Challenge #5 (with Laura and Sasha)

I just know you were all waiting with bated breath to see what we were cooking up for the challenge this week...well, do we have a treat for you! We invited color whiz and scrapbook expert Sasha Farina to join us in Challenge #5:

1. Brights + Kraft paper: I used a combination of papers from the Everyday and Celebration II lines from American Crafts and the kraft paper grounds them out.

2. Stickers: Because I have too many. Way too many.

3. Arrows: I have a lot, and I had yet to use any of them, until today, that is!

4. Corner Rounder: One of my most-used tools. I actually have two different corner rounder punches.

Here's my page:

These photos are from the very first time Sadie climbed the whole set of stairs, and as you can see, she was wearing quite the colorful outfit! So my challenge within a challenge was to find paper that would actually work well with these photos...enter American Crafts...just one more reason to love their bold, bright style.

When I put the layout together, I still felt that the peacy-pink background paper needed a lil' something, so I used Banana Frog's Super Stars stamps to add a little depth and help carry the theme of the superstar "Stairmaster." I stamped the stars repeatedly with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. The resulting watermark effect is just dark enough to add visual interest but not too busy to add chaos to an all ready busy layout. 

The little chipboard arrow is from the ClubHouse collection, but the pattern on it didn't do it for me, so I covered it with paper and sandwiched the entire thing in my Swiss Dots folder for some Cuttlebug embossing. After I embossed the arrow, I tried a couple techniques to enhance the texture. Stamped images didn't show up. Covering it with clear embossing powder made it look cheap. Swiping it with white Staz-on ink resulted in a white-streaked mess. In the end, I used a dry embossing tool to hand-paint the dots with white Staz-on ink, and I really like the polka-dotty effect. If you happen to have a teeny-tiny polka-dot stamp (Hero Arts has a great one: Raindrop Background), you could bypass the dry-embossing entirely, and just stamp the arrow with dots and save yourself a lot of trouble. 

I had to laugh when I saw Laura's layout because we both used the American Crafts Everyday line, and we both Swiss Dotted our arrows! You know what they say...great minds!;)

Be sure to go over and check out Sasha's take on the challenge. Her style is so unique and colorful - I just love it. Love, love, love. 

Thanks ladies! You rocked this challenge!

Supplies: Patterned paper, chipboard, stickers, ribbon, rub-ons: American Crafts; Stamps: Banana Frog; Corner Rounder: Marvy Uchida      

Comments

[Jessica]

oh! So Beautiful!!! The pictures are very cute and the colors are fabulous! Oh, I love it!

[Selena Kimsey]

This is such a precious layout. I really live the bright colors together on this layout and the photo collage. Wonderful inspiration.

[Lovely Cee.]

i could have never pull this colors together. you really got the know-how. you are so good, i tell ya! i love/like it:)

[laura vegas]

leave it to little ones to have the most colorful and loud outfits on ... the same say we take important, milestone photos of them. lol! you did a great job working with those colors though ... and it's not overwhelming at all!

[Lynn Ghahary]

Mary this layout is wonderful! Great photos and I really love the bright fun colors and how it all just works together. I'm a big fan of stamping on my scrapbook pages so it was fun to see how you incorporated some stamping techniques on yours as well. Thanks for sharing! Lynn :)

[Sara Rossi]

What a FUN LO! Love the colors! I just love these challenges!

[Rhonda Steed]

Great challenge! Bright colors can be a challenge for me too. Love how you used kraft to settle it all down. Great page!

[Heather M.]

the stairmaster?!?! seriously, where do you come up with these amazing titles?!?! awesome! love the arrow, the stamping, the dots! great challenge too!