It's never too late I guess...

I had decided that I was going to apply for the Design Team on a new challenge blog called Southern Girls Challenge, especially for ladies down under. Well, I didn't read the instructions properly! I'm so used to entering challenges that close at midnight, that I didn't take in that the challenge ended at 3pm (New Zealand time)! I haven't had any time to work on the layout until today, the last day, although I knew exactly what I was going to do. Anyway, long story short, by the time I finished it and went to send the email I saw the post "Call closed". So, instead of entering the DT call, I'm just showing all of you what I made. Hope you like it - I really do! Gary even says it's one of my better layouts!

Remember this layout I made from a sketch from Beggahuna? Well, I liked that sketch so much that I had to use it again. This layout turned out completely different. For starters this picture is landscape as in the sketch rather than portrait like the last one. I used lots of chipboard painted with Twinkling H2Os and/or my new Sakura pens (bought at the Craft show at the beginning of the month). For the circle, this time I used a piece of wire strung with beads. One of my friends, Lainie, is competing in a challenge at the moment that required you to use wire, so that gave me the idea. The background paper is from the Halloween Spotlight kit from Breezy, and the green papers are from Stampin Up! I borrowed my neighbour's eyelet border punch (thanks Katrina, I promise to return it soon!) to use on the cardstock strip, and put a Kaszazz rubon on there as well. The big butterfly at the bottom comes from the craft fair too, and was also coloured with my new Sakura pens. In fact, I went a bit crazy with the pens. I love the sparkle! The sparkle from the Twinkling H2Os is sooooo much more subtle and less obvious! But, it's great to match up embellishments. I used it on the chipboard, as well as the large butterfly, the Tim Holtz grungeboard letters (love them!) and the little bead butterflies. Those butterfly beads were actually blue and a funny creamy orange colour before I painted them.

Anyway, want to see some close ups? Here they are:


Sorry about the quality of some of these shots. They were taken indoors at night, not the best conditions in which to take pictures like these.

Well, I have set my sights on several more competitions that all need to be done before the end of the month, so I better hop to it!

By the way, in case you were wondering, the picture on the layout was taken at Floriade last year (Sept 2009). It's a tradition in our family - every year I take a picture of the kids in the flowers just outside the gate to Floriade. Last year, I even convinced Gary to come along. We brought the tripod along too, set the the timer on the camera, and, hooray, a whole family shot! Maybe it will work this year again - only 2 weeks to wait till Floriade opens for this year to find out. Hopefully the rain will stop before then - I've had enough!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine