Challenge #183 Gifts (October 24 - November 6)

For this week's challenge we invited AmyC, our awesome guest Designer, to challenge us with a challenge. This is what she came up with...

Today is the day before my daughter's birthday and we just celebrated her sister's birthday nine days ago. Having their birthdays so close together always gets me thinking about... gifts! I would like you to scrap about your best/greatest gift(s). These gifts can be actual gifts you were given for an occasion or they can be the blessings in your life. You can scrap about one gift or multiple gifts. You can make a top 5 or top ten list if you want! The requirements are based on my kids ages and the date.

Frame your page with an edge of background paper, a doodled/stitched border or a frame!
Use at least one stamp/digital brush/rub-on
3 ribbons/strings
6 circles
8 brads or buttons
10 flowers
2 elements that bleed off the page
4 crocheted or felt accents

Thank you AmyC for the awesome challenge!


AmyC: After I started formulating the challenge, I realized I wanted to scrap about being involved in Operation Christmas Child last year. My children learned the very valuable lesson that the greatest gift is actually the blessing of giving to others.Now, let's get to the nuts and bolts. I framed my paper with a thin peek of background paper. I used 3 different digital brushes/stamps behind my clusters. I have 2 strings and one ribbon. My six circles are 3 paper circles and 3 rub-on circles. All my brads/buttons are in the center of my flowers. I chose to bleed two of my paper circles off the page and my crocheted/felt elements are some of my flowers! I think that got it all!




Elizabeth: I love a fresh challenge and this one fit the bill! I liked the different techniques, like having elements bleed off the page and framing the whole layout.

I consider my marriage of 15 years to my amazing husband to be a 'gift', so I decided to do a layout with a picture of us together at a wedding this summer (not sure why we look so jaundiced in this picture :P poor lighting conditions i suppose, we didn't use any fake tanning lotion or anything.)

I pulled out an ancient ghost frame to put around the picture and then cascaded lots of different flowers in a diagonal line across the page (with several flowers cut off at the frames edge). I usually have a tough time with ribbon, but this awesome ribbon from My Mind's Eye with the birds on it was a pleasure to work with! For the circles, I emphasized the circles in the background patterned paper by punching six different holes in the middle of the designs.

Thanks for the awesome challenge Amy!

Janet M - What a challenge this was and it stretched me in some good way to use some things I don't usually. I had fun creating it. When I think of blessing it always comes to my family being first on my list. This photo was one from a couple of Christmases ago. We're not even complete a few people had already left that day. My crochet/felt items are the flowers and the little camera in the corner. The elements that bleed off are some rub-ons and the banner string. The circles , flowers, brads and the frame are all pretty easy to see.

It's a great challenge - I hope to see some more creations from some of the players this week.




Anna-Karin: When I looked through a pile of photos, I came across these two photos of two handmade gifts from my sisters. These are some of my most special gifts and I am happy to have done a layout about them. The layout was framed with machine stitching and I used a whole bunch of stamps. Six different circle stamps were used to stamp a tone-on-tone background. I ended up using more than six circles, because it looked a bit empty with just six. Two of the circles bleed off the page. Eight green buttons were stitched randomly on the background. The three strings were braided and stapled to the page. I didn’t want to include big flowers, so instead I took a small flower stamp and stamped it ten times on the patterned paper. I used two felt arrows and die cut a heart and a swirl from felt. The title translates 'Best Gifts'. Thank you so much for this fun challenge Amy!! I enjoyed picking out the different items to use.


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!