Exciting News!

Oh hello everyone! I'm thrilled and honoured to be asked to be a Guest Design Team member for The Scrapbook Store. Suzanne and Marelize are such wonderful ladies and their design team has some of my all-time favourite scrappers ever, so I'm thrilled to be working with them for the month of July.

I thought I'd start with the monthly sketch challenge. Here's the sketch:

I had some pics of my daughter wearing steampunk clothes to her year 12 formal which I wanted to use. I really admire my daughter for her unusual tastes in clothes and the way she's not afraid to get out there and wear them. I figured there mustn't be too many teenagers who can figure out how to wear steampunk to a formal event. I think she pulled it off beautifully!

Even though the sketch is quite soft and pretty I figures I could adapt it. I flipped it vertically and dropped the top circular element as my page was getting quite heavy visually. There was a cluttered background in my pics so I photoshopped the background out completely. The blank background on the new photos allowed me to have a fairly busy page as the photos stood out quite clearly.

Here's my layout:

The background is made from the leftovers of other backgrounds. I was using Dylusions ink sprays through a The Crafters Workshop stencil for some other projects and every time I finished, I flipped the stencil over and stamped it onto cardstock. I did this a number of times onto the same cardstock and the result is this background.

I also used Dylusions to colour the chipboard and the flowers. I used to spend ages hand-painting chipboard until I discovered Dylsusions! The Scrapbook Store sells a whole range of Dylusions ink sprays here and The Crafters Workshop stencils here.

I attacked my stash from a class I did with Finnabair and found all those yummy screws and cogs. They're perfect for this page! I added some small Manor House Creations flowers along the bottom, colouring them with Dylusions.

To lighten and brighten the page, I added the bright pink flowers. I love the juxtaposition of this splash of girliness against the steampunk setting but my daughter doesn't like it. She's the steampunk expert and she thinks the pink flowers shouldn't be there. This raised a whole new issue - who do I make pages like this for? Are they for me or the people they're about? Should they contain what I like or what they like? I haven't been able to answer this question yet but the flowers are still there!

Hope to see you over at The Scrapbook Store soon!

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