Friday, September 9

Beautiful

A lot of people wonder how I can possible cram 3, 4, sometimes even 5+ challenges into one layout.  I never actually understood why some challenge blogs frown upon it to be honest.  In my opinion while one challenge may bring a viewer to my blog, they are going to see the link to you as soon as they arrive!  Cross promotion at it's easiest.  I'm sure it'd be different if I just did a massive list at the end of my post of all the links, but I take the time to explain the challenge and how I incorporated it into my creation.  Scouring for several different types of challenges is something that has helped me give so much more depth to my layouts than I'd ever thought to see before.  I can find a color challenge to help me pull all of my papers together, then a sketch challenge to help me figure out how to place them, then sometimes I'll see a theme challenge that will lead me right to the perfect photos and if I'm lucky I'll even find a misc challenge that gives me the nerve to add extra layers of embellies I'd never thought to take the time to incorporate.  Of course, I refuse to sacrifice my vision, so if I get to working and find that a certain challenge isn't fitting right with where the rest have taken me...it gets the boot!

With this layout of my daughter a few weeks before she started preK, I was able to stop at 4 different challenges along the path to completed.  I started off at The Paper Variety.  They are celebrating their blogoversary (seriously pop over and jump aboard the train to fun-land this weekend!!).  That was what inspired me to go digging for this picture of my daughter.  The challenge was to scrap your favorite photo and while I won't play favorites between my kiddos...this one's strength is definitely in her photogenic smile!

I then searched around for just the perfect sketch to go with the papers I found that matched her little outfit so well.  The line is Basic Grey-Bittersweet.  Enter Stuck On U Sketches!!  I'm a sketch-a-holic and they've got some of the most beautiful ones around!

I knew I wanted to play along with this week's Frosted Designs challenge the second I saw it.  It is to use a stamp (the postage kind), an envelope and a ticket in one layout.  I immediately went to my Tim Holtz drawer (yes he has his own drawer at my house...wonder if I can convince to come for a stay LOL) and nabbed these fabulous tickets he sells and picked the one that says 'ADORE'.  The envelope can be found at the top of the photo matte...it's vellum.  For the stamp, I spent a while stuck.  Staring at my huge collection (read: hoard) of scrappy stuff and wondering how there isn't one stamp shaped embellie to be found.  Then my husband piped up (he's a pretty useful fella sometimes!) didn't that green bug thing come with something like that.  BRILLIANT!!!  When you buy your Cuttlebug (or at least back when I did) it came with a postage stamp die and a set of 4 stamp image embossing folders.  You'll find the one I picked nestled just on top of the envie.

My last stop on the challenge blog express was to Scrapbookers Anonymous.  They posted a chipboard challenge this month and so I went digging back into my Tim Holtz drawer and found this adorable key and keyhole set.  I painted them pink and glittered them up (like there was any doubt we'd be glittering?!?!) and added them to the layout.  Along with glimmer misted chipboard letters to spell 'beautiful'.


Part 2 of the challenge over at Scrapbookers Anonymous is to create a card from your scraps.  I created this from the basic grey papers I had leftover, but I won't mention any names for who it's for because I know she pops in my blog from time to time.  I'd been wanting to make her a card to say thanks for being awesome and these papers scream A-W-E-S-O-M-E to me!  :)  The birdie is from Create-a-Critter as is the Hello Cloud.  I cut it out and then used the reverse image (the part that's leftover after you take the part you usually want) and stuck it down then inked over it.  Once removed it was supposed to come off more as a thought bubble than a cloud...so there ya go :) 



25 comments:

  1. Your layout is adorable! Love the photo :) :) and nice job combining all the embellies! Great thinking on hubby's part regarding the postage stamp!!

    The card is super cute, love the patterned birdie! I have this cartridge but haven't used it yet!

    BTW, as an owner of a challenge blog, I've had to start limiting the number of challenges for the sheer reason that people were not reading the rules before entering. They were linking their cards to 20-30 challenges and it got tiring having to remove them all the time. It's not fair to the honest & frequent players. JMHO

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  2. Hi, Christina! Well, first of all, I'm so glad that you played along with the Stuck on U Sketches challenge and glad that you got to throw in a few more. Love the papers that you chose for that adorable photo! Is she stylin' or what? Thanks for being a follower and can't wait to see what you do next!

