scrapbook – Page 2

Okay, I had so much fun with the Scrap Our Stash layout challenge that I decided to jump right into their Tic Tac Toe challenge for this wonderful month of May. I used the row across the middle which consisted of the color yellow, clouds and a paper clip. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. . . or not so much. I spent hours on this freestyle layering technique (something I haven’t done much of) and completely trashed my craft room to create this one little scrapbook page. While it may be just one picture and one page, it’s one that will warm my mama heart for years to come.

I’m still cropping the year 2011, so my now six-year-old son was just three months old in this picture. Wasn’t he (and still is) precious!! Surrounding the photo are several layers of paper from Authentique’s Be(you)tiful 6×6 bundle (absolutely one of my favorite collections) and a plethora of embellishments from stamped tickets, washi tape, misted clouds, twine, a tab, buttons, a big old yellow sun and of course a paper clip. All this fun stuff is mounted onto a backdrop of cloud paper from DCWV‘s Sky’s The Limit stack. The two separate paper clouds on the bottom right and the one up top weren’t originally intended, but as I was putting the finishing touches on this labor intensive layout I discovered that I had unknowingly sliced open my pinky finger and left bright red drops of DNA as proof that I had put at least my blood and tears into this one little page (there might have been a little bit of love in there also).

It’s no secret that I love creating cards and I often take part in various creative challenges to boost my stash of salutations, but last week I stumbled upon a couple of sites that offer monthly scrapbook challenges that look like a whole lot of fun. And let’s face it, I really need to crop more if I ever hope to make a dent in all my memories stored out there on Shutterfly.

So this weekend I decided to take a stab at the Scrap Our Stash May Sketch Challenge, because not only is it a sketch challenge but also a creative brain teaser. They provide visual inspiration but I had to incorporate elements for each letter of the word “MOTHER” from my stash of scrapbooking supplies, which proved a bit more difficult than I had originally thought. Regardless, I did it! And I had a lot of fun raiding my supplies and figuring it all out for this one-page layout for 2011.

I used Signature’s Family collection for most of my paper choices, but the black/brown paper came from Prima’s Engraver collection. To fulfill the acrostic portion of this challenge I added the following items from my scrapbooking stash:

M: I spritzed green Glimmer Mist on the background.

O: I placed an ornamental brad that says “Oh Boy” at the top right.

T: I used two photos, twine and a tab (I got this one covered).

H: There is a small metal heart at the bottom left of the layout. It started out shiny white, but I sanded it a bit to take off the shine and reveal the silver around the edges.

E: This one was tough for me, but luckily my son’s name starts with an “E” and he is in both pictures. Is that cheating?

R: The word “precious” is a white rub-on that I didn’t even know I owned. See, this scrap your stash thing is already working out for me.

If you’re looking for a little creative cropping motivation, I suggest you join me at Scrap Our Stash and give one of their challenges a go. They also have a Tic Tac Toe challenge that looks like a lot of fun.

Tag: scrapbook

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