Easter Sunday Challenges

Easter Sunday saw us spending the day with a very special family. We have only known each other for a handful of years but it feels like a lifetime.  I love the time we spend together - there is no stress, lots of laugh and the boys have mates to play with. Needless to say, there was no scrapping done on the day but luckily for me, Peta is keeping the gallery open until Saturday.
Challenge 1 - Sketch:

I am not entirely happy with how this layout turned out - thinking the lettering is wrong - but it is another one done ;)

Challenge 2 - Colour Challenge using Brown, Red and Blue. I LOVE this photo of Lachlan <3 nbsp="">

Challenge 3 - Quote Challenge. We were given three different quotes from A. A. Milne (creator of Winnie the Pooh) to use. I selected 'Promise me you'll always remember, you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem and smarter than you think' and used a photo of Mitchell from the State Swimming Trials last year. The photo is not fully focused but I love it regardless. 

Three days down, one to go.

S 

Crop-a-thon Day Two

Easter Saturday at SFS saw a new set of challenges put up.
Challenge 1 - Sketch

This is my take on the sketch. Sort of looks like it, all be it moved down a bit and angles used.  I had a play with texture paste on here but things went a bit wrong - maybe I have to use it a bit more to get the hang of it ;) 

Challenge 2 - Colour using Aqua/Turquoise, Black and one other colour. I chose yellow.  Love this colour combination.

Challenge 3 - Quote using "The important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy; it's all that matters". I have used a photo of Lachlan taken in the flood waters earlier this year. 

I have to say that I am liking all of these layouts, especially the second one.
Two days down, two to go.
S

Easter Crop-a-thon Madness

Peta and the girls over at Scrapbooking from Scratch hosted a monster crop-a-thon over the Easter long weekend. There were 3 challenges - a sketch, a quote and colour - set for each day of the weekend and surprisingly, I have managed to complete all of the challenges.  I won't inundate you with them all at once, but take it one day at a time. Here are the Good Friday Challenges:

Challenge 1 - Sketch

For this challenge, I used photos from Mitchell's Cross Country that happened to be on the previous day. He did really well and placed third which means that he moves to the next level of trials.  I am so proud of him - he set himself a goal of coming 4th and did one better - gotta love that!

Challenge 2 - Colour Challenge using Pink, Red and Green. A bit a of different combination for me but I like it. The layout is of our youngest son and the daughter of my other 'sister' (my sister's best friend). Lachie calls Bella his cousin and will not have anyone tell him different.

Challenge 3 - Quote Challenge using 'Life is Good' somewhere on the layout. I decided to use it in my title. I love this layout :o 

So that is the wrap up for Day One, three more days to go.

S

Colour Challenge anyone???

Last weekend, I completed the third monthly challenge over at Scrapbooking from Scratch - Donna's Colour Challenge. This was the colour palette she challenged us with was this:

Of course, I took the colours in a totally different direction and eliminated two of them and came up with this:

I am actually quite happy with how this has panned out, especially the splashes of colour. A bit darker than the shades from the inspiration pic but works for me ;)
And some closeups: 

I am loving clustering at the moment. Here I have used a combination of October Afternoon, Elle's Studio, My Mind's Eye and Studio Calico. 

I am thinking that I will save the colour palette and try it using some girly pictures.  I would love to see your take on the challenge - feel free to leave a comment with a link :)
S xoxoxox

Big Shoes to Fill

I used the March Sketch Challenge over at Scrapbooking from Scratch as the inspiration for another layout for Mitchell's album. The sketch looked like this:

And, as per usual, I have flipped it and left things out to come up with this: 

The title refers to the fact that Mitchell needed Size 8 Men's shoes at the start of this year. Size 8 and he is only 10??!! Now his foot is officially bigger than both of his grandmother's and he is well on the way to being able to fit into my shoes.  In the journalling, I have pondered the question of just how big his feet will be in 5 years time. I have a sneaking suspicion I am going to kept poor buying shoes for our biggest little man ;) The background paper is from an older October Afternoon line and I found the text quite distracting. My solution was to smear a thin layout of paint over it using an old plastic card. I then used mist over the top but that went a bit haywire. Lucky for me a baby wipe cleared most of it off. Take two worked much better.

When I printed the photo, I knew I wanted to feature the number '8' somewhere on the layout but didn't want to make it a focal point. This numbered grid paper from the B Side of an older Echo Park collection was perfect for making a record of Mitch's shoe size. 

I really loved this sketch and will definitely be using it again.
S xoxo

Every Summer has a Story ...

was the quote that we had to use for this month's Scrapbooking from Scratch (SFS) Quote Challenge. In our house summer is full of different stories, and almost all of them involve swimming. Rather do yet another layout of swimming carnivals or training, I decided to use some photos from Mitchell's birthday party last December.

And some close-ups: 

I will be back tomorrow with more shares from some of the other challenges over at  SFS.

S xoxoxo

Getting my Challenge On

In between the mundane routine that is a typical weekend, I set time aside to complete a few scrapping challenges.  I managed to complete 4 layouts over the last two days which is not bad considering the amount of distractions I had with Tony and the boys still busy with the harvest. My first share is the March Savvy Sketch with a Twist challenge using this sketch:

I flipped it, moved the title and hid the journalling behind the photo to come up with this:

On afternoon earlier this year, the boys and I were talking about what it mean to have a goal. Mitchell asked if he was allowed to choose a goal for the 2013 school year. Of course, I was interested to hear what he had to say so I let him think about it and choose a few different ones. At the top of his list was his plan to get an 'A' for behaviour on both report cards this year. So far, he is well on his way to achieving this goal. Not to be outdone, Lachlan quickly set some goals of his own - the most important one being his plan to improve reading. I was pretty pleased to hear him say this as reading is one of the biggest things he struggled with last year.  I love that both boys are so keen to be responsible for their learning and behaviour at school. Let's hope it continues for the rest of their time at school.

And a close-up: 

Totally loving matching all of the different shades of green that have been slowly making their way into my stash. The ones on this layout are from Heidi Swapp, October Afternoon and lovely, lovely new chevron vellum from Dear Lizzy for American Crafts.

Stay tuned for some more shares throughout the week.

S xoxoxo