Coalhouse Fort

The current round of challenges at Scrap Whispers close tomorrow afternoon, so this will be the last page that I enter. It's for Challenge #169 which was 'All About the Favourites'. It's an easy one - to think about your favourite page size, style, technique, subject, embellishments and so on and to use them all to create a layout with plenty of journalling (whether we like journalling or not).

• My favourite size is 12x12. It means there's plenty of space for photos, writing and pretty papers. I do make smaller pages but I find myself longing for more space when I do. 
• My style is generally clean and simple; I do love a bit of mist but I'm not one for lots of paints or random stamping. 
• One of my favourite techniques is hand-stitching, often a circle around the photos. Given a sketch with a circle on it, I'll generally hand-stitch that circle.
• The main subject of my photos is the places we go, at home or abroad.
• I don't have a favourite embellishment and don't use a lot of them on my pages. I generally embellish with a few punched shapes and maybe a word sticker or some gems.
• I use sketches a lot of the time for my pages (as any reader of my blog will know!); sometimes I follow them exactly, and sometimes they are a starting point for something that looks a little different by the time I've finished.

The sketch for this page comes from Brenda Ragsdale at GrandDiva's Creative Corner and is one of the Scrappy Friends challenges for March. I had a pair of 4x6 photos that I wanted to scrap and this sketch seemed to be adaptable enough to do that. I made the paper panels at the top a little larger, and removed the pieces at the bottom of the sketch. True to my favourite technique, I hand-stitched the larger circle part-way around my photos. Finally I rotated the title to run it along the edge of my photos.

Supplies
Paper - MME The Sweetest Thing, Lasting Impressions, plus Scraps
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Thread - DMC
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template
Bazzill Paper Piercer