Tuesday 2 August 2011

Welcome to August with Once Upon a Sketch! {Life is Good with Amber} GCD Layout

          




A new month is upon us & I have lots to share!  First up is ONCE UPON A SKETCH with a brand new reveal you can check out here

AUGUST 1st CHALLENGE

Journalling Criteria: Finish this line "A PERFECT DAY IS....." . Your journalling has to be at least2 lines long, and with the theme of a whatever a perfect day for you is or a perfect day that you have had already e.g.  a birthday, a holiday, a childhood memory, a wedding day, graduation day etc. Your journalling can be ANY type : handwritten, typed, etc...

You MUST combine our journalling criteria with this sketch...

We have the extraordinarily talented Annabelle O'Malley as Guest Designer there this month & tons of Design Team inspiration so click on over & take a look!  
Tonnes of prizes too AS ALWAYS so have copied & pasted here for your viewing pleasure!


SPONSORS

I am so incredibly happy to FINALLY have Tidbitz In Time sponsor one of our challenges. You might have noticed that Tidbitz In Time has been inviting 2 of our DT members each month to be Guest designers at the website and their kits have been featured here too. I am excited that one of you will get to receive the FABULOUS August kit from our good friends at ...


Tidbitz In Time is a US based monthly scrapbook kit club designed to bring you the latest papers and embellishments every month -- right to your mailbox.  Your pages will go together easily but your creative opportunities will be endless! Our goal is to make each and every kit an incredible value jam packed full of new products and wonderful ideas. 



                
Pretty Paper Petals is an Australian based, online blog store that started out a year ago. A simple tissue paper flower started it all off.......one was made for a layout and people kept asking where they could get it.....All of our flowers are carefully handcrafted by Vicki (the founder), and we are adding new items to the store every month

PRIZES
Our winner, as voted on by the Design Team, will get to come back in September as our Guest Designer and will receive the August 2011 kit from Tidbitz in Time which looks like this..
Crate Paper - Potrait Collection - Papers, Alpha Labels Stickers, Border Stickers, Custom Trims, 
Prima - Flowers and Say It In Studs packs.  

This month we will have 2 RANDOMLY CHOSEN winners who will receive the following 

One randomly chosen winner will receive this EMBELLISHMENT KIT from Pretty Paper Petals 

and one randomly chosen winner will receive another Crate Paper - Portrait Collectionpack.        
..which includes Portrait Border Stickers, Portrait Layered Chipboard, Portrait Collection Kit -  16 Pattern papers, border stickers, phrase stickers and designer die cuts

So there are 3 prizes and 1 Guest Designer spot up for grabs!

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I took this close up of my layout & thought it was apt as my thought for the month - I CHOOSE HAPPY!  Let's just hope it chooses me too.  I want my blog to be somewhere you enjoy visiting so will do my very best this month to keep my happy face on as much as I can okay?!


 

So as you can see I simply inverted the sketch!
These are lovely sketches to work with - some of the best I've ever had the pleasure of using - and I am fussy, generally not a huge sketch fan despite being on 2 sketch teams, but these are somehow more versatile than most.


I am noticing so many overlapping photos on layouts these days & loving the effect.  Usually people use 2 identical photos but these 2 are in fact ever so slightly different.


I love yellow & grey as a colour combo so spritzed my page with yellow mist before getting started.  I used a plastic circle as a stencil & laid some Basic Grey doily paper in the centre of it to get that circular & mottled look.


I used a couple of GCD Soul Food Inspiration Cards by Melody Ross & cut them up to create all the little bits & pieces you see on my layout, around the photos as well as the "Life is Good" & the bottom embellishment cluster.


I also used some older GCD Die-cut borders "Artsy Urban" by Melody Ross, mixed with some of her new "Soul Food" chipboard butterflies, some offcuts of Lily Bee Papers (punched) left-over from another recent layout, and some Basic Grey "Origins" pop-up stickers.


Took these photos of Cami & her newish best friend Amber, at her birthday party in June, and desaturated them a lot as there were all sorts of funny colours going on in there!


