Ready to Challenge YOUrself??

Time for June's challenge at Challenge YOUrself!  This month's challenge is a super fun one, especially with Father's day right around the Corner.  The theme is "My Boy!"  So whether you scrap your hubby, your dad, your brother, your dog or your goldfish, Bob (c'mon...someone out there totally has a goldfish named Bob...), grab your scrappy supplies and show us a layout of a boy in your life.  Make sure you're in the picture, of course! :)

Up for grabs this month is a awesome swag bag from Paper Issues!  CLICK HERE to check them out!

My scrappy style lately seems to be suffering a bit of schizophrenia...I'm all over the place and I can't commit to a style. I love so many different styles and love trying them all out, even if they aren't my exactly in my comfort zone.  Anyway, with this photo, clean and simple just wouldn't cut it.  So here's my take on this month's challenge.  CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the talented design team came up with!

Lots of layers and flowers on this one.  I found these little flowers in the value bin at Michaels.

I got this great chipboard frame from Creative Embellishments and have been wanting to use it for awhile.  I love the fancy swirly pattern of it...it almost reminds me of the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.  To match it to my layout, I first painted it white, then embossed it with Tim Holtz Distressing embossing powder in green, rubbed a bit of that off, and added some neon green gelato to brighten up the lighter spots.  Then I inked the edges a bit.  Then I weaved these great shabby chic Thickers through a green wire and wrapped it around the chipboard.

For the background, I started by running some gesso over the middle part of the page, then misting over it with chartreuse Heidi Swapp mist.  Once dry, I used a DCWV mask to add texture with modeling paste, then grabbed a TCW mask and some ink to add some script.

I misted these white doilies with a mix of the chartreuse Heidi Swapp mist and some sweet cherry Heidi Swapp mist.

So there it is.  A layout featuring me and my boy.  Now, let's see yours!  Remember, you have a whole month to get your layout linked up...might be a good challenge to scrap those Father's Day photos next weekend, eh?  ;-)

xoxo,

Shawna

The 2nd Tooth...

Well, I couldn't wait any longer to scrap this story.  It's epic and I am pretty sure that the Little Lady will have a lot of laughs looking back and reading about her daredevil adventures on the playground that led to the loss of this tooth.  I have had a lot of design team work to get done this week, but my mojo had been lacking so I knew I had to do a "just for fun" layout to try and get myself back into the groove.  This was the perfect page to do just that...it was fun, no pressure and has a great story behind it.  Working with a panoramic photo was a blast too...definitely planning on using panoramics again soon! Linking up to this month's sketch challenge over at Stuck?!  as well.

Sooooo here she is...my toothless wonder!

And some closeups.

I used a little bit of everything on this layout, materials-wise.  Here's a list:

Papers: 
DCWV Green Stack (including the fussy cut trees, mushrooms and chevron arrows)
kraaft
Embellies:  
Basic Grey Hey Boy flair buttons
Basic Grey Capture ephemera
Studio Calico wooden chevrons
Daily Flash Snap Caps
Random wooden mushrooms from stash
Other:
modeling paste
Mod Podge tree bark mask

Thanks so much for stopping by.  I love hearing from you!

xoxo,

Shawna

Color Kit reveal at the Memory Nest!

The Memory Nest has revealed its June Color Kit - Chairs!  CLICK HERE to check out the post and, if you order this kit or any other product in the store, be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post to grab the coupons for a great discount on your purchase and on shipping!

This kit inspired me to do something I haven't done in quite awhile...a 2 page layout!  I had so many great pictures from the Little Lady's birthday party last year and I was so happy to see how well the photos meshed with this month's color kit.  Here's my layout:

And here's the awesome kit.

Lots of fun papers in there!  For this layout I used the following:

Echo Park Summer Bliss - Summer Circles
Heidi Swapp Dreamy - Ticket to Ride
Fancy Pants The Good Life - Live
Fancy Pants The Good Life - That Way
Lily Bee Design - Head Over Heels Dreamy

Here are a couple of closeups of the left and ride side.

In addition to the color kit papers, I used some fab birthday embellies from Recollections, as well as some Heidi Swapp embellies and banners.

I cut a little slit in the photo so I could wave the balloon strings in there.  When I showed my daughter, and asked her if it looked like she was really holding the balloons she said "What do you mean? I AM really holding the balloons!"  Haha.  Well, I fooled the almost-5 year old at least!

Here are some more closeups.  This party was truly one for the book...I blame Pinterest for the fact that I went way overboard with the carnival theme.  How could I not?  So many cute ideas!  We had carnival games, a trampoline, face painting, popcorn and cotton candy, a photo booth station, and lots and lots of laughs.  Such a wonderful and memorable day!

