On with the NSD challenges at Scrap Whispers. Their fourth fairy tale challenge was based on Rumpelstiltskin, or more specifically the spinning wheel that he used to spin straw into gold. Georgina put that wheel in a rough sketch for us to use for either a card or a layout.
I'll admit that I didn't fancy the careful measuring and cutting that would be required for a wheel of photos on a layout, so I decided to make a card instead. It's all from scraps again, offcuts from a Princess Fairytale 6x6 pack - perfect for a fairy tale themed crop:
Supplies
Card - Yellow Moon
Paper - Dovecraft Princess Fairytale 6x6 Pack, We R Memory Keepers (brown)
Peel-Off - Goldlabel
Ink - docrafts
Tools
Kreaxions Circle Cutter
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
I'm skipping the second NSD challenge from Scrap Whispers for now because I wasn't immediately inspired by it; on the other hand I knew exactly what I wanted to scrap when I saw the third challenge. You may remember that the challenges are all based on fairy tales and this one is The Frog Prince. We were free to take whatever inspiration we like from the story and I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to finally get my metal frog with brad eyes onto a page. I've had this frog for ages, he even lives on my desk so that I will remember to use him.
It seems a little odd to start a page from one single embellishment, but it wasn't as hard as it might seem. I've always thought that I would pair the frog with photos of my son in the garden as a toddler, but looking through my album I found one of him on a frog-shaped rocker in the park. Perfect. Everything else on the page came from my scraps box; I cut the odd-shaped pieces into rectangles and layered them up.
I used offcuts of the specific outdoors-ey paper to fussy cut extra decals and layered them over the same images on the page using pop-dots. This fits in with Challenge 9 from Shimelle's blog where she asked us to do some fancy cutting on the page (be this from an electronic or manual die cutter, or just a plain old-fashioned pair of scissors like I used).
Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts
Paper - SEI Be Bop, Basic Grey Aged & Confused, Basic Grey Perhaps, KI Memories Love Elsie
Letters - American Crafts Fabric Thickers
Frog - HOTP
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Ink - Dovecraft
Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Yesterday's NSD challenge from Scrap Our Stash was a real stash-buster. The prizes will be awarded by random draw, and the more stash we bust the more draws we get, plus two extra draws for using one of about 60 sketches. The stash list included ribbon, tags, brads, layered stickers, washi tape, twine, paint, wood pieces, bling and the use of two or more punches. I don't actually have any layered stickers or wood pieces but I managed six of the others.
I decided to scrap a photo of my son and niece that I had considered for the last page I made, and then I looked for a sketch which would be easy to include those tags with the landscrape photo; I chose this one from Rochelle Spears as I knew I could substitute the smaller photos for tags.
I had a lovely new collection of paper just waiting for me to cut into - DIY Shop from Crate Paper. I'm loving Crate Paper at the moment, this is the second full collection I have bought this year (and I don't normally buy the whole collection of anything). Shimelle Laine set 24 NSD challenges yesterday (one an hour from midnight to midnight) and her Challenge 13 was to highlight our favourite papers. DIY Shop are certainly those for me right now.
The collection includes several sheets with tags already printed. I made hole reinforcers for the tags using two punches and threaded ribbon through them, positioning them to the left of my photo, as in the sketch. A couple of strips of paper lie under the photo, and I used a border punch on one of them. My background paper has a water-colour effect and I spattered some droplets of white paint on it along the diagonal, added washi tape above and below the photo and used a heart brad next to my title.
Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper DIY Shop
Letters - October Afternoon
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Ribbon - from Stash
Paint - Mr Huey's
Brad - Kit 'n' Craft
Tools
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
'Ordinary' Hole Punch
Just a few hours in, and I've completed my first page for National Scrapbooking Day. I decided to start with a challenge from Scrap Whispers. They have a fairy tale theme for their day of challenges and the first one was Rapunzel - to build a tower of scraps (at least nine papers) on the page, and since Rapunzel is normally depicted as being blonde, to use yellow somewhere on the page.