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  3. These are fabulous. Love them both. Good luck in your challenges. They deserve to win. Stop by and do the Stampin Daisies challenge for a chance to win some stamps.

    Smiles Sher

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  4. Adorable picture of your daughter! Love the cluster! Thank you for celebrating with us this week at TPV!

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  5. Wow that's fantastic how you can get so many challenges into one post... I'm impressed

    Your layout is gorgeous, love Tim holtze as much as you, adorable man and to think he went off and made Scrapbooking stuff for ladies and a fortune for himself perfect man in my eyes lol

    Thank you for joining us at Frosted Designs this week, I hope that you enjoyed the challenge

    Amanda

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  6. fabulous!!! adorable photo.. and i love that cute key and key hole. very cute.
    and the card is wonderful too. it looks crackled. very cool. Thanks so much for playing along with us at Scrapbookers Anonymous. =)

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  7. beautiful projects and what a cute photo :) thanks for playing with us at SOUS :)

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  8. Loveeeeeeeeeeee this! I love love love love that photo, the circle and the flowers and loveeeeeee that little birdie on the card! Thanks sooooooooo much for playing along with Scrapbookers Anonymous! :):):):):):):):):):):)

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  9. Wow....what a heap of challenges!! I love the colours of your layout. Great thinking with that postage stamp! Thanks so much for playing along with us at Frosted Designs and Scrapbookers Anonymous!
    Lydia

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  10. LOVE your adorable lo and card! She does indeed have a photogenic smile! So CUTE!

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  11. I have to admit that I, too, like to use more than one challenge at a time! I love to look for colors and sketches ... then figure out if there are any embellie challenges out there that could work for me ... Love your page, suits your little girl perfectly as she is beautiful! Thanks for playing with us this week over at TPV!

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  12. Love your LO Chritina, great colours and flower cluster. Thanks for sharing your favourite photo with us at TPV :)

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  13. great layout-love all of the flowers in the corner, and what a cute picture! thanks for playing at TPV!!! :)

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  14. Love that cute bird on your card. Thanks for joining in at Scrapbookers Anonymous.

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  15. Hey there Christina!
    These projects are great!
    First...I know what you mean, if you have a challenge site, expect it to be "played" at...so who cares who plays how many times somewhere else. LOL!
    Funny!
    Okay so great job and THANKS for the love for SOUS!

    xoxo Leah

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  16. I love the "challenge blog express". I think you do a wonderful job of giving credit to the blogs you are linking to. Your layout is wonderful and your card is darling! Love Tim Holtz stuff too! He has a spot in my house aswell. Thanks so much for joining us for a challenge over at Frosted Designs.

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  17. Love your layout and card! I always admire people who can combine challenges and get that much mileage out of a layout, so go for it! Thanks for playing along with us at Scrapbookers Anonymous!

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  18. I don't understand why they frown on it either! Beautiful layout and card, Christina! Thanks so much for playing along with Scrapbookers Anonymous!!

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  19. Great LO and card. Thanks for playing along with us at Scrapbookers Anonymous.xxxxx

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  20. Oh, we encourage trying to do multiple challenges but we also appreciate when you give us some love back. Love this layout! What a cute picture and such great chipboard pieces And how cute is that card. The masking is great! Thanks for joining in the fun at Scrapbookers Anonymous!!!

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  21. I really like the the embellishment cluster on your layout, and yet your work still is clean and not fussy! We hope to see you create with us again at Frosted Designs! **Roberta

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  22. Great take on the sketch Christina, adorable photo and great Basic Grey papers. Thanks for joining us at SOUS - see you for the next sketch.... Hugs x

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  23. Christina, I couldn't have said it better myself... Although I do my layout first and then I check to see if it fits any other challenges out there... But it still gets traffic going to their blogs... Now that I have that off of my chest... Your layout is so sweet!!! I love your flower cluster and the photo is precious!!! Thanks for joining us over at Stuck On U Sketches! Hugs!!

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  24. great work- you rocked all the challenges- love the flower cluster- so glad you completed our challenge at Scrapbookers Anonymous

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  25. well done... Fantabulous!!! love them both.... thank you so much for playing along with US over at scrapbookers ANonymous...hugs...xoxo

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