3 pages, 5 challenges.

I was having a bit of a rough time last week.  I was trying to start my first TAFE essay and everytime I tried it felt like I was hitting a bit of a brick wall.  I was getting increasingly stressed as I was aware of all the other things I was needing (and wanting) to get done, and yet I kept on turning to life-avoidance mode. So I took a step back from the laptop for a couple of days, got the gardening done I wanted to do, did some cleaning, and turned to Scrapbook Challenges website to feed my creative muse.  I pulled 3 challenges I thought I might like to try, and went into the vaults for some photos that might work with them.  Over the next week and a half I managed to work around other commitments and get them all done!!! (and yes I have even almost finished that first essay!)

These challenges were heading out of my comfort zone (a good thing) as they all relied on using multiple pieces of patterned paper in the one page.  For many scrappers this is a staple, but for me, I always think, oh, the expense!!!  To get around this hurdle, I headed straight for the large scraps folder and started from there.

challenge 1: "By the numbers".
The brief here was to use 4 patterned papers, rhinestones, 2 stamps and a butterfly.  All my patterned papers were offcuts from the stash, (2 are actually Christmas-themed, can you guess which ones?) I used the colours from the lined paper to determine what other colours to use.  I felt that the rhinestones should really have a 3 somewhere, and I ended up using 3 groups of 3.  I used 2 flourish stamps, and lastly my butterfly, which is actually challenge 2: make a butterfly by white-embossing onto vellum.  This was one I have had on my "to-do" list since seeing a project in "Australian Cardmaking, Stamping and Papercraft (vol 16 no 12) by Jennifer Sweatman.

Challenge 3: Product Challenge  The brief here was to use (again) a minimum of 4 patterned papers, and using a punch to make a repeated embellishment.  Computer journalling was also required.


This pages also ended up fulfilling another of my personal challenges: Challenge 4: make a page using nothing but offcuts!  That's right, this page was actually made by sewing strips of patterned paper together!  (see photo at right) The elephants used as embellishments were punched from paper that is now behind the photos, and the blue circles and Sizzixed heading were from a scrap of blue cardstock.

And finally, Challenge 5, Sketch 254
As with the other pages, the 2 patterned papers I used came from my offcuts.  The title circle was cut out of the middle of the backing cardstock.
And did you notice, a few of those vellum butterflies fluttered onto this page too!

Splurge . . but just a little bit!

The other day my local scrapbooking shop was having a sale . . and I knew I was going to be in the suburb.  Much as I knew I didn't need to buy any new supplies, I was getting tired of looking through the same sheets of patterned paper, so I gave myself the following limits:

• spend no more than $5
• had to be suitable for boy pages
• had to be used quickly, not left to get lost in  the stash!

I ended up spending $3.50 on 3 sheets of patterned paper.  Just enough to freshen things up a bit!

My favourite bits are the thousand-year old Creative Memories stickers on the title which matched perfectly, and the "Fine and Dandy" tab, which is actually part of the cut-off strip from the paper!

Obssessed?

The other day I was hanging out the washing, which happened to include 2 soccer uniforms and 3 tae kwon do uniforms. I thought to myself "the only thing missing is the ballet clothes".
So later on I went back down, hung the ballet clothes up as well and took some photos for a future scrapbook page.
that's not weird is it?