A Month of Challenges at Let's Scrap!

This month is National Scrapbook month. In honor of that, Let's Scrap is hosting a month of scrapbook challenges, BINGO game, and lots of prizes. Check it out!

http://letsscrap.ning.com/

A New Life Begins

I did this LO for Bird is the Word, where the word to use is "Begin/Beginning". I combined it with this week's sketch at Let's Scrap and this month's Inspiration challenge at Scrapbook Challenges.

Here's the inspiration pic:

Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO of my great-niece, Skylar:

Earth Day Challenge 3 - Nature Lovers

This was the third challenge I attempted at Scrapbook Challenges. The challenge was to use old book paper, a twig, a nature theme, and no more than three traditional scrapbook items (where multiples seem to count as one). So I covered some cardboard in book paper, wrapped some twigs in twine, and matted my pictures onto craft paper. Then I cut out a bird from an old greeting card, butterflies from some cardboard packaging, and added the letters and buttons as my traditional items.

We Are Family

This LO was done for a sketch challenge at Punky Scraps.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO:

You Color My World

I really enjoy working with paint, and thought it would be perfect for this month's challenge at Berry71Bleu, where the challenge was to use a "Burst of Color". Since we could send three submissions, I also chose "Act Natural" and "Magic".

Earth Day Challenge 2 - Recycle Your Scrapbook

This was another Scrapbook Challenges challenge that said to use only recycled materials on your page. I started with a Sketchy Thursdays sketch:

 
and then I raided the house looking for items to use.

The base is made from craft paper that I painted using green and white. The white circles on the craft paper are binder reinforcements. The picture mat is a piece of foam packing material. Behind it, I added some newsprint (that happens to say Earth Day), pictures cut out of a greeting card, and a picture of vegetables from a can of veggies. The blue flower in the top left corner was cut from a restaurant flyer, and the other flowers, as well as the green borders surrounding the foam mat, the two hearts, and the word love, are cut from old greeting cards. The metal circles down the sides are some kind of screw eyelet from my husband's tool room, and the big green, blue, and white circle decal is cut from a plastic gift card backing. Finally, the green tabs surrounding the word "love" are reusable office tabs, and the word "You" is cut from old greeting cards and surrounded by a metal keychain loop.

Here's the result:

Earth Day Challenge 1 - Nature in all her Splendor

This weekend over at Scrapbook Challenges was all about Earth Day. Most of the challenges had me recycling a number of household products for LOs. This challenge had a list of 18 criteria I had to meet. Since it will be graded on a point system, I tried to double every step. I think it's kind of a mess myself, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

The criteria:

1. Include a philosophy that you live by. A philosophy that I live by is that you shouldn't take life too seriously, and it's reflected in my journaling: "While taking some family pictures, I told you guys to "Strike a Pose", and this is what you came up with. I couldn't help but laugh at your ideas of "posing", and it reminds me of a wonderful saying I heard by Reba McIntyre, sort of a philosophy of living, if you will. "To succeed in life you need three things: A wishbone, a backbone, and a funnybone."
2. Craft paper - check.
3. Flowers - check. Five of them, to be exact.
4. Eyelets - check. Used in the four corners. I've never actually worked with eyelets before, but luckily my DH had a whole kit in his tool room.
5. Plain brads - nine of them, for the centres of the flowers and the ends of the tags.
6. Outdoor photos with nature in them - check.
7. Strips of patterned paper - check. I used an old batch of Creative Memories scraps for all of the patterned papers.
8. Hand journaling - check.
9. Decorative border punch - check. I don't own a border punch, but I used scalloped scissors and a hole punch with the green patterned paper.
10.An old book page - check. I even made sure it had a picture of kids playing to keep with the theme.
11. Three new embellishments - check. I added three Kurio stickers (Fun, laughter, Smile).
12. Paint - I got a little carried away with the paint, but used blue and green on the background, as well as for stamping.
13. Stamp with an item from around the house - I used paint and bubble wrap to stamp the circles, and then tried a penny (with mixed results) and a bottle cap (it's there, but you can't really notice it).
14. Fabric - I used two pieces of blue fabric, two pieces of grey denim, and three strips of faux leather.
15a. Tag - I used a small tag in the title, as well as three simple handmade tags (from the patterned strips of paper) in the corner fastened with brads.
15b. Something weird - twigs!!
16. Staples or paperclips - I used both. Three staples around the corners of the title, and three paperclips.
17. Twine or string - I used both. I used twine around the decorative borders, and string in sewing.
18. Tearing - check.
Well, that about covers it, I think. :) Here's the result: