Wow - I'm in the Scrappers Island Finale!

They just announced the names of the three people moving into the final challenge for Scrappers Island. We have two weeks to submit a layout that meets the following requirements:

I have to create a layout that reflects my style, my choice of papers, my choice of embellishments, my choice of photo. In addition, there's a few specific requirements to follow.

First of all, for this final challenge we are allowed to use a sketch, but we must link to the sketch used (or post a copy of it.
**must use bling
**must have a title on the layout
**must have journaling on the layout
**must use embellishments
**must use distress ink
**must use an edge distresser

I've got two weeks to come up with something that is really reflective of me and my style. Thankfully I tend to use a lot of photos and journaling and distressing and embellishments, so meeting the requirements won't be the issue. What will be the issue is coming up with an idea and a design that really works well together.

So lots to think about... but for now, I'm just quite chuffed to still be in the contest now that it's down to only three people.

The Home Stretch

Well, it's now Week 7 of the Scrappers Island contest and I'm still in it! I'm actually a little surprised as the work by the other participants has been utterly breathtaking, but thankfully I've been voted through each week so far.

This week it's down to eight participants, and I think we'll probably lose at least three people this week... maybe more. I'm not exactly sure. I have no idea how many people will be in the final challenge - it might only be two or three, or it might be five people. But after this challenge, there's just the one final challenge and the winner of that will be declared the winner of Scrappers Island!

This week's challenge was quite a departure from the previous week's. There was NO sketch, and you weren't allowed to use a sketch for inspiration, or scraplift anyone else's ideas (not that any of us would copy a design outright like that).

The basic requirements were:

Requirements:

- We had to use paint or glimmer mist to create our own background, which must be on white cardstock.
- We had to use several layers of paper on the layout including patterns or cardstock
- We had to use the following embellishments: ribbon, brads and buttons
- We had to use chipboard for the title
- We had also were expected to incorporate some edge distressing and distressing with ink

I'd never used Glimmer Mist before, nor was I sure what I wanted to do. I had a few pictures in mind, and an overall image in my head, but I had to find papers that would work with them. I went to Two Scrapbook Friends and looked around, and around and around the entire store trying to find something that matched what I had in my head... poor Joanne (one of the owners) had to watch me circle that store countless times as I considered various options (with Chris and Alex having a small picnic of treats out on the sidewalk in front of the store).

I finally found some papers I liked, picked up some coordinating card stock and also bought three different shades of Glimmer Mist to use with the papers.

Once home, I played around with the Glimmer Mist a fair bit to try out different effects. I decided for this layout, I wanted a more subtle effect, so I only used two colours on the paper (a orangey colour and a nice green), and did a light misting versus a more solid coverage. I also kept the colours to the left of the page so only about 2/3 of the page was covered.



Before actually applying the Glimmer Mist, I created a mask of the title by using three chipboard letters that I glued down lightly with temporary adhesive. I then sprayed the paper - and once I removed the letters, it left a blank spot for the three letters "JOY". I then sprayed another style of chipboard with the green Glimmer Mist and sprayed a chipboard swirl with some purplish Glimmer Mist.

I cut out a bunch of different shapes and sizes of cardstock and played around with layering until I had a layout I thought would work. I inked all of the edges, and also distressed one of the cardstock pieces I used for a photo mat.

I layered the painted chipboard "Joy" over the white mask word, and then used a rub-on for the word "Sheer" so that the title is Sheer Joy. I layered and played around with different flowers, brads and buttons to create a nice effect in the corner and also put some buttons and ribbons in the bottom corner to balance the layout.

I used a favourite photo of my niece when she was a lot younger... just such a cute, happy photo.

Voting takes place on Thursday and for the first time, only members of Exile Island and the Design Team will be able to vote.

Week 6 Challenge

While I wait to see if I won immunity in this week's challenge (see post below), I figured I'd post the layout I did for this week's actual challenge as it's unlikely I'll win immunity.

This week's challenge was a bit different. We were given a great sketch that was created by Karan Gerber (I have her blogs on my list of blogs I visit if you're interested in seeing more of her amazing work).



In addition to the sketch, we had to use the following photo for 'inspiration' in any way we wanted to.



And to make it even more complicated... we could only use items we already had in our stash - no new papers or embellishments or letters, etc. Thankfully I had some great paper in my stash that I'd used to make invitations for a friend's surprise birthday party late last year... but I only had one partial sheet of the paper I most wanted to use, so it was tough figuring out how best to put it all together. In addition, we had to use an old, crappy photo instead of something new.

