Pretty Paper Party

I'm certainly having fun working my way through the prompts for the Pretty Paper Party! I'm actually considering signing up for 'Journal Your Christmas' as well. Anyone done that class before? How did you like it?
  Here is a page I did for prompt #17 which was about using black cardstock as a page background. I have done it before but not very often. Shimelle pointed out in the prompt that using a black background really puts the focus on the colors so I chose a photos and paper with vibrant colors. I definitely think that the black enhanced the effect of the other colors!

My extra challenge with this layout is that I did it while at my mom's house and I had forgotten my paper trimmer! So, I managed to complete my page without trimming any paper or photos with a straight-edge trimmer. That is definitely out of my comfort zone!!

Dots and Stripes

Here is another page from the Pretty Paper Party. It's my effort for prompt #4, combining dots and stripes. For me, it's not completely successful, but I do still like it enough to go ahead and put it in the album.

Want to know the strange thing that I discovered while doing this challenge? I actually had a hard time finding polka dot paper in my stash; and an even harder time finding dots of different sizes. I love dots! Why don't I have more paper with dots on it? This must call for some shopping!!

Pretty Paper Party

I'm spending some time scrapping this weekend. yay! Hopefully I'll have a couple things to show you from my work on Pretty Paper Party class.
 First, I'm going to share my layout from prompt #10, the stamping challenge. now, Shimelle issued 4 challenges in this prompt...I just tackled the first one. For now.
 The challenge was to use our stamps and pretty paper together to create embellishments. Grab a few scraps, a stamps set, and you're ready to go! Here's my layout:

The picture isn't great - I had to take it with my phone - but I still wanted to share the whole effect of both pages with you. I was disappointed that I couldn't see the stamped embellishments very well though, so I took a couple more photos.

There! Now you can see them better... This was a perfect stampset to use on this layout!

Quilting with Paper

Yes, I may be crazy... (well, alright, it's already an established fact that I am)
...but what are classes for if not to try out some new things??

The PPP class prompt a couple days ago challenged us to try using quilting patterns on our scrapbook pages. this is definitely a great technique for using up scraps and for combining lots of papers that you love. But, I will say...it's time consuming! I think it took me 3 hours to create this one page. (well, with a lunch break...and maybe a break for Halloween candy too)

I chose the Log Cabin pattern in the Barn Raising variation since I didn't want to figure out how to cut equal sized diamonds. Blue and yellow is one of my favorite color combinations and it works very well with the need to have a light side and a dark side. I chose to go with the traditional red square for the center piece symbolizing the hearth of the home because I thought that it went well with my cozy, family centric theme.
 It was a little hard for me to bring myself to embellish the page after doing all that paper piecing so I took a picture of the page before I put anything else on it.

It really does look like a quilt to me. I think that's cool - totally never would have tried it if it wasn't for this class! Love. this. class. Yes, I do!
 I popped the main picture off the page with foam squares so that when you look at the page in person, you really see the photo first and the quilt pattern second.

And, this may be picture overload, but here are my embellishments... I like 'em so I'm sharing them!

Thanks for visiting. I hope you liked my quilting!

I'm a Convert!

In a recent prompt for the Pretty Paper Party class I'm taking, Shimelle gave a link to a color wheel. Our assignment for the prompt was to make a page with two colors and a neutral (white, cream, grey, or kraft). She suggested we pick one color first and then use the color wheel to get the second color.
 Now, I've used color wheels before and not found them very useful. I have only ever used physical paper ones - I've never tried one online. I really liked the one Shimelle suggested and loved that it would show color swatches of the chosen colors next to each other. It was great to have the ability to preview the mix. It also was sliding scale from color to color so that I could choose exactly the orange I wanted...not an approximation of the orange I wanted. Very useful! I'm sure I will try it again.
 Here is the page I created:

 I started with the orange stripe in Big Brother's suit (yes, that's really him, believe it or not!). The color wheel gave me the green and I must say that I never would have chosen that color on my own. I love it...and it's even better in person. It's so vibrant and alive! As my hubby said, "color wheels are art and science working together". Obviously, I chose white as my neutral.
 For the wire flowers and the twisted wire frame around the photos, I used some old Making Memories craft wire that I have. Hooray for using old supplies! And hooray for making my very own embellishments!

 I made the ribbon flower too! I wanted to use ribbon, but a long strip wasn't working for me. I already had the flower motif going so I decided to try making one with ribbon. It took a couple tries but I managed it to my satisfaction.

So, what do you think? Do you like the green? Do you use color wheels regularly?

More Pretty Paper

I needed a bit of me-time this evening, so I carved out a little scrappy time to work on my PPP class. For those of you following along in class, I started out with today's prompt (#7) and chose to work from the formula at the end (1a + 1b + 3c). From there, I was trolling through the prompts for a sketch and I had a number of strips of paper, so this layout also fits prompt #1. Here's what I came up with:

 Truthfully, I really fought with this layout. It came out ok, I think, but about halfway through I almost started over. My 1+1+3 was 1 stripe, 1 floral, and 3 small-size, uniform patterns. It wasn't working for me, not sure why, so I added three borders (two at the top, one at the bottom) and I liked it a bit better. Guess I need a bit more practice with combining patterns!
 I do like how the embellishments came out; I used a rub-on sentiment on the metal frame and it worked nicely.

Any thoughts on the total package?

Pretty Paper Party

I signed up and started a new Shimelle class this past week called Pretty Paper Party. I am loving it so far! I have been enjoying reading the daily prompts where I get to see fantastic artwork by Shimelle and many guests artists that she has brought along for the ride. Plus I'm learning oodles of things about using pretty paper!

Now, when I signed up for this class, I knew that I wouldn't get any crafting done the first week because our schedule was very hectic, but I still wanted to be along for the ride. Over the weekend, I managed to squeeze in one page for one of the prompts. So, here's my offering, my page created from prompt #2 about using patterned paper for a background:

This page was definitely out of my comfort zone - I rarely use patterned paper for a full background. In fact, here's the shocker (to me) I used only one measly little piece of cardstock on this entire page! That's right, everything else is patterned. I relied heavily on Shimelle's page example for the placement of embellishments since I am still learning my way around this layering and clustering style. I was a bit insecure about it but I can't learn unless I try it, right?
 Hopefully I'll have a bit more time this week, so I'll be back soon with more Pretty Paper Partying!!