#178 winner is Belinda Achatz

Congrats Belinda! I loved your layout that you submitted for the 'Just Relax' challenge last week. Here is her layout...

I love the bright butterflies and how you layered elements behind your cool title.
Awesome work! You may be chosen to be a future guest designer!

Thanks for playing along with the last challenge, I really loved everyone's layout and it is always very difficult to pick just one winner. There is a new challenge posted, so be sure to check it out!

Challenge #179 - School's Back in Session (August 29 - September 11)

I know everyone starts school at a different time of year, but the end of August seems like a fitting time to do a School layout.


For this challenge I would like you to use


1 - lined paper

7 - paper clips

9- staples


use primary colours (red, blue, yellow)

This is the last week for our Guest Designer Tracee, a big thank you goes out to her for playing along and joining in on the past 3 challenges, her layouts were amazing and this weeks is no exception. You have put such a great spin on this weeks challenge especially the way you have used the paper clips and turning the staples into a star. Awesome!!!!

Tracee: I haven't had the chance to scrap any of my Grandaughter Star's school pictures yet so this was the perfect opportunity.

I found some large yellow paper clips and wanted to use them in a different way and came up with idea of fanning them out into a flower shape behind the pic. So then that got me thinking of the staples and how I could mix those up a bit, I actually ended up using 10 red ones and formed a star shape in the title. I enjoyed adding lots of little elements to this layout to make it schoolish(if that's a word!)



Elizabeth: This was a fun challenge. I do not use primary colours too often when creating a layout, so it was neat to have a different starting point. As the layout came along, I found it more and more difficult to put the paper clips on, first they were on the pictures (which you might even still be able to see the outline that was left there when I took them off, except I did end up stapling the pictures instead, in the same spot to hide the markings). But eventually the clips made their way around the title and I like how the red and white ones mimic the look of the ring embellishment. Sweet and simple.






Anna-Karin: I loved your great layout-recipe Elizabeth! Lined paper is one of my favourites and I had fun embellishing it with stamps. I used round paper clips which I got very long ago, and glued them to the page randomly. Yellow staples were attached as borders. The title translates ‘Fun on wheels’, but sounds better in Swedish since it rhymes. The photo was taken by Cheryl van Lingen. Thank you for the challenge!





Fi - This one was a little daunting for me as I don't have any back to school photos, then I remembered I should take the opportunity to scrap some of my old class photos when I was a kid. Now these photos take up quite a bit of space on your page so it didn't really allow me to scrap in my usual style, however I was happy with the result in the end and its another photo scrapped. The recipe was a little challenging with those paper clips but I found some tiny Tim Holtz red ones and used the bakers twine along with staples to make the zig zag pattern so that I could pop the apples on sort of like a notice board...hope that has made some sense...lol I will post more details over at my blog.







To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge 177- Clowning around Winner!

is...... Amy C!

it was a tough choice because I really loved all your layouts this week, what a great take on the challenge everyone!

I really loved Amy's use of colour, her photo placements, and the awesome digital elements that she used to tie the layout together. Thanks so much for playing along!

Amy you are in the running to be October's guest designer.

Check in again after the next challenge to see if you could be in the running for a guest designer spot.

Challenge #178 - Just Relax (Aug 15 - Aug 28)

Anna-Karin here with this week’s HMITM challenge. I had a look for funny holidays, and 15 August is ‘Relaxation Day’, which is a fun theme for challenge. We all need to relax now and then and summer time is a particularly great time for relaxation. This week’s challenge is also to take a relaxed approach to scrapbooking and using some of your scraps.

The challenge is to do a layout:

- About something that you find relaxing.
- Close your eyes and dig into your stash of scrap patterned papers and randomly pick out at 6 or more pieces of papers and use those on your layout. No peeking!
- Do the same thing and pick 10 or more random buttons, ribbons or pearls.
- Use 3 bits and pieces lying around on your desk (not patterned papers). If you have a clean desk, use 3 left-overs from your last project.
- 1 recycled item

Have lots of fun! I am looking forward to seeing what you create!

We are delighted to have another beautiful layout from our August guest designer, Tracee Provis.

