WIP + Creative Prompts

It's a new month, which means I can start sharing my Work in Progress layouts! My first layout I made for last week's prompt at Creative Prompts for You, which was a combination prompt, where we had to use something calendar-related, fabric, a transparency, and embossing. The calendar part of the prompt made me think of the clocks on the Jenni Bowlin paper that was in the April kit. I know, a clock isn't a calendar--I did add a calendar--but they made me think of the idea of time, and this layout was born:

The little polaroid frame is a cut-out from one of the Echo Park papers that came in the kit. I trimmed the inside from the frame and tucked a photo from our wedding inside.

A few detail shots...The frame around the journaling is from The Graphics Fairy. The transparent element is cut from a Teresa Collins transparency. I added pop dots under where I adhered the jewels so it would sit up and cast a shadow on the page.

The silk ruffle trim is by Pink Paislee, which is what I used for the fabric part of the prompt. Those numbers are cut from a Jenni Bowlin paper. They signify our ages when we got married, our current ages, and our wedding date. That pretty border punch is by EK Success.

The April kit featured the Playground collection by Echo Park, a bright and lively collection, which made it difficult to use for the romantic feel I wanted to achieve for this page, but there was a sheet of red paper that had "Love" printed on it. I ran it through my Cuttlebug to emboss it and sanded it a little. The red was a perfect color to add to my otherwise monochromatic page.

The calendar accent is a Maya Road Sheer that has been languishing in my stash forever. The little banner stickers are by Jenni Bowlin, and I turned them on their sides to make flags and hold the title. Those rub-ons are by Headline--love those things--nice and small and they rub on like butter! The jeweled pin is also by Jenni Bowlin. That "You + Me" is a cut-out from one of the Echo Park papers, and the polka dot flowers are old Prima blooms. I added silver pearls from Recollections around the photo. That little scrap of mesh was sitting on my scrap desk from a layout I made a while back, and I decided to tuck that in.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my page! I'll be sharing some other layouts I made with this kit in the next few days.

Color Combos Galore Challenge 163 is Live!

And I made the colors! Janet's taking a break to take care of her Mom for a while, so I'm taking care of things at Color Combos Galore for a bit. Here is the Inspiration Board I made for this week's challenge:

And here is my page:

I'm not sure why that blue damask pattern showed up so blue--it really has an aqua tint to it. Here are some close-ups. For the stamps, I used teal ink and added clear embossing powder since I didn't have any teal embossing powder.

In case you don't think I used the stripes called for in the challenge, I did. I had a hard time finding striped paper in the colors I needed to use, so I just trimmed some blue and white stripes from a multi-colored striped paper. I love Doodlebug frills--I've been using them a lot lately.

Jules had posted a mini-challenge at CCG to use pink, aqua, white, and brown and to scraplift one of the design team's layouts. I scraplifted Janet's beautiful layout. I thought what she did with that old Chatterbox argyle paper was genius! Here's my scraplift:

Come check out what the rest of the team did, and I hope you'll play along with my first color palette!

So Vibrant! So Summery! So Fun!

That's what I said when I opened my July Work in Progress kit (unfortunately, it's sold out--gotta snag these awesome kits early!). I'm so excited to show the layouts I made for my first month designing for Work in Progress. The kit features the new Echo Park Sweet Summertime papers and elements, along with a bunch of other goodies, including some Jenni Bowlin stuff. This kit is perfect for summer pictures!

When I saw that giant balloon sticker, I knew that I had to use it and scoured my brain thinking of the perfect photos to use with it, and I remembered these pictures from a trip to Maine about ten years ago and thought the baloon would be a perfect accent. I mounted the balloon on pop dots and embellished it with brads and a Doodlebug frill. I added a swirly image I found online, made it blue, and cut it out. With three pictures and that great big baloon, I didn't have a whole lot of space for my story, so I kept it short and sweet and made it into a border. I matted everything in black to make each element visually pop out of the page.

