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!

Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Signature Accent Challenge

This weekend, Shimelle held a great Scrapbooking Challenge Weekend at her blog!

I decided to make the best of a day's scrapping at Scrap Club and I made / completed several pages (on Sunday and since), as part of the challenges.

A slightly loose connection, since I am not certain that I have one "signature accent" as such...  However, this page has four of the things I have been using most on my layouts in the past few months - circles mounted onto scalloped circles, something fancy done with ribbons, inked edges (on everything!) and hand-embellished/ hand-made lettering. 
The lettering is something I have always done - If I can't find some letters I like for my titles, I either embellish plain ones, or just cut out some from paper that I do like! 

I like ribbons and have fun fiddling with them in lots of ways - flowers, bows, double-layered strips with a slider decoration... and the technique on this page, made by cutting slots with a great little edge punch that I was given, then threading a narrow ribbon through, to make a decorative edging. I've used it several times and I love the effect.  It even looked good in black, just here!

And the scalloped circles are something I've had fun with several times.  I used them on the page about my Present from Deb (though to be fair, she made these as labels for the various sweeties etc in the parcel!); I made my own hand-printed lino-cut embellishments for this page... I just like sticking circles on my layouts!

And I've discovered that inking the edge of a photo, matt or other element for a page, really makes it stand out and gives it a "finished" look.  The edges of photos are often very white and they show up against the paper when you matt them; inked in a matching or contrasting colour, the photo suddenly "pops" on the page and somehow stands out much better. It just looks more complete somehow.  I like it anyway and use it A Lot.

So, this page has all four of those things - I think it therefore qualifies as a "Signature" layout for me; I hope you agree!

Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Colour Story Challenge

This is the second Challenge that I tried, from Shimelle's great Weekend of Scrapbooking! 

The Colour Story Challenge was to create a page using only Red, White and Aqua.

A sea-side theme seemed just right for this colour palette.  I had these two smallish photos of Wells-Next-the-Sea, in North Norfolk, which I had been wanting to scrap for a while. 

This American Crafts paper, with the white dotted lines seemed just right for the photos and the piece of checked/gingham-style paper that I found (in a pad of A5 papers from Papermania) also seemed to have the right feel for my theme. 

I wanted to try a page on a white background, since this is something I don't usually do and have been thinking of trying for a while (I think I have only ever made one other page with a white background).
So, that was my aqua and white...

The photo at the bottom has a few touches of red, so it was really just right for this challenge.  I used a red strip cut from a sheet of Cosmo Cricket paper (back of Odds & Ends - Spare Change), which is fab for this layout. The "journalling label" is cut from the same sheet. 
The lovely little white bunting flags came from my stash - they might be by Bazzill, but I'm not sure - and I just added some aqua and red inks to spiff them up. The white cardstock is Bazzill Basics, by the way.

I cut the title letters by hand and used my mini-letter stamps for the words on the inked-up bunting string. 

I haven't put any journalling on this page.  Not sure if I actually want to - the title pretty much says it all; however I have left a pocket behind the checked paper panel, ready for a journalling card, if I think of something extra to say (see the little tag of paper, waiting for the journalling card?)
I will add the date I made the page though (better do it now, before I forget again!).
I did actually consider adding this to a different challenge - the "From the Heart" challenge, as the title is just right... But the page was really made for the White, Red & Aqua theme, so there we are!

See also This Post below, for another challenge I tried!

Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Add to the Story Challenge

Some of you may just have noticed a leeeeetle bit of fun going on, over at the fab Shimelle's blog?  
For those who have been sleeping too much since last Friday, Shimelle was hosting an Online Scrapbooking Weekend, with lots of Challenges, Tutorials, Sketches, Layouts.. oh, just fun really!

So, I thought I would have a go at some of the challenges, seeing as it was our Scrap Club weekend and I needed a break from all the book-binding and laundry!!

This is a page I made in June (using the prize kit that I also used for this layout), about a lovely afternoon out, that we shared with my niece and the little ones (blogged about here)

As well as the journalling on the left-hand side, there is now some "hidden" journalling, which I added after reading Shimelle's post for the "Add to the Story Challenge".  I had left a "pocket" behind the photo, where I thought I might add some notes... But then I didn't know what to write, as it was about feelings... you know, the things we tend to ignore and try not to journal about, in case anyone reads it...  

So, I got brave, found a matching journalling card and wrote down my secret message. 

Which, of course, I will not show you... because it is secret!

But please take the evidence of the journalling card, complete with matching inked edging, peeping out of the pocket, as proof that I did join in the challenge?  You will, won't you - 'cos you know I don't fib?

It was really nice to get the courage to do this.. I am grateful to Shimelle for the challenge.

And now I'm going to publish my post and put the link on Shimelle's Challenge Post - see you there!