I hand-journaled arond the circle as the very last finishing touch.  I don't breathe while I'm doing it for fear of ruining my whole layout!  Hasn't happened yet thankfully...and used up some different alphas  to finish off my title.  Like the eclectic look of it all though & the citrus colours, which are very fashionable at the moment.  

I used the dots from the Dear Lizzy thickers on the centres of my butterflies (instead of bling, for a more modern & less shabby look) and the glitter dots on the left of my layout are the centres of the Artsy Urban border strip you see to the left of the photos. 

 I like to use up every last scrap if I can.  Stash costs a fortune to ship out here so I use it all up or have a giveaway if I end up with doubles, which sometimes happens when I get a kit or win a prize, etc.

SUPPLIES LIST:-
Cardstock - Grey - American Crafts
Mist - Yellow - Maya Mist - Sunflower Yellow
Border strips - GCD Artsy Urban by Melody Ross
Inspiration Cards - GCD Soul Food by Melody Ross
Chipboard Butterflies - GCD Soul Food by Melody Ross
Dimensional stickers - Basic Grey Origins pop-ups
Yellow alphas - Dear Lizzy for American Crafts
Orange alphas - Doodlebug Design
Journaling Pen - Creative Memories

Okay so I am off to do a bit more blog hopping now then hope to be back soon with more DT work to share from BIRD IS THE WORD and SCRAP-IT-LAH both of which have just gone live with new challenges that you can find by clicking on their names, where I have 2 new layouts up!




17 comments:

Kirsty Vittetoe said...

I can't tell you how much I love this, there is so much to see, love the misted background, and the journaling "around" is so cool, and your handwriting is beautiful (i never do that kind of journaling because mine is just horrible), what a brilliant way to layered the photo, to sum this up, this is one PERFECT layout!

Shayne said...

Wow, divine prizes. i think i may just have to find my scrappy mojo!

Gorgeous LO x

Toni Cartwright said...

JUST STUNNING i adore the whole layout!!!! I just love what you did with those photo's WOW!!!!
you are one cleaver scrapper!!
Thanks for the inspiration
TONI
XOXOXOXOXO

Jasmine S said...

I love the softness of the photos against the brightness of the papers and misting. It draws you straight into the photos. This is just fabulous and love your take on the sketch.

Diana said...

Sooo pretty. I love the colours and the message.

Lea said...

Yeah, this is fantastic! Okay what I love... the misting and masking, the picture arrangement, the giant butterflies, the paper, the bling, the colors, all seriously awesome!!!

phamil said...

Oh Helen, this is just gorgeous! I love your handwriting, it's beautiful! And I love all the masking and technique work on this!!! And I am so glad to be on a team with you!!! Thank you so much for your support and sweet words of encouragement!!!!

Julie Tucker-Wolek said...

Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww! This is GORGEOUS Helen! I loveeeeeeeeeeeee the photos, the masking ...and loveeeeeeeeeeee the butterflies! :):):):):):):):):):):)

Pearl said...

very nicely done with all the GCD goodness !

Mitralee said...

you and I must talk about how you get your photos to work so nicely with your pages...and I love that citrus color!

Heather Jacob said...

love it Helen .. absolutely love it ... and those photos look awesome .. I agree the use of overlapping photos is fabulous, must give it a go .. hugz x

I have sent you an email to read.....

yyam said...

Oh wow! I just love the color combo...pink with a punchy yellow on gray...awesome! Love all the little bits of detail! Yummy! :)

sandi said...

Wow! Simply gorgeous my friend! I LOVE everything about this! The mask background looks wonderful with your choice of tidbits! Those pics look wonderful as well! :)

Jeni O'Connor said...

Helen you are blowing me away with these lo. Love the misting and stunning pics. Love the colours and all your added elements.

Bellaidea said...

Great sketch and your layout is so pretty! Sweet photo!

Sharm Nidyanandan said...

this is such a pretty pretty layout!! love the sweet colours and beautiful butterflies! :) lovely take on the sketch my friend! :)

Eila Sandberg said...

Jas has put just the right words to my thoughts; the wonderful combo of the photos and the vibrant colours is totally awesome! It's a beautifully soft but strong page!! love it Helen! xxxx