From a Purple Pumpkin Fan

So, if you've been following this blog, you'll know that I'm a Purple Pumpkin fan. I love the monthly sketch challenges and I really love the awesome buttons from their online store. Today, PP artist Samantha Hauzer is having a HUGE give away!! Yet another reason to love PP! Check it out at Samantha's blog: Me and The Little Rascals.

While we're on the topic, here's my take on the sketch for the monthly challenge.

In addition to the PP buttons (that birdie button is so adorable!) I used the Dotty For You papers from Close To My Heart and added a little sparkle with pearlized spray ink and gems. The stamps are from the CTMH Card Chatter stamp set.

The story behind this page is this: At Scrapfest Oshawa 2011, a bunch of ladies from Saturday Scrappers met up. We had our photo taken by Sue Sykes of Canadian Scrapbooker fame and all of us went home with a free print! I finally got around to scrapping the photo at the last club meeting.

I'm really pleased with the way this page turned out and it will be one of the treasured few from 2011 that actually have me in the photo!

Celebrate Scrapping!

I celebrated National Scrapbooking Day by creating this layout based on the one provided in the Pagemaps blog. But my computer decided to drop dead that day and I was not able to enter it into the contest. But, I'm very happy with this page and was excited to finally use this amazing "Periodic Table of Personality Quirks" patterned paper. (Not the real name; just what I call it.) It suits my science-geek son so well.

I like this layout because it's simple and lets the photo shine, but also because I was encouraged to create a fancier title than I might otherwise have. Often when creating titles, just letter stickers on a matted block is as fancy as I'd get. But with such a simple title (just a single number), the sketch suggested layering and adding height.

First I defined the space between the title and journaling with a chevron sticker. Then I layered a piece of cardstock, with a notepaper punched edge over it. I added an artisan label sticker by first sticking it to a scrap piece of paper then adhering to the layout with Pop Dots. Finally, I added the felt number and wrote in y son's name.

It wasn't even hard to do! That's one of the reasons I love sketches--they challenge you to try things you might not do on your own. And in this case, I'm inspired to take a second look at all my titles from now on to see how I can add a little something to make them just a little more interesting.