Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Hot Pink Hoopla Challenge

Well, I have had a crazy-busy week.  I completed two urgent commission books and am working on a third book (two down, five to go....).  However, somewhere I managed to squish in some scrapping and enter some of Shimelle's challenges.  I helped that last Sunday was Scrap Club day, so I got a good start there.  I worked on this page, for the "Signature Accent Challenge" and this for the "Colour Story Challenge", then I found this page from May and wrote a secret journalling card, to tuck away in the space I had left for it (but never filled!), to enter the "Add to the Story Challenge".

So, feeling very pleased with myself, I posted my three pages.  And have had some very nice comments - thanks everyone!

Then Shimelle posted some video tutorials, with pages she had made.  There's a beautiful page with a Bingo Card and Butterflies, a new Sketch of the Week  and a gorgeous page with a hot pink background, loads of embellishments, happy colours, bling and plenty of zing too! 

Shimelle's Hot Pink Hoopla Challenge was to make a page that's Inspired By her hot pink page, in some way or other. 

Well, this is my page and I'll explain my "inspiration" below:

I loved the idea of scrapping bright colours.  I used to stick to fairly pastel, soft colours for my page backgrounds, but recently I have made pages with very bright colours, including the backgrounds. 

I scrap for relaxation and enjoyment and don't really follow anyone's "rules" or suggestions much, but I do often get some inspiration from other scrappers - especially Shimelle, whose bright, happy and fun-filled pages are always so varied and exciting, even while they all seem to retain a "very Shimelle style". 

I did make a "hot pink" page, back in March, to celebrate the fabulous creatures made by my students, on my first Sock Creature course (see it here).  So I thought it would be great to make another. 

I got out my scrappy supplies and a pack of photos I wanted to scrap.  I found these photos and really wanted to use them.  However, it was clear that hot pink would not work with these pictures.

But red? Red might just work... the carpet had a red background, which shows up in both pictures and gives them a lot of warmth.  So I found a sheet of lovely bright red cardstock. 

Of course, there was then the question of the "other colours" to use.... And there, in my pile of scrappy stuff, were more aqua and white pieces, left from when I made my page for the Colour Story challenge.  Well, it would've been rude not to use them up.

So, I did!  And then started adding the "Bling":

I made the flower embellishment, from two hand-cut paper flowers, a fab little floral rub-on from Sassafrass Lass and a good old red brad (and not forgetting the inked edges!).  The painted butterfly was from a necklace I found in town last year.  I bought it because I wanted to use the butterflies for scrapping embellishments, so I pulled it apart and put the butterflies in a jar.  I've used one or two before now; this time I put pearly vellum behind the wings, so it would show through the holes, then I added some Stickles, for extra zingy blingy-ness.  I love the result and it looks very pretty on this page.

This chipboard sticker is from the "White Out" collection, by We Are Memory Keepers.  I received a packet of these in the fabulous prize, that I won from a giveaway by the lovely Susanne.  A funny thing though, was a mistake in the wording; it read "too sweet to possibly to forget"... which obviously doesn't quite make sense.  So I wasn't sure about using it.  Til I remembered my butterfly punch, that cuts lovely mini butterflies... So, one cut-out, blinged-up butterfly, strategically placed over the offending error... Who would know, if I hadn't told you?

And finally, one of my "signature" things... I wanted some appropriate lettering.  Played about with various options from my stash, but nothing quite worked.  In the end, I used white Thickers (Jewellery Box), plus the white rub-ons, which are from Maya Road (and which I have had about a century and never used!!). 

I inked the edges of the Thickers and stuck them down.  They were white, with red-inked edges... bleah.... I used the ink-pad to make a nice red dabbed effect.  Nice... but not quite right...

Stickles?  No...

Then I remembered my New Glitter.  I went to a "Stampin' Up Party" at a friend's house, just at the end of July and bought a couple of great label punches, plus a pot of very fine glitter, with a kind-of diamondy shimmer.  I also bought a glue pen, with a broad fibre tip, which is great for just stroking on and whizzing the glitter over.  You can also heat the glitter with a heat-gun, to use it like embossing powder.  I've tried it both "cold" and "hot" and it looks really nice both ways. 

So, there it is - glue pen, plus lovely glitter, equals blinged-up letters.  Just right for my page!

And the inspiration?  The bright colours, the bling, the stickers/ embellishments dotted around the page... The sheer feeling of fun!  And all of that seemed to really suit these gorgeous photos of my wonderful little Great Niece, playing happily at her Christening Day Party!

Hope you like it too!