It's Raining, It's Pouring at CCG!

And it's a rainy Friday here in Maryland, too. Ugh. Gray. Dreary. Just blah. I'm so ready for spring break. We're celebrating the April Showers month at Color Combos Galore this week with a lively palette and a fun, wet challenge:

Our sponsor this month is Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker, and not only is she providing a prize to a player on our site, but she also provided the design team with her "It's Raining, It's Pouring" collection to work with. Here's the page I made:

Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a "technique" girl. Heat embossing and stitching are about as "technique-y" as I tend to get, so this challenge took me a little out of my comfort zone, but that's what challenges are all about, right?

Here are a few closeups and details from my page. When I saw the Nikki Sivils paper, I knew I wanted to scrap this memory. I was thinking of making my own rainbow, but then I remembered a recent Studio Calico kit had this cool rainbow paper made by Crate Paper, and I was crossing my fingers that the colors would match. There were other colors in the rainbow paper, but I lucked out to discover that the colors I needed were side-by-side and it was on a portion of the rainbow that would be small enough to fit on my 8 x 8 page. I jazzed it up by ading stitches and pearls, delighted that I had pearls in matching colors! I always pick up a pack or two of those colorful pearls when I see them.

For the Designer's Challenge of using wet mediums, I decided to add Glossy Accents to the polka dots on the rainboots.

I also added some Glossy Accents to the polkies on the umbrella and lifted the middle of the umbrella with pop dots to accommodate some of the pearls and also to give dimension to the umbrella. I added glossy accents to the frog's eyes, too.

Now, here's the part where I have to tell you that it almost killed me making this page. I was determined to use mist and try that splattery effect. Those splatters would just not go where I wanted them to go! But it's a challenge, right? and I didn't want to waste a perfectly good sheet of Bazzill by tossing it, so I just went with the flow and decided it sort of looked like rain and accepted the imperfection.

That yellow strip of October Afternoon paper was sitting on my desk leftover from a layout I did a couple of months ago (yeah, I really, REALLY need to clean my scrap room!), and I thought it would be the perfect addition. Love that old SEI "live groovy" button. Isn't that raindrop paper so cute? It's one of the Nikki Sivils papers that was sent to me, as are the red strip and phrase.

I wanted to place my title down where it is, but the red letters weren't quite showing up enough on the patterned paper, so I backed the middles of the letters with some old Ki Memories paper. Later, as I was looking at my page, the title still wasn't standing out, so I added some pen outlining. Just before I was getting ready to photograph my page, I was still not satisfied with my title, so I added Glossy Accents to make them look wet, and it was just what my title needed! Of course, I had to wait forever to dry before I could photograph my page!

One of the Nikki Sivils papers I got has these rows and rows of cute little rainboots. I so wanted to add a strip of those boots, but I couldn't quite get that to work, so instead, I trimmed a pair out and Glossy Accented the polka dots.

And here's the part where I should've left well enough alone. I was getting carried away with the wet mediums challenge, and I decided to add dots of puffy paint around some of the elements. It seemed like a good idea at the time. After I added them, I wished I hadn't. Sigh.

The red frame was actually a journaling spot with lines and some flowers, but I didn't want to have the flowers, so I trimmed the center of it and added my own journaling on cardstock.

It was so cool to see all the Color Combos Galore design team work with the same products. You'd think our pages would all have the same look. We were all working with the same two or three papers, but every single layout is so unique and reflects the designers' characteristic styles. Go check out the CCG reveal.

And I do hope you'll play with us. No, you don't need these papers--just use stuff from your own stash that has the colors in the palette and use the Designer's Challenge. You might wind up as our Gallery Fave, or you might catch our eye and become our next Featured Member, and you might even win a prize from our sponsor, Nikki Sivils Scrapbooker!

Thank you for stopping by my blog and reading about my page!