - Cut/punched from Making Memories Glitter Butterfly Just Chillin' Girl
Alphabet - Papermania
Rub-Ons - Doodlebug Design

Old & New

I am so grateful to Shimelle for helping me get so many layouts done this week. This one was done for her Starting Point challenge - "Create a layout that starts from this design.You can use any papers or colours you like, but before you add any pictures, start with that large box of paper in the background, a wide vertical strip plus a narrow stripe and a horizontal block. Then complete a layout."

Although we could choose any papers, I decided to go for bright ones like she used; bright papers made me turn to my photos from Malaysia in 2009 as the colours there seemed so much brighter than at home. My only deviation from the Starting Point was to use ribbon instead of the narrow strip of paper.

I used the group of three flowers to cover up a join in two pieces of the blue spotty paper so I decided that this layout would also satisfy the 3 is a Magic Number challenge (create a project that includes a group of three in the embellishment). Further '3s' in the layout are the use of three colours of paper (I usually only use one or two colours) and the title being in three parts, though I didn't particularly plan these and only realised afterwards.

The photos are of a traditional fishing jetty and the modern bridge to the mainland and were taken from the same spot. What a contrast!

Supplies
Card - DCWV Natural Stack
Paper - Scrapbook Magazine 'In the Sunshine' and 'Sunny Bay' Collections
Alphabet - Doodlebug Design
Ribbon - GCS
Flowers & Dew Drops - Papermania

Bundle

Shimelle's challenges are certainly varied. For the 'Add to the Story' Challenge she asked us to find a page in our album that doesn't tell the whole story and find a way to add it.

I normally plan a layout complete with space for journalling, but this one was a bit different. Most of the pictures had garden clutter in the corners, so I decided to cut these off and pile up the photos randomly to echo the pile of children. This meant that there was little space for journalling and I couldn't think of a way to add a journalling spot without detracting from the random nature of the page, especially as the story behind the photos relates to my cousin's visit from the USA, rather than the photos themselves. This challenge has given me the push I needed to add the journalling. I have printed it on a tag (pictured on the right of the layout) which tucks behind the photo on the top left where it is easy to pull out and read, even while the page is in a page protector.

My Sweet Girl

The next challenge from Shimelle is her Half Page Challenge - create a layout that only uses half the page. It can be whatever half you would like, but somewhere around half the page space needs to be breathing room.

To me, a layout which only uses half the page must be a layout which has only one photo. I started looking at pre-digital photos as I obviously took less in those days and would be more likely to have a single photo to scrap. This lead me to a cute picture of my daughter taken in 2002, so this layout also qualifies for the Retro Challenge -  to scrapbook a photo from before 2011.

I took my colour cue from my daughter's pink top and found a collection of free papers from Scrapbook Mgazine. I shuffled papers for a while, before deciding to scraplift Shimelle's original layout. However I ended up reversing it as my title fitted better on the right. The fairy embellishments were a happy accident; when I pulled my cutting mat out of my storage box one of the fairies was stuck to it.

EDIT 1: I am pleased and excited to report that I won the Half Page Challenge, and a prize pack from Pebbles is on its way to me!

EDIT 2: Details and pictures of the prize are here.

Supplies

Paper - Basic Grey Euphoria, The Papertrail Co (free papers)

Alphabet - Doodlebug Design

Ribbon - Papermania (blue), Pink cut out of clothing

Flower Fairy Embellishments - From an M&S birthday card

Trail of the Kings

On to Shimelle's 12th (and final) challenge, though my fourth. I will have to go back and tackle the harder ones! 

The Signature Accent Challenge is to "create a page with a product or a technique you love so much you use it relatively often. Maybe it’s become your signature accent! Whatever it might be, put it on show and share it with us!"

I don't use a great deal of embellishments on my layouts, so I don't really have a special accent that I use a lot. However, when I have a set of three photos with a mixture of orientations I frequently find myself returning to this layout combination. It is a very flexible layout as the size and orientation of the photos and the position of the single photo can give different size spaces for title and journalling. I vary the backing with no mat, one mat (as here) or three mats for the photos and have also put a circle of paper behind the trio of photos. This is a tried and trusted layout which I use over and over again. 

Supplies

Paper - EK Success Beauty Dotted

Card - DCWV Natural Stack

Letters - Making Memories

In the Pool

I'm not doing Shimelle's challenges in any particular order - and next up is her Colour Story Challenge - create a project in red, white and aqua! I don't use much red in my layouts so this was rather troublesome. I was going to skip it but decided to check my paper first just in case I had a red patterned paper (solid red seems too intense though I do have red cardstock). Much to my own surprise I found this card that I bought for a cruise album a few years ago and didn't use. We came back from another cruise just last week so I have another stack of photos to scrap, including these pics of my children in the pool. Red, white and aqua - mission accomplished.

Supplies

Card - Unknown/Unlabelled

Paper - Far and Away Pool Water

Life Ring Embellishments - Cut from a Bon Voyage borders sheet

Brekkefossen

The first of Shimelle's challenges is a Printable Challenge - to create a project using one or more of the accents designed by Mary Anne Walters (available via the link).

One of the suggested uses was to create a scalloped border from the circles. This immediately brought to mind the Sketchy Thursdays sketch for this week, so I set about combining the two for a layout about Brekkefossen, a waterfall near Flåm in Norway. 

I used two larger photos rather than three smaller ones and moved the journalling to the right hand side. I resized the journalling box, printed it on the same paper as I used for the larger circles and rounded the corners. The title is a photo of the sign on the footpath. I always take photos of signs - they are useful for identifying photos as well as making excellent titles.

Supplies

Card - Making Memories Floral Mocha Paperie (Reverse)

Paper - from Stash

Circles and Journalling Box - Mary Anne Walters

Flutter By

While on Facebook this morning (Sunday), I noticed an advert for a three day crop at www.shimelle.com starting on Friday. Was this something to look forward to? Or had I missed the first 2 days? Sadly it was the latter, but most of the challenges are open until next Sunday.

I won't have time to do them all; this is the sixth project but the one that looks easiest. The 'Grid It Up' Challenge - create a project with a grid as a design element! You can interpret that any way you wish! Get creative!

A gentle start to a week of challenges...

I took these photos in the butterfly house at Longleat last year and a grid is the perfect layout for them. I wanted the butterflies to be the main feature in this page, so I kept it simple with a plain textured background and a contrasting stitched edge. The butterfly paper was one that I had had for ages, waiting for the 'right' time to use it (and I still have some left - hooray). The small orange butterflies gave me the choice of colours for the rub-on letters and the stitching.

Supplies
Paper - Paper Adventures
Card - Possibly Scrap Genie
Rub-Ons - Making Memories
Embroidery Thread - DMC