Scrap Weekly in 2010: Yellow

This week's Challenge on Scrap Weekly in 2010 is to use yellow on your layout. Yellow is my least favourite colour and I cannot remember ever using it on any of my pages. So this week's challenge was harder for me than usual.

I dug out a really old K&Co daisy paper from my scrap box and teamed it with a newer brown one and an orange dot from manufacturer unknown. As I was planning my layout, I heard on TV a quotation that I thought I could use sometime, so I scribbled it down on scrap paper. Then I realised it might work for the page I was making. I debated writing out the quote neatly or printing it on my computer, but in the end I decided to use it as it was, as it seemed to fit the doodled theme.

I also used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch and yellow ribbon from American Crafts.

The page will be going to Jenni and Tom along with a 12x12 wall holder so that Jenni can display it in their new flat when they move in. As she is also a Scrapper, she will be able to change the layout on show whenever she wants.

After doing this challenge I realise that yellow is still my least favourite colour!

52 in 10....Late Starter

I admit I'm a little late in posting these photos but I do have an excuse. I've had a bad week with no buses running here to get me to and from work, so I've had to sleep over at the hospital twice more this week. I am fed up with the snow and fed up with sleeping on a trolley! But it looks as if the thaw might begin this coming week - fingers crossed. End of whinge!
I'm taking part in 52 in 10 as I have pledged to take part in more Challenges this year. Here is my first week's entry. I decided to make a mini album (although after 52 weeks it won't be all that mini!) and chose a new size of page for me - 12x6. The first week's prompt was to review the past 10 years. My journaling lists the main things that have happened over the past 10 years, that I can remember. I never think of things in terms of decades though and I needed to think hard about events that had happened. And the start of a New Year is nothing special to me either, it's just another year, but I saw this challenge as an opportunity to keep me scrapping throughout 2010!

Above is week 2 where I had to think of the year ahead and what I want to achieve. I have listed my Crafty Goals For 2010 and tucked them behind my photo. The sharp-eyed among you have probably spotted that this is the reverse side of Week 1 as the punched holes are on the right-hand side this time. I was challenged to include stitching on the layout, but with Week 1 already completed, and not wanting to make holes through the paper, I drew faux stitching instead.

For the mini album itself, I was limited by my Crafty Goal number 2 of not spending on Stash this year, so had to use what I already had. I chose papers by Bo Bunny and My Mind's Eye and cut them in half for the 12x6 format, punched the holes and used book rings to keep it all together. It's easy to disassemble every week when I need to make another entry, and I can also swap the pages around at the moment if I prefer to use a different pattern for each weekly prompt.

Finding the time to craft with a full-time job is never easy, especially when I have to get everything out of the cupboards and put it away again the same day, but having made a start on this Challenge, I'm hoping to see it through to the end of 2010.

All-White Challenge

I rarely take part in challenges for two reasons: firstly I don't often have the time to complete a layout with a deadline attached, and secondly, I cannot come up with any ideas that fit the rules!

Anne has placed a link on her 'Pretty' Blog to Dreamgirls and  has made a stunning  layout for their current challenge, so I followed the link. For once the challenge looks to be what I need as I still have loads of white cardstock in my stash. I played around this afternoon keeping to the all-white theme and here is the result.

I have to say that, all-one-colour layouts need to be very clever to keep my interest and not look bland or flat. Mine is rather 'blah' but when I've sent it off to the challenge website, I intend to add just a little touch of another colour to lift the layout before it goes into an album. Maybe a bit of pink? Or black to go with the graveyard theme?!

Seriously though, how much white ribbon do you have? And how many white embellishments? It's not at all easy sometimes to complete a challenge layout with what you have available in your stash!

Anyway, the photo is one of Jenni, taken with a black and white film camera and hand-developed by Karen for a college project. It is actually a test strip to determine the best exposure time for her group of photos! It has been on my notice board for at least eighteen months, waiting for me to get an idea for scrapping it. As it's another single photo which I don't find easy to deal with on a layout, and it's a strange size, 2 x 11.5 inches, it's waited longer than most!

I used cuttlebug embossing folders and a sizzix alphabet for the central page, rounded the corners with my Corner Chomper and mounted it onto a second sheet of cardstock. Then I added the ribbon and ribbon slide, and finished by covering the diecut letters with clear glitter from a Sakura pen.

Sometimes a challenge can really, really challenge a scrapper like me!