Tracee: About something that you find relaxing - Writing notes & planning layouts in my notepad

Close your eyes and dig into your stash of scrap patterned papers and randomly pick out at 6 or more pieces of paper and use those on your layout. No peeking! - This proved a tad more difficult to not cheat! so I waited until Fi & Debbi were online and I labelled random scraps with numbers 1 - 25 and got the girls to pick a number for me, to show there was no cheating I took a pic to prove I didnt just swap numbers lol All this was done under their watchful eyes on webcam! Let me tell you they didn't pick the pieces I wanted lol but on 3 of the scraps I used the backside and all in all my random was pretty co-coordinating!

Do the same thing and pick 10 or more random buttons, ribbons or pearls - I dont have anything organised(bad I know) so I just picked 10 random things that were in my "bits" box on the window sill it contains anything from die cuts to buttons to fabric scraps. I dipped my hand into my ribbon bag and pulled out a couple of things too!

Use 3 bits and pieces lying around on your desk (not patterned papers). If you have a clean desk, use 3 left-overs from your last project. - Lucky I do have a very messy desk so I tucked my hand under the top layer and picked lol

1 recycled item - I accidentally picked 2 so I rolled with that

This is what I finally ended up with:

Here's our DT inspirational layouts:

Anna-Karin: I often find that using my scraps speeds up my scrapbooking quite a bit since I spend less time choosing products to use. This layout is about taking walks in nature as one of my favourite forms of relaxation. My scrap papers are sorted according to colour in a file folder, so I closed my eyes and randomly pulled out 7 papers from different folders. I used 10 random buttons from one of my ziplock bags of buttons. I have a box of little leftover bits and pieces at my desk and try to use things from it as often as possible. For this layout, I pulled out the stamped bird, the metallic heart and the arrow (which was painted and stamped). The recycled item comes from a clothing tag (both the vellum strip and the printed ribbon). The title is a negative chipboard piece which has been in my leftover box for a long time, it was painted to fit better with this layout.

Elizabeth: Well, I do have to admit that blindly pulling out paper from my scrap pile is hardly a relaxing way to start my layout process, but my saving grace was the fact that so many papers are double sided, so I was able to make the combination of papers fit :P The embellishments I used from my last project were the felt flowers, and the recycled item is the circle outline stickers near the bottom of the layout. I used the outside of a sticker that I cut from the backing. And of course, going to the beach with five kids is always relaxing, right?!?!? It was a fantastic time together.

Janet M- This was a great challenge and quite interesting , since my scrapbook room is in a state of everything and anything is not were it should be with it getting moved. I reached into a pile of assorted papers and found some that were right on the top. I did the same thing with the embellishments from a basket of assorted items. The recycled item on here is a bookmark I pulled out of the desk. This is a picture of my two favorite men my brother and husband after a nice day when he had been visiting and we were just having a good time.

Fi - Relaxation for me is to have some time with my husband and one of our favourite days is the Melbourne Cup Race day. Its the race that stops the nation, its so great to see all the awesome fashions and lets not forget the hats.... Its really not about the horses at all.

I well and truly dug through my scraps for this one, with the help of Debbi and Tracee via video skype, their was definitely no cheating going on...lol Hop on over to my blog and check out the process we went through.

Debbi T: This would've been a very stressful challenge for me because I have this need to be in control, LOL, but I kept telling myself, "It's okay...it's for Relaxation Day." Plus, I was selecting my elements and scrapping with Tracee and Fi via Skype, and that made it more fun. I randomly chose an odd selection of stuff and I kept having printer issues with my photo, so I wasn't entirely happy with the way my page turned out, but I just said "Go with the flow, Debbi; it's Relaxation Day." I had a lot of fun trying to make the best of what I randomly chose. I also used a Creative Scrappers sketch. Thanks for the fun challenge, Anna-Karin!

To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below!

We can't wait to see what you create!

Winner - Christmas In July Challenge

Okay, its never easy having to pick a winner in these situations, and for me it will always about who met the criteria of the challenge and of course everyone did that. All layouts were beautifully done and after having another good look at all the submissions I have decided to go with Jenny Evan. I love how Jenny used the papers and the sketch and how each square was embellished.

Congratulations Jenny you are my winner, however everyone is a winner simply because you all have another page to add to your albums which is ultimately why we scrap.

Challenge # 177 Clowning Around!

Did you know that today is the first day of International Clown Week?

Using this picture as inspiration,



my challenge for you is to create a layout using:
* 8 buttons
* 1 flower
* 11 different patterned papers
* one red circle (for the clown's nose)
* Mist or paint

Hope you have fun with this challenge!

We are thrilled to have Tracee Provis as our August guest designer!

