Sept 26 Johnny Appleseed Challenge

It's Johnny Appleseed day and while nobody else may be excited about it I am. My children are descendants of Johnny Appleseed so we have books, counted cross stitch pictures, etc. about him.

Our challenge this time is going to do a layout using apples in it. So it can be a recipe page, layout about fall or anything that uses apples. Since apples come in three colors I want the colors of the layout to have red, yellow and green in them.
3 apples
3 red,
3 yellow, and
3 green embellishments - ( buttons, brads, twine)

Have fun creating.


Here's what Susan, our guest designer, did for her second project this month.

I made a shadow box by three gypsies. Used Bo Bunny and My Minds Eye and Basic Grey. Apple brads and various embellishments that I had in my stash. I also inked all the paper edges with chestnut roan chalk ink.




Janet M - I enjoyed this challenge and choose a picture to do a page that I'll put in my recipe book of pages of family recipes, fun times together and pictures of things we have made.

I used three apples cut from my Cricut cartridge , three different ribbons, three colors of Thickers and pp. I used brads and bling in multiples of the three colors also. I enjoyed the fun I had with the colors in this.

Anna-Karin: Since I had never heard about Johnny Appleseed, I had to look him up. Interesting character and how fun that he is family of yours Janet. Loved the challenge! I did my layout about Anton’s love of fruit (the title translates ‘Fruit-o-maniac’), apples being the number one favourite (although he is eating papaya on the photos). I found some journaling cards that worked well for the challenge and the layout came together quickly. I used three stamped apples, one in each colour, and the same with the three buttons, brads and twine. Thanks for the fun challenge and history lesson Janet!

Debbi T: I'm a teacher, so I get a school portrait taken every year, and I never know what to do with them. I decided this challenge was the perfect opportunity to document my apple-a-day ritual, which I plan to add to my weight-loss album. It just so happened that the October Work in Progress kit that I needed to work with had a paper with an apple pattern from the Crate Paper Farmhouse collection, so I used the WIP to make my page. This was such a fun and clever challenge, Janet!

My hidden journaling reads: During the school year, I eat an apple a day. Every day, I bring an apple in my lunch. My favorite is apple is the honeycrisp. My apple-a-day habit started when I began Weight Watchers. I bring a knife and cut my apple into small slices so I can take a long time eating it. I usually bring a frozen Weight Watchers Smart One or a Lean Cuisine, which gets eaten pretty fast, and then I cut my apple and enjoy it for the rest of my lunch time. (School portrait - Fall 2011)

Elizabeth: Fun challenge Janet! I decided to do it about Brock's first time eating, and our oldest child helping to feed him. Had to dig around for some apple embellishments, but I eventually found some in the lace cardstock and I cut some out of some patterned paper. Do circles count as embellishments? Well, I think I have lots of yellow, green and red on here anyhow ;). Thanks for the challenge!

Fi: Okay a bit of a tricky one, how to use apples...hmmmmm Anyway I went with another school class shot as I really couldn't associate apples with anything else and didn't have time to whip up an Apple Pie...lol I used some Simple Stories paper and thought this challenge can me the perfect opportunity to use my Quickutz Die's for some reason I needed these dies but had never had the opportunity to use them. lol

So I used the red, green and yellow papers, I die cut 3 apples and also 3 apples cores since we were working in lots of 3s, my embellishments are 3 paper clips 3 brads in each of the 3 colours, 3 butterflies and 3 acetate school themed pieces. I have hidden journalling paper clipped up the top which just reads who some of the kids are that I was friends with.

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!

School's In Winner ... Shaunery!

Congrats Shaunery, for being chosen as this week's winner with your school choir layout.

Loved the ruffled ribbon and the great shades of primary colours. They go beautifully together. The paperclip stickers are great here, super job!

Thanks for playing along everyone, your layouts were awesome!

(For some reason, Blogger does not always let me comment on people's blogs, but I do try to leave comments on everyone's layout.)

Challenge 180 - Home Sweet Home {September 12 - September 25}

Happy Monday! Debbi here. We're in the process of buying a new house (our street address will be 4936), so for this challenge, let's make a layout using...

• topic: your home (could be your whole house, a specific room, your yard, etc.)
• a house embellishment (could be prefabricated or handmade)
• choose a room in your house and use the colors as the basis for your layout
• 4 rub-ons
• 9 buttons and/or brads
• 3 labels or tags
• 6 patterned papers

Our guest designer this month is Susan, and we are so happy to have her wonderful layouts to share with you!