Can you seriously stand the awesomeness of the invites?  Courtesy of 2 Birds Studios on Etsy!  CLICK HERE to visit their shop.  There was also a cute end piece of the ticket that gave the time, location and details of the party.

So there it is!  Be sure to keep an eye on my posts this month, as I will have more from this kit later in the month.  Enjoy the evening!

xoxo,

Shawna

Scrap 365-6 Today...

Is it really Sunday already?  Where did the weekend go??  We had a busy, but awesome weekend filled with friends and lots of time outside, hiking, swimming, grilling, gardening...blissful early summer weekend for sure.  We also had a wee bit of drama with the Little Lady literally getting her tooth knocked out during a mishap on a rock climbing wall of a friend's play yard. Stay tuned for that story in a scrapbook page coming soon. ;-)

Now, on to the actual purpose of this post.  CSI and Scrap 365's new collaborative case file.  Fabulous colors and evidence prompts on this one.  Here's my layout featuring the Toothless Wonder back when she first started sprouting those cute little baby teeth. Hehe. :)  This is a shot from our first year family photos.  Man, time really flies.

Here's a look at the case file.  CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the design team came up with for this file.

And some closeups of the page.  I used a lot of chipboard ephemera on this one, with some spatterings of enamel dots, pearl dots, and sequins.  From the case file, I chose bows, flowers, ombre effect and frames for my evidence.  Then I chose 6-word memoir and wrote "Our little love is almost one!"

Tell me this isn't the cutest little flair button in the land of EVER.  Courtesy of October Afternoon's Daily Flash tin pins.

Loved that the evidence included bows this week.  I love the girly touch this peach colored bow gives to the page.

And there you have it!  Now, I am dragging my exhausted self off to bed.  Back to work tomorrow!  Goodnight everyone!

xoxo,

Shawna

CSI #125 - Grace

Was hoping to get this posted last night, but man..I was wiped out from the week and ended up curling up and watching Wolf of Wall Street instead. (Holy crazy movie, Batman!)  So..Happy Saturday!   I hope you all have a fabulous weekend planned.  I have a full day today starting with horseback riding lessons for the mini, a nature walk and a picnic, then an outdoor movie night tonight.  Going to be a beautiful day!

CSI has just revealed its latest case file and I am sharing my layout for it.  I love the way these colors work together against a white background and I was happy to finally scrap a photo from my garden last summer! :)

Here's my layout.  CLICK HERE to see what the rest of the amazing design team came up with.

For my evidence, I have flowers, something sheer (vellum), quatrefoil pattern (I had to google that by the way - I had no idea what it was, but was happy to find that I had a mask in a quatrefoil pattern), something puffy (quilted flair button) and decorative frame.

I was inspired by the word "time" and chose the quote at the bottom of my page as part of my journaling, expanding on it behind the photo.

The quote at the bottom is a bit hard to read, but it is by Mary Sarton and says "Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace."

I found it to be the perfect quote to sum up how I feel about my garden.  In the spring of 2013, I planted my first garden; all organic, and mostly from seed.  Every morning and evening I went out to check and see how it was coming along...although every day each little plant grew just a little bit more, it was well over a month before I had any harvest to show for all of the effort, and this perfect little snow pea was one of the first things to grow.  No matter what I did to encourage the plants to grow faster, time was in charge and I had to learn some serious patience while I waited.  By August, the garden was so big it was spilling over in all directions with various vegetables ready for harvest.  So totally worth the wait!

I wanted to share my process for how I made the little coke bottle flower embellishment.  I found this great stamp on clearance at Jo-Ann Fabrics and paired it up with some watercolors for a homemade embellie encompassing all of the colors in the case file.

I started with watercolor paper, and stamped the image with archival inks.  Then I mixed some watercolors to get the shades I wanted for the bottle.

Lots of water and lots of color and here's the final product.  I fussy cut one of the images out and popped it up on my layout.

Here's a closeup of the stamped image (the ones above were still wet when I photographed them).

In the background, I used the quatrefoil mask and then lightly rubbed a small powder blue inker over it once dry.  Love the effect it gave.

A closeup of the quilted button from Basic Grey's "Hey Kid" collection.  I am absolutely loving this collection and have mixed it in to quite a few layouts lately.

The top corner was completed with some vellum and paper layers, a clear circle, and a K&Co. garden design flair button.

I used the title word "grace" pulled from the quote.  Love the little clear "oh happy day" sticker I found at Michael's.

And that's it.  I wanted to  be sure I kept lots of white in this layout because I just love how it makes the greens and teals pop.  I love this one and think I am going to make a book of my garden trials, tribulations and adventures. :)

Enjoy the day everyone...see you soon!

xoxo,

Shawna