A Rare Saturday Off

Well last saturday I had a very rare saturday off, I always have to work weekends so it was such a treat and even better I had booked my place in a crop run by Ellie from Mod Scraps. Even better, it was a special (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day crop so there was a free kit, challenges and prizes. The were four challenges and everyone who completed a layout for one of the challenges was entered into a prize draw for each. I managed to complete three layouts and I was very happy to win a prize from one of the draws, it even matched some papers that I'd ordered to collect from the crop.

The first challenge was the kit challenge and you had to use the items from the kit in your layout, here's my take on it:

The kit contained the patterned kraft paper, a set of alphas and a set of die-cut arrows. I used the kraft paper as it was, I stamped using Shimelle Laine's Background stamps from Banana Frog onto the arrows to add interest. I also stuck the clear alphas onto one of the larger arrows and cut around it to make the alphas a bit more interesting. Then I used the same arrow to cut the journaling strips. I added some Papermania alphas to complete the title and stuck on some dome stickers from Hobbycraft to compliment thebackground images.

The second challenge was a sketch challenge, here's the original sketch:

Here is my take on the sketch:

I decided to carry on with the dandelion theme as I had a photo and some patterned paper that worked together. I used leftover alphas from the kit challenge with this one too.

The third challenge was to create a layout using 3 or more different patterned papers but I ran out of time to do this, I only had 45 minutes to do the 'Just Blow' layout as I'd taken so long doing my layout for the 4th challenge.

The 4th challenge was to create a layout without using any patterned paper, cardstock only, here's my take on the challenge:

I decided to get my paint out for this one, I stuck some alphas on the cardstock first after taking some of the stickiness off on my clothes so that the cardstock background would show through once they are removed. I used three colours of acrylic paint and white gesso, brushing it on, stamping it using bubble wrap and painting through punchinella. I stamped with Banana Frog's Build-A-Bloom stamps in black and white StazOn ink. I then layered netting with a border punched piece of cardstock, I also embellished with a blossom, punchinella and buttons.