Tag, You're It!

At the beginning of June I participated in "Layout Tag" with some of the other ladies at Challenge Masters. How it works is someone picks a layout to start from, it is sent to the first person who uses it as inspiration for a layout they make. The new completed layout is sent to the next person who uses it as inspiration and so on. There were 16 participants. I was the first person. The layout I was given for inspiration was this:


Here is the layout I made:


As you can see, I copied the placement of the elements very closely. I like the distressed background so I used some paint and a dry foam brush to distress my background paper. Instead of the beaded string spiraling diagonally through the page, I added some buttons. Finally I added my journaling in strips to the bottom right corner because I needed more space than was available in the original design. You can see the rest of the progression here.

Technique Challenge

It's been a while since I posted, but I have a good reason: I had a baby! William was born July 9th and we are so excited to have him as part of our family.

My first layout is from my brother and sister-in-law's wedding last year using photos from the ceremony. (I've had this one done for a while, I just hadn't taken a photo of it.)



The next layout I started before William was born, but then it sat for over a week on my desk. I finally had a little time yesterday to finish it. It is for the Technique Challenge at Challenge Masters. The challenge was to make patriotic pinwheels. I thought these pictures of Ellie at the county fairs last year worked very well with the red, white and blue.



Finally, a picture of the reason I haven't been scrapping. :)

Happy 4th of July!

I was hoping to be holding my baby by now, but I guess we will have to wait a few more days to meet him/her. We spent the day with family having a BBQ, playing games and shooting off some fireworks. It was fun and took my mind of being pregnant for a while.

While I've been waiting to go into labor, I have been getting some more scrapping done. My first project was a birthday card for my sister-in-law whose birthday is on Wednesday. I used this week's sketch from Get Sketchy.





My second project was a layout for the July Surprise Challenge at Challenge Masters. Colette challenged us to use the Becky Fleck sketch below and turn the single photo into a multiphoto photo collage. I had just bought the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely collection yesterday and the fun patterns and bright colors had me inspired to create.

Playing with Alcohol Inks

I made a couple of cards this week using glossy cardstock and Tim Holtz alcohol inks. I am having a lot of fun playing with these inks and the different effects I can make with them. The first card I made a plaid background using instructions from Tim Holtz's blog. This is for my brother-in-law whose birthday is on the 4th of July. I am really happy with how it turned out and will definitely use this technique more!


The next card is for my brother and sister-in-law whose anniversary is also on the 4th of July. For the squares on this one I used red alcohol ink, copper metallic mixative and blending solution to make the mottled effect. I also love how this one turned out and will be trying it again. I used the current sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You for this card.




Here are a couple of layouts I have completed in the last week or so. These were all just for fun, no challenges involved! The first is a layout with pictures from a wedding we went to last summer. This page went together quickly as I used the invitation and other items from the wedding to embellish the page.

I've Been Published!

Today is the release date of the Scrapbooking.com July issue. About a month and a half ago, the editor of this e-zine requested that I write an article about two layouts I had submitted of my girls playing in their pool. Here it is.