Here is a little about Susan, in her own words... My name is Susan Thormahlen and I am from Northwest Indiana. I am married to a wonderful man and have 2 children and 1 grandchild. I am also a CDA dental assistant and am the office manager of a dental office here in my hometown. I have been scrapbooking for 3 years and have truly fell in love with all aspects of it. I like traditional, digital and hybrid but traditional is my favorite. Because I am fairly new to the craft of scrapbooking, I have not been on any design teams or have been published yet. I will have my first scrapbook page published this November in GingerScrapStreetMagazines in the article It's Not Easy Being Green. This is also my first invitation to be a guest designer.

I based the colors of this challenge on our bedroom which is a buttery cream/yellow with dark blue accents. The nine buttons that I used, I broke up and used them like a mosaic. I used Sure Cuts Alot svg graphics for the house and the window frame. I also used the Socket font for my lettering. For my 6 patterned papers I used Chatterbox. I made my three tags and used them as smoke clouds coming from the chimney. The rub-on "home is where the heart is" is from K&Company.

Debbi Tehrani - I chose my dining room for the color scheme of my page (here's a picture of my dining room):

As I said above, we're in the process of having a new house built. By now it's already built and they're working on the inside, but we've been driving up every week and photographing the progress. This was the first set of pictures I took--when it was just a hole in the ground. It was so surprising because for the longest time we'd drive up there and nothing was going on, and on this particular Sunday, when we saw it, the first thing that came out of my mouth was "We have a hole!" I used birdhouse images, which are houses, right? I'm on a mission to use some old stash. Those daisies were cut out of a REALLY old K&Co paper. They're pretty and glittery. And those birdhouses are from some ancient paper from back when I started scrapbooking over a decade ago--hoarding comes in handy sometimes!

Janet M.

This challenge was so much fun and since we are in the process of building our new house I had a hard time deciding which photo to use then one of the landscapers dropped off a new set of aerial pictures and it was an easy decision. The colors are based on some of my room colors which I have used greens and blues quite a bit. The birds also tie in with the theme of my art glass in the doors and one of the bathrooms. I used the Cricut cartridge Songbird for the word and the tag and I actually used a pagemaps sketch for the design.

I've been traveling a lot so my layouts are suffering on getting done but the card collection I have is growing - I used this challenge to make a card for my daughter that is doing some work on the inside and outside of her house.

Every single thing in the challenge got into the card- there's a rub-on sun under the button, some of the brads are on the car wheels, the trees are cut from different lines and the tags are under the flower. Fun way to challenge myself.

Anna-Karin: I loved this challenge Debbi! Instead of scrapping about our present home, I made the layout about my first home and wrote 5 pages of journaling (tucked behind the layout). I am so happy to have documented my memories. I also used the colour scheme of the house for the layout – seventyish green, orange, brown and yellow. The patterns and embellishments were also chosen to fit with the theme (felt, raffia, woodgrain, owls, flower brads, chipboard accents etc.). The dry embossed cardstock looks very similar to the wallpaper in one of the bedrooms. The house was cut from a piece of patterned paper and embellished further with ribbon, mica windows, and rub-ons. I was happy to use some rub-ons and an old pack of flower brads. The gate, key and key hole were painted with silver paint.


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

#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!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? No. 175 - Tracee Provis

We chose Tracee's layout for our HAITA Gallery for Challenge 175. We think Tracee's design is brilliant with the great big star as a backdrop to her photo. The topic of her layout was perfect for the challenge. The repetition of stars, the pennants beneath the title, the use of labels scattered about but not looking scattered, the terrific use of color all make for a truly fantastic layout and worthy of our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Gallery!

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? No. 174 - Amy C

It's always so hard to choose a winner for the challenge! All of the submissions were wonderful, but we chose Amy C's adorable page. We loved her overall design, the darling photos, and the "sunny" feel of her page that was perfect for the Sunny Flowers challenge.

Congratulations, Amy! You have been added to our HAITA Hall of Fame (located in the tab below the banner), and you might be picked to be our September guest designer!

Challenge 175 - Stars & Stripes Forever {July 4 - July 17

Happy 4th of July! Debbi here with this week's challenge.

First, I'd like to introduce our guest designer for this month, Belinda Achatz.

Here's a bit about Belinda, in her own words:

'Hello everyone - I absolutely love challenges that use up my stash & I am honored to be a guest designer at HMITM for July! My name is Belinda (aka busybel around the forums) and I am married & have 3 children – 7,6 & 10 months. I live in Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. I have been scrapbooking since 2006 & have an eclectic style - influenced by new product, photos, time available, the story I want to tell. I enjoy scrapping all sizes of layouts. I love distressing things, inking, paint, collage chipboard,& have a new-found love of Tim Holtz techniques/products, a long-time love of vintage, having something 'real' to say rather than just 'sentiment' and mixing new (products) with old. I also love art journalling, mixed media, ATC's and card-making.
I currently design for: Scrapmatts: an Australian chipboard manufacturer, Paper Inklings, an Australian paper/chipboard/rubon wholesaler and Mystical Scrapbooks, an Australian online store.'

