Every Summer has a Story

I spent most of last weekend close to my computer, trying to keep track of just some of the National Scrapbook Day challenges that were going on. There were so many that you just had to combine them in order to get through a fraction of them. I've managed four here, though it helped that two of them are actually the same challenge.

Both Mercy Tiara and the 2016 Bash Your Stash group challenged us to create our own page background, while For the Love of Pretty Paper set a slightly different challenge - no patterned paper - which for me meant the same sort of thing. My final challenge is from Shimelle, who asked us to stamp an image, cut it out and use it on top of a photo.

I decided on a multi-photo page and picked three of my son in the paddling pool many years ago. I started my page from white cardstock, which I inked with a grid mask, then spattered with mists across the diagonal. I was going to use modelling paste with another stencil next, but my tube has completely dried up. I raided my husband's art supplies and found some heavy structure gel, which I thought would be similar, and used that instead. Although it's white in the jar it actually dried clear which I wasn't expecting but the clear circles add to the watery theme of the page. So far everything on the page was blue (or clear) so I used a bubble wrap stamp with yellow ink next. Photos and title card down, then I added sequins and gems to the diagonal line of mist and gel. I stamped the stripy stars and cut them out, but they got lost when placed directly on the photos. I also wanted more red on the page as I just had the big block from the title card. My solution was to place my stamped stars on red circles (and add word stickers); this does mean that my stamped stars aren't now directly on the photos, but I'm sure that Shimelle will forgive me.

Supplies 
White Cardstock
Simple Stories Insta-Squares
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Star Sequins - from Stash
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Ranger, Hobbycraft, Ink It Up!
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer, Docrafts

Tools
Creative Expressions Grid Mask
KaiserCraft Bubble Wrap Stamp
Heidi Swapp Stencil
Heidi Swapp Inspire Stamps