Here's a little about Tracee, in her own words: My Name is Tracee and I live in Bristol UK with my DH my 2 youngest children & our very spoiled Doodle doggies. I am also a Grandmum to a beautiful 7 year old (perfect for scrapping) little girl called Star.

I have always crafted in one form or another since I was a small child from stuffed toys to knitted scarves. I was introduced to scrapping in 2004 & I have never looked back with each layout bringing more love for this hobby along with a whole group of friends who share the same love.

My family & dogs are the main focus of my work, I just love how you can turn a memory, that might otherwise be forgotten in time, into something very special indeed.

With an ever changing world scrapping remains my Safe Haven & most days you will find me at some point in my craft room.

And here is what Tracee created for this challenge:

Tracee: I always scrap when we go away in the Uk and I created the background in stripes,to represent the clowns top, using all strips from the papers I had used on my layouts on one of our holidays, plus a picture of us in our favourite spot on that holiday.I just dotted the buttons around in a random fashion like juggling balls in the air. The big bold black title reminded me of the great big shoes the clown in the picture is wearing.I added the flower and the red circle down at the bottom in a cluster with some of the buttons. I whitewashed over the strips and although you cant see it clearly in this picture i did splash some white paint onto the white background and also added some liquid pearls dotted about. Although this layout hasnt got a clowning around theme I always remember the fun we had in our time spent at Challabourough Bay in the UK. While at first this seemed like a daunting challenge once I started it all started to come together quite nicely.

Here's our DT inspirational layouts:

Debbie F - Well, this proved to be a fun challenge for me! The clown inspired my color choices, the youthful theme, as well as a variety of patterns and shapes like dots, stripes, and circles. I chose to make a 2 page layout to incorporate all the challenge requirements. The hardest one for me to meet was the flower. I used a Details dimensional American Crafts sticker. (It had a pink flower layer on it too, which I pulled off.) The layout is of my son a few years ago at a Cub Scout Rocket Launch event. I punched circles of several patterned papers to make my "planets" and fussy cut the stars from another piece. My paint was a Jenni Bowlin dauber on some old Fancy Pants plain chipboard letters. I used a mix of sheer and sparkly buttons. It's a busy layout, but I think it's so fun!



Janet M- Loved this fun challege with all the great colors and ideas for it. I decided to do a picture of my husband . We have a saying in the family about never letting your head get to big. If you think it is put a bucket over it and make sure your heads not to big for it. I thought it was the perfect gift to give Bob after the college honored him all week with him getting his Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa. He loved the gift and even took it with him when they had the reception for him and used it in his speech.
The jounaling is: So it's really true the bucket does fit. We have a saying in the family about never letting your head get to big. If you think it is put a bucket over it and make sure your heads not to big for it. I thought it was the perfect gift to give Bob after the college honored him all week with getting his Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa. He loved the gift and even took it with him when they had the reception for him and used it in his speech.
Fi - This was a little daunting when I first read the requirements, especially when I saw the picture of the clown. It got me thinking about fun and I remembered that I had a picture of my Nephew and Brother. They had spent a fun day at the fair which I am sure their would have been a clown lurking around some where. Now I say lurking because there is quite a few people that are quite frightened of them, however I'm not.

I represented the red circle by stitching one around the doily and I have machine stitched lines down my page and stitched the buttons in between, representing the clown heads at the fair that you drop the balls down. I also stitched some scrappy muslin to the side to represent the clowns fluffy hair poking out from his hat. I cut 8 patterned papers into strips then punched decorative edges on each before I layered them together. My background, doily and die cut piece make up the remaining 11. I have 1 flower and I used gesso over muslin, flower and buttons.

Hope this has inspired you this week and if you would like to read please pop over to my blog and check out more details:



Debbi Tehrani - When I saw this challenge, I knew I wanted to make a page for my Book of Silly (an aptly named album that contains silly family photos). As I was going through pictures to scrap, I came across this photo of my nephew with his hair dyed red for school spirit week.

I was having a very time-crunched week, so I combined my HMITM page with my page for CCG, and as it turned out, the colors were perfect to go with this picture. If look close, you can see all the buttons and the 11 papers. The flower was a stretch because I didn't want my page looking girly at all, so I dug through my stash and came up with a flower-shaped brad. This was such a fun challenge, Debbie!