I pulled a few possible photos with different colours in them and then turned to my overflowing scraps box to see what coordinating papers I could find, deciding on a green and orange scheme for photos from my son's school sports day many years ago.
With so many patterns already on the page, I didn't add any extra embellishments. And the yellow requirement? There are yellow stripes in the vertical paper to the left of my photos.
Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Scraps from Basic Grey, Crate Paper, Glitz Designs, K & Company Etc
Letters - October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Ink - Dovecraft
Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
National Scrapbooking Day (NSD) is an American invention, but it's spreading and the web will be full of inspiration and challenges this weekend. I thought I would share a few of the parties that I am trying to get to:
One of my favourite sites is Scrap Whispers and the girls there are planning 13 challenges today on a Fairy Tale theme, with a week to finish them. The fun starts at 9am with one challenge an hour all day.
Over in the US, Scrap Our Stash are hosting a Stash Challenge that will be posted at 6am EST. I haven't worked out the exact time, but I reckon I have until this afternoon before I need worry about that one, though it has the shortest deadline - midnight tomorrow PST.
Shimelle Laine kicked off the excitement on her blog just after midnight so there were six challenges online before I even woke up this morning. Luckily she has arranged them so that we can do up to four challenges on each page, and we have until next Sunday to finish them.
And what is probably the biggest crop of them all is being held at Two Peas in a Bucket. Ten challenges are up there already, again with a deadline of next Sunday.
Some of my challenge pages will be posted in the appropriate site's gallery and some straight into my blog, but they will all end up here eventually so you could be hearing about NSD for quite some time around here. You have been warned!
I've had a bit of a scrapbooking lull between the scramble of finishing off April challenges and the madness of National Scrapbooking Day that is to come tomorrow, but I have pulled together a page for the third stash challenge at Scrap Our Stash. They called it the Pretty Paper Party challenge and asked us to use paper from at least three collections and to dig into our stash for some rub-ons.
I decided to try and fill in one of the gaps in my 2012 album with a page from Legoland. It will sit opposite this one so I tried to use a similar colour scheme and I used the same Thickers for a similar title. I don't have a lot of rub-ons but I unearthed some gold stars from a birthday themed sheet.
The turquoise and floral papers are from two different collections from My Mind's Eye but I love how well they coordinate and I was inspired by one of my own recent layouts to stitch around the edge of those papers. The yellow is an ancient piece from Daisy D's and the red is from Fancy Pants.
Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Linen CLoset
Paper - MME Miss Caroline, MME Lime Twist, Daisy D's Butter Polka Dot, Fancy Pants Wavesearcher
Letters - American Crafts
Rub-On Stars - Royal & Langnickel
Thread - DMC
Tools
Hobbycraft Medium Star Punch
Bazzill Basics Paper Piercer
The March/April team scraplifting game at Scrap Whispers has come to an end and all our pages are being unveiled this week. Three teams of scrappers have been scraplifting each others page in turn, all starting from the same original layout. It's always interesting to see the similarities and differences between the pages and the different directions that the teams can go in.
I was in Georgina's team and had Chelsey's page to lift. I was quite pleased when I received it, because it was quite similar to my own style and I didn't really change anything in the layout. My photos are from Easter this year, when we were holidaying in the snow of the Peak District.
and this is Chelsey's page for comparison:
I kept the three photos (but swapped them over), the two colour background, the stitched square and the two font title, but I replaced the label stickers with strips of washi tape and swapped her flowers for snowflakes. Finally I added some journalling below the photos.
Our team's pages were unveiled on the Scrap Whispers blog yesterday; the others will be revealed on Wednesday and Friday.
Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Sandylion (Snowflakes/Winter Words)
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Jillibean Soup Alphabeans
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Thread - DMC
Snowflakes - from Stash
On with the NSD challenges at Scrap Whispers. Their fourth fairy tale challenge was based on Rumpelstiltskin, or more specifically the spinning wheel that he used to spin straw into gold. Georgina put that wheel in a rough sketch for us to use for either a card or a layout. 
