(High School) Friends Together

Here's my latest challenge entry for the Scrap the Girls monochromatic challenge. I really enjoy doing monochromatic layouts. Looking for papers and embellishments from my stash that are all the same colour is fun - once you decide on the colour, that its! I picked green for this challenge because that was the colour of my daughter's jewellery, and because of the trees in the background of the photos. 
In my post about my White on white layout I explained that I have recently received a number of die cuts and embossed papers from a swap on the Crop Room. So I went looking at those swap items again and found the swirl embossed paper, the owl and the leaves. All three pieces were larger A2 embossed papers, generally meant for cards. I cut them up though, and used the rest of the owl for the mat under the single photo in the top left corner. Part of the non-embossed part of the leaf piece I cut with my wonky scalloped border die for the base of the title. 

The embellishments:
buttons: Beutron
flower brads: unknown
floss: DMC

epoxy photo corner: Making Memories (from a Christmas set)
layered flower: unknown die cut, TLC Poppin Pieces flower, button and floss
large flower: unknown, but I put a Fancy Pants rub on on it
letters: Kaisercraft, Basic Grey
metal 'together' ribbon slide: unknown
rhinestones: Kaisercraft Basics

jute: coloured with Bamboo VersaColor ink. Note: I threaded the two buttons onto the jute through two diagonal holes. Then I taped down the buttons in the corners of the "frame" and taped jute on the underside of the cardstock. Then I marked where the other two holes in the buttons were and pierced two holes. I threaded a short piece of jute through these holes and tied it off on top of the button. I thought this would help to secure the jute "frame" in place. 
ribbon: unknown, but this was the ribbon my daughter wore in her hair when these photos were taken
mini bows were made with a fork, with this fabulous tutorial 

I used a Becky Fleck Page Map as the basis for this layout. It's the current sketch on the Page Maps challenge blog, but since I can't enter that challenge, I used the sketch for this one instead. I started off fairly true to the sketch but diverged a bit as I went on. All in all though, I really like the final outcome. Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!
Till next time. Happy Days!
Francine

A letter to Kyaa

I'm so proud of my daughter. She is growing into a lovely young woman; responsible, sensible, and hard working among other things. I decided to make a layout to hold a letter to her about how much I love her and how proud of her I am. It just so happened that it also coincided with challenge  #24 over at Use it Tuesday to do a layout about love, all while using up your scraps! I've just discovered this challenge blog, and anything that encourages me to use up what I have rather than buy more is a good thing!

So here's my layout.

Everything on it has been in my stash, some things for six or seven years! The only new things I used are the cutting dies that I got for Christmas, but the paper I cut with them is from my stash. Let's see if I can tell you all the products I used:

• cardstock and purple patterned paper for large heart are both from TLC kits from my TLC selling days
• vellum from Paper Pleasing Ideas (now out of business) to cover chipboard K, top of the banner, flower stamens, and to make the letters for the title
• chipboard K by Making Memories
• cream/green patterned paper, rubons, ribbon, sticky backed pearls - unknown
• Postmarks background stamp from Kaisercraft

Cutting dies used:

• Cuttlebug Baby Face for letters (now discontinued?)
• Cheery Lynn Designs Fanciful Flourish
• Cheery Lynn Designs Heartland America Large (heart with ribbon on K, heart between the photos and doily flowers at top of K)
• Cheery Lynn Designs Exotic Butterfly small
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Banner Day
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Mini Pennants
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Prima Donna Petals (one of my favourites!)

And just in case you were wondering where the actual letter is - it's hidden behind the dark purple heart, but it's for my daughter's eyes only!

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Wetland - white on white

Oh my, I have been neglecting my blog lately, haven't I? I haven't posted in almost three months! It's not that I haven't done any scrapping, although I haven't done much, it's just that life, and a broken down computer got in the way! But, I have some time, and the computer is fixed so I have something to share with you all.

It's been a while since I did any challenges at SouthernGirls so I thought it was about time! The current challenge appealed to me - White on White. I quite like monochromatic challenges and I have recently received a ton of die cuts and embossed pieces of paper from a swap on my members only site - The Crop Room.  I had a sketch from Becky Fleck of Page Maps that I liked with lots of little squares and figured I could use lots of embossed paper pieces from the swap as well as making a few more with some of the embossing folders I received for hosting the swap. I had fun going through my stash to find white embellishments too. Once I had found everything cut and/or embossed the papers, the layout came together really quickly and I absolutely love the result! I love how the colour photos really pop out of all the white. Want to see?

It's interesting that all these papers looked white individually, but once they came together the difference in the whites is amazing. I love it! I will try and tell you what each square is from left to right starting in the top row:

• embossed with Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, flowers were an op shop find (stud earrings) with sequin leaves
• ? -  one of the embossed papers I received for the swap. It's on a shiny kind of plastic (thanks Jenny)
• embossed with Cuttlebug folder with vines and little birds - can't find the name of it (thanks Janice), and pearls
• photo

Second row:

• left over scrap of flocked paper from an LSS challenge kit. Sticky backed pearl
• photo
• piece of photo paper wrapped with ribbon through a (Junkitz?) buckle, pearl
• embossed with The Paper Studio script folder (thanks Nita), ribbon scrap, photo clip and sticky backed bling

Third row:

• Cuttlebug vine and bird folder, pearls
• magic mesh over paper with die cut from teh swap (thanks Nita) and bling brad
• photo
• ? - embossed piece from the swap (thanks Kathy)

Fourth row:

• photos

Fifth row:

• as per second square in the top row

Sixth row:

• left over scrap of  glittery vellum from an LSS challenge kit, on top of a plain piece of white paper. Sticky backed bling
• left over scrap of flocked paper from an LSS challenge kit as per second row, first square. Sticky backed pearls
• embossed with Cuttlebug folder with swirls (thanks Janice)
• photo

Butterflies from the swap (thanks Nita). I embossed the bottom one with the vines and bird folder, and the middle one with the Swiss dots folder. I punched the top corners of the journalling tag with an EK Success corner punch. The 'Wetland' part of the title is a photo of the sign at the wetland, and the little letters are my Carolees Creations. More sticky backed pearls and bling, all on top of a piece of Bazzill white cardstock, and the layout is done!

I'm really pleased with the final result. Is it uncool to pin yourself (on Pinterest)? I just might!

Till next time - happy days!

Francine