It's hard to see in the photo, but it's pretty grainy as it's a scan of a really old picture that I tried to fix up a bit to get rid of some scratches and tears.

I used white cardstock for the background, then sanded a black Coredinations cardstock with teal blue inner core so that it showed through a bit. I used the old teal/black papers from my stash, and put in a hint of the lime green with the one bar and the flower. I put Felt Fusion (by Queen & Co) over the lime green bar and trimmed it back (man is that stuff every sticky and hard to work with lol), and then carried the felt fabric idea through with the black letters in the title and the lime green flower over the big Prima flower. I also did some doodling by hand. I added in some crystal gems (by Prima I think) that I cut apart a bit and also used for the centre of the flower.

I put the journalling behind the main photo by making a pocket and printing it on coordinating cardstock and then inking the edges as I had done for all the other paper.

Scrappers Island - Immunity Challenge

I'm still participating in the Scrappers Island contest being run by Two Scrapbook Friends in Waterloo. Every week, in addition to the regular challenge that everyone participates in, they also run an "immunity" challenge where one or two people are given immunity if they complete the challenge within a tight timeframe, and are picked on of the winners of that challenge.

I haven't yet been able to do any of those immunity challenges as the timing was too tight for me or we weren't around that night.

This week, they gave everyone 23 hours to finish a layout and post it on their forums, so I decided to try to do it.



This is the sketch that was posted, and you had to do something related to 'baby' - whether it was pictures of yourself as a baby, or your own child. I don't really have any pictures of me as an infant, and I don't have a huge amount of pictures of Alex prior to his Gotcha Day when he was 7 months old (7 months, 3 days old to be exact). I decided to use photos from a photoshoot that was done when Alex was almost 8 months old (he'd been home a few weeks).

I de-saturated the photos as the colour of them was too intense for the papers I wanted to use. For papers, I used the Sweet Branch line by Crate Paper, and distressed all of the paper with chalk ink. I also used some coordinating card stock from my stash for the background and photo mat. I modified some of the Sweet Branch die cuts for the two flowers. I used some foam adhesive dots on the title to give it a bit of height.

I stitched using a cream thread and used two different stitching templates for the stitching.

The layout didn't scan as well as they normally do - the background paper actually has a hint of teal blue to it, but it scanned as quite a bland blue/grey colour for some reason. Hopefully you can get an overall sense of the layout even if the colours are a bit flat.



They are announcing the people who have immunity later tonight so we'll see if I get it or not. I've already done my layout for this week's regular challenge - except for the title, so even if I don't get immunity, I still have something to submit for tomorrow's deadline.

Yahoo! Week 5 Challenge

We're now into Week 5 of the Scrappers Island Challenge run by Two Scrapbook Friends. Each week, a certain amount of people are voted off and sent to Exile Island so we're now down to 16 people with only a few weeks left to go. I'm having a great time with these challenges and getting to play around with some papers and product I might not otherwise have used.

For this week, the challenge was based on this sketch by Karan Gerber for TSF. You had to create the layout so that it integrated the elements of the sketch, but you could interpret things a bit to show a bit of creativity or to have things work with your own photos, papers, embellishments, etc.

This week's requirements were to:

- Use a diecut shape as the background - it couldn't just be a partial background
- Lots of layers with blended patterns or cardstock
- A photo corner, either with bling or chipboard
- Brackets had to surround the title

Here's the sketch that Karan created for this week:



I decided to use a cute photo of my niece, Amanda, and some great papers by My Little Yellow Bicycle (Zinnia line). I used a great lace cardstock diecut background (I used white behind it so it would show up on the scan). This was actually really hard to scan because of the layers. The journalling box (yellow Coredinations cardstock) was elevated a bit with adhesive foam squares, so I couldn't lay the layout as flat as I normally would - so there's a bit of an inconsistnecy with the brightness, but perhaps only I would notice it. *grins*

I created my own photo corner around the photo using different sized gems in a pale purple colour and put them into a bit of a swirl pattern, and then built a really cute flower for the corner with a flower set from the Zinnia line.

The brackets around the title are chipboard that I inked and then put stickles on for a bit of texture and sparkle. I also used some rub-ons on the photo itself, and used a combination of metal and cardboard stickers for the actual title.



I also added in a felt floral border over the other two strips of paper and cut the diecut flower out of Coredinations cardstock using my Silhouette.

The deadline is Wednesday night, and voting takes place on Thursday with the list of people continuing on posted on Thursday night... keep your fingers crossed I make it through, but even if I don't, I'm sure I'll continue on with the challenges as they've been so much fun.