For my next page, I knew I wanted to use the cool sandcastles that Trish included in the kit. And it was perfect because I had to do a beach inspired layout over at Creative Prompts for You. I wished I had some sand to cover the castle, but I didn't want to drive 20 miles to the craft store, so instead, I heat embossed it with some bronze-colored powder. I so wanted to use that awesome Jenni Bowlin die-cut sun paper, but, alas, it was too big for my 8 x 8 pages, so I cut it in half and cut out the sun and added machine and hand stitches. I just love the little pinwheels in the Echo Park paper! Trish also packed some cool corrugated paper into the kit. I sanded it to give it a bit of a weathered look.

I found this fun picture in my stash and thought that colorful outfit my Gram was wearing would go well with the colorful papers. That tree is gigantic and so fun. I embellished it with circles punched out of one of the Echo Park papers and stitched on some tiny buttons.

Here's the fourth layout I made. I knew when I opened the box that I wanted to use this cute picture of my Gram sitting under an umbrella picnic table on my sister's deck. There was this cool burlap in the kit, and  the frayed edges reminded me a little of that fringe on the umbrella. The fun banner came on the sheet of Echo Park stickers, as did the sun. I wanted to use that sun and some more of the cloud paper, but I wanted to save some of the clouds, so instead of using a big piece of it, I tucked a small bit behind the top layer and folded back the edge and had the sun peeking out. That pretty yellow butterfly is from the kit, too--Jenni Bowlin butterfly banner (the yellow letter stickers are also in that set). The pinwheel patterned paper made me think of making a pinwheel accent, which looks fun with the double-sided paper.

For my last page, I wanted to show that you could get a whole different look than the vibrant summery ones I made. The green and yellow papers are both Echo Park, and I used some of the Jenni Bowlin paper (the red with the suns). I made the flowers with these cool fabric strips that Trish included in the kit. The brown background is Core'dinations paper, sanded, which I had bought from Work in Progress a while back.

This page was published in Scrapbook Trends.

I still have a TON of stuff leftover from this awesome kit, and I'm saving it for summery pictures I will take over the next two months!

Here are my pages I made for Work in Progress

I just loved the March kits I got to play with as a guest designer for Work in Progress this month. Trish puts together such a fun mix of products in her kits! In my last post, I posted some detail shots.

My biggest scrappy wish is to get on a design team for a kit club, so this was a great beginning to realizing that wish!

So here are my layouts I made with the March Work in Progress kits.

So, ever since the big snowstorm, when I was buried inside my house for a week, I've been obsessed with tea. I discovered this cool site, 52 Teas, which invents a brand-new flavor every week. Really interesting flavors like coconut cream pie (my fave so far) and buttered cinnamon raisin toast. I made this page for our current challenge over at How Much Is Too Much?



It was really fun trying to figure out what stories I would tell using the products from this kit. The Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety from the March Project Kit was a perfect opportunity to scrap about my foray into growing tomatoes on my deck last summer. I just love those Jenni Bowlin banner stickers that came with the kit. I mounted them on brown cardtock and strung them on the baker's twine that came in the kit and added some brads in between the little pennants. I made the scalloped border at the top by punching circles from the "Sunday Picnic" paper and added brads between the circles.
For this page, I used a little bit from the main kit, the project kit, and the add-on. I love the doilies that Trish included in the kit. And how fun that I discovered the sticker that says "A work in progress" on my 7Gypsies "D is for Diet" sticker sheet! The leaves and flowers are from the "Strawberry Fields" paper from the Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety collection. I omitted the strawberries and added some jewels to the flower centers.

This page is a remake of a layout I did a couple of years ago. I love my journaling (even though I later discovered a typo), but I never liked the way that old page looked. The WIP kit had the perfect colors to go with this old photo of me and my sisters from back in the early 1970's. Isn't that Cosmo Cricket chipboard chick the cutest?

Finally, I made this page for Sketch This. I wound up adding a few more details to this page after I sent it to Janelle. I just love the new Birds on a Wire edge punch by Martha Stewart.

Seeing Red {and Black}

I got a chance to work with Jenni Bowlin's new Red/Black Extension II Collection, and I'm in love! We're going to be spotlighting her new collections at Scrapbook News & Review on Saturday, December 5.

Here's a peek at some layouts I created for this event:

(Yes, I saw the typo and fixed it on my final layout. Ugh.)