Shimelle's Challenges 03- Mixing styles

On Thursday night I enjoyed a pleasurable evening with some of my scrapping friends at Gaye's house. I decided that I would use the time to complete another of Shimelle' challenge. I was intrigued by the challenge to mix styles. I dont know if I have a style. I guess I love colour and clean lines. I like blocks of colour and pattern. I like my matching embellishments and Im not really into fussy - but I dont know if that means I have a style.

Some of my friends have taken classes with Emma Trout. Her scrapbooking is a work of art - its complicated, detailed and very different from what I produce. But I love it. So on Thursday I decided I was going to use the evening to complete just one layout a mix of Emma's style and my own. I usually hope to do 2/3 layouts over 2/3 hours dedicated to scrapbooking. I printed some examples of  Emma's work and decided I was going to add lots of details, hand cutting, and layers.

I found it an interesting challenge as I felt like I wanted to do more than one layout while I had some scrapping time. It was good to do this layout with friends as they kept me going with their positivity. So thanks to Gaye, Debbie, Ali and Leanne for their moral support. Also thanks to Debbie for the lace, Gaye for the bottle top and jewel and to Ali who inrtoduced me to paper pearls during our retreat last year and I now add to so many of my layouts (often as butterfly trails).

I used this lovely photo of our friends Karen and Bella. They are moving home soon and we are going to miss them but we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy Bella's 2nd birthday party with them.  I used some Bo Bunny Gabrielle papers. Lovely colours and very feminine.

I probably need to add a little journalling to just finish it off.

Shimelle's Challenges 02 - Mixing Papers

This was a good challenge for me. I dont mix paper ranges that often. I occasionally do and recently Ive been mixing my embellishments a lot more, but I like to scrap quite quickly and using papers from the same range helps me do that. Therefore I purposefully chose to do this challenge as I wanted to do something I know I should do more often.

I love this photo of my friend's son rockin' with his wizard hat on. I wanted to reflect the stars in the hat and the fab checked shirt and the only way to do this was with some quite bold papers.  In the end I used papers from Lily Bee, Bo Bunny, Fancy Pants, October Afternoon, Simple Stories and Studio Calico. I added some washi tape, some yellow brads ( that Ive had forever!), some stickers from October Afternoon and Simple Stories and of course some Thickers. Its a bit of a mixed bag but then that was the whole point.

Inspiration from Shimelle

As you know I like to do challenges. One blog I follow is Shimelle's and she gives lots of sketches and starting points to help me get going. Ive dabbled in a couple of these recently but tonight I finished two off with journalling and a few extra bit,s and completed her latest starting point.

Here they are:

This was a starting point from the week before last. Whereas Shimelle's layout is flowery and girly, mine is very much boyish and grungy. The photos are Matthew at a recent birthday party we went to rocking his stuff with an inflatable balloon. I used some Simple Stories Awesome with  some prima buttons and MME Kraft Funday bits.

The second was a sketch.  I used some Echo Park papers that my lovely friend Sandra gave me in our crop advent swap and used some of the tags and embellishments she also kindly gave me. I didnt know if I was going to get a chance to use them this year as the snow came late but when it finally appeared in February Matthew was straight outside exploring.

The third is this weeks starting point. I used some new Bo bunny papers and embellishments which I have been dying to use. I used a cogs mask in the background. The photos show Matthew on a train track ride on holiday last year and I was pleased to get them scrapbooked.

 Thank you Shimelle!

Show off Saturday - 5 layouts

There  are so many things to love about our Saturday crop. I love to meet up with all the girls and hear all the latest news. We seem to chat about so many things. I love it that it is next to Sainsburys and Starbucks for a bit of retail therapy. I love that Sandra often brings her shop. Yesterday I loved it that Gaye (who organises the crop), made scented tea cup candles for each of us to celebrate our 6th birthday. I love to see what everyone else is doing and get inspiration for new projects and purchases. And I love it that I can sit and scrap for a decent period of time - yesterday about 5 hours - and this means I will usually do a few layouts. Yesterday I completed 5 layouts and here they are:

The first layout uses some Bo Bunny Snowfall papers. Matthew looked so cute in his woolly hat in the snow. I used this layout here for inspiration.

More snow photos for the second layout and this time Echo Park's Winterpark which the lovely Sandra gave me for Christmas in our crop Advent swap. No specific design  to inspire this layout - just great products and photos to inspire me.

My 365+1 photo  a day project was the inspiration for the third layout and also a colour combination that Im keen to explore more of - red and grey. I went through my stash and picked out red and grey stuff and went from there. You can see all my photos taken this year here.

The fourth layout uses some Echo Park A boy's Life. Perfect for these photos of Charlie and Matthew playing cars last weekend. The design is pretty much a copy of this great design. Thanks to Gaye for bringing along some unwanted stash and for Ali for picking out those cute felt cars.

My last layout was inspired by this pretty picture of Anna taken last weekend. Soft pinks and greens are lovely but I dont get the chance to use them much with Matthew. These are Little Yellow Bicycle.

Hopefully Ill be back soon with my other two layouts from Thursday night.