Elizabeth: This was such a fun challenge Debbie! I was certainly inspired by the red colour and also the stripes and polka dots. I finally tried masking with the letters in my title and I LOVE how it turned out! Don't know why it took me so long to try a new technique, maybe because I am scared of using things that make my work space 'messy', like paint and mist. I added stars to my mix of embellishments to emphasis the subject matter of my layout. I like how it looks a little 'chaotic', like a wipe out. Hope you will play along with this challenge!







To play and have a chance at being chosen for our How Awesome is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and becoming a HMITM guest designer, please share your layout via Mr.Linky below. We can't wait to see what you create!

Challenge #176 - Christmas in July {July 18 - July 31 }

Hi, it's Fi here and I just wanted to wish you a Merry Christmas!!!!

I know it's not really Christmas, but don't blink--it will be here before we know it. I thought it would be great to get into the spirit of Christmas without all the added stress that comes with it. I am sure you all know what I mean...lol

And now on to this week's challenge... and because its my first challege post here, I thought I would give a prize. I have kept it small so postage won't cost a fortune giving everyone the opportunity to win, it's Christmas....OK it's not but who doesn't love to receive a present?



Christmas in July refers to Christmas-themed celebrations held in July. It's a fun time and because the weather is so much cooler, we can celebrate with those traditional foods that we cannot have here in summer. Well, we can have them here in Australia but it's generally way too hot that most of us celebrate with BBQ's, prawns and salad. So let's pull out our Christmas paper and embellishment stashes and put them to use.

Requirements:

2 + photos [at least 2]
1 x Christmas tree image, any size
5 x patterned papers, i.e., Christmas patterns,
5 x metal embellishments, and any other embellishment in increments of 5

And here is mine take on the Challenge:



Have fun! Now for the inspiration from the Design Team....

Here's the layout created by our July guest designer Belinda Achatz, and some words from her about her layout:

For "Christmas in July" I decided to scrap 2 photos of my (now) husband & I back in 1995. Whilst we are having wintry weather right now, our Christmases are usually hot!! Well to quote my 8 year old daughter when she saw this layout, I "looked young then"....lol!! & Daddy had 'funny hair'.....yes, he did!!

I met the challenge criteria as follows: I used mainly Crate Paper Christmas Paper for my layout - the 5 different ones include the base cardstock, trees, stockings, christmas lights, the photo matts & green background paper. I did have more than 1 Christmas tree - the main one being the one on the background paper, but they are also featured in the photos...lol. The 5 metal embellishments include old stash of metal letter charms ('st' & 'xo' ) & the charm on which I mounted the number 1. I also used 5 felt stars & 5 brads in the middle of the stars. I had a lot of fun with this & it brought back some funny memories - which is such a great part of this fabulous hobby! I hope you have fun having a go at this challenge - before we know it, Christmas will be upon us!!!! (eeek)

I loved being guest designer for July - thank you so much to the team at HMITM for having me & thankyou to all who joined me in this month's challenges!

Anna-Karin: I had so much fun when I did my layout. I don’t think I have ever done a Christmas layout outside the holiday season since I normally do all my Christmas scrapping around Christmas. I used three photos, stamped a pine tree on one of the photos, 5 patterned papers, 5 metal embellishments (two bookplates, two embossed and painted tags, 1 swirl clip), 5 tags, 5 pieces of twine, 5 buttons, and 5 snowflakes. The layout is about some of my favourite Santa decorations. I let them pose in snow some years ago. I wanted the tags to remain neutral, so I inked and stamped them only very lightly. The metallic tags were dry embossed, painted black and then sanded to reveal the original metal on the embossed parts. Thank you for this awesome challenge Fi!


Debbi Tehrani: It was great fun scrapping Christmas pictures in July! I'd had these pictures of my mom and Gram with their loot piles from two Christmases ago and never got around to scrapping them, so I was happy for this challenge! I used a sketch from Once Upon a Sketch as inspiration for my page. The challenge was trickier thatn I originally thought. Keeping the papers to five was hard, but I used the back and fronts of one of the papers, so that allowed me to sneak an extra pattern in! And the five embellishments part was also tricky, but I managed. I used five brads, five big pearls, five small pearls, five rub-ons, five words on stickers, and five banner die cuts. My Christmas tree element is in the Santa image on the bottom right. Thanks for the fun challenge, Fi!

Elizabeth: Definitely fun idea to do Christmas in July. I still have so many pictures from Christmas that I could put into albums, so thanks for the challenge Fi! I kept it simple and used 5 papers, 5 metal (haven't used ribbon slides in years!!!), 5 stars and a few extra trees. Simple and sweet.





To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!