You can see more of Belinda's work on her blog: Blaacraft

And now on to this week's challenge...

Here in the U.S.A., we're celebrating our Independence Day. In honor of that, I'd like you to use
** elements that include STARS (embellishments, patterned paper, etc.) and STRIPES (ribbon, patterned paper, etc.)
** a flag or banner accent
** and to play off the date we're celebrating, July 4, 1776, use:

• 7 - brads
• 4 - four-word title
• 1 - photo
• 7 - labels
• 7 - seven-sentence journaling
• 6 - patterned papers

Note: Your page can be of any topic or theme--it doesn't have to be about 4th of July. Have fun! Now for insiration from the team and guest designer...

Guest designer Belinda Achatz: Living in Australia we do not celebrate Independence Day - but I focused my layout on my eldest daughter overcoming her challenges & being a star and the layout came together easily. I incorporated the challenge criteria as follows: "You Are My Star"
I covered chipboard stars in glittery patterned paper, and added strips of striped patterned paper at the bottom - a mix of Crate Paper, We R Memory Keepers, Scenic Route. My banner accent was hand stamped in a rainbow palette of distress inks using a great stamp I found in my stash (I can't remember where it came from:( ) - but it was a ticket/journalling tag with a star flourish - I have used it whole in black as part of my title. I cut triangles from it for the banner. The brads include glittery ones as part of the banner, and a cluster of Crate Paper ones near the journalling.
I clustered a mix of 6 red-based labels mounted on a black chalkboard label from Pink Paislee to make a whole journal block. upon which I told my story in 7 sentences.. My patterned papers are as described above plus rainbows to back the title (from Sassafrass). Additional elements included the black glitter chipboard alphas from Pink Paislee - plus some of the swirly brackets from the same pack, and some black pearls.


Debbi Tehrani: I had this cheesy picture of my husband from last year's Fourth of July celebration that I never scrapped, so I decided now was a good time to scrap it. I used a lot of old papers on this page--I'm talking really old--combined with some newer stuff. I brushed the starry patterned paper with gesso to lighten it up because I was using a Color Combos Galore palette to make my page. My brads and labels are scattered about my page. I almost forgot to use a 4-word title, until I double checked the list, but fortunately I was able to think of one. And yes, I realize I don't have complete sentences, but I do have 7 sentence fragments!

Janet M- I'm coming in with two layouts this challenge because I couldn't decide which one to post after I got them done. Loved using all the patriotic elements in this and boy did I get into my stash for some of these items.
The first one is with my grandson Jonathon, somehow I forgot to do my journaling in these but I got all my other elements in.

This one is with my aunt Virginia and I'm so glad to have the moments with both of them captured.

Thanks for this fantastic challenge.

We always have the 4th of July picnic at our house and these are some pictures from a couple of years ago,Have fun with the challenge! Can't wait to see what you create!

Anna-Karin: Fabulous idea for a challenge Debbi! I stamped the background with stars, used a star patterned paper and a striped paper. The 6 patterned papers were arranged in a stripe fashion. The 7 labels are stamped (six for the journaling and one date label) and I used the brads to make a circle around the number 8 (for 8 months). For the flag, I used a quote sticker. The title translates ‘Up and (almost) away’, and the layout is about Anton’s efforts to learn how to crawl. The photo was taken the day before he managed to get the coordination right and off he went (to never ever sit stilll again). Thanks for this great challenge!!



Debbie F: Great challenge, Debbi! I decided to scrap this picture from our vacation this week. I always ask the kids to make a silly face when I'm trying to get them cooperate for a posed picture. This one cracked me up! I used Echo Park's Summer Days papers and embellishments. I decided to meet the six patterned paper requirement by making another banner. I continued the banner theme with twine and Jillibean journal sprouts. The labels challenged me, but I think I met it between the Jillibean stickers and sprouts. My journaling has seven fragments, if you include the title, and my stars are part of the sticker banner.

Elizabeth: I am from Canada, so I did a little different layout, but still incorporated all the items. The stars are in the yellow paper, the banner I made to hang from my title, and all the labels hold my seven lines of journaling. The cup in the picture has some kind of squirmy bugs inside. True father son camping style. Thanks for the great challenge Debbi!



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!

How awesome winner #173 - this is adorable.

Our chosen winner for challenge #173 Going around in circles is Tracee with this cute and fresh looking layout, I really like the colors in this and the little details in each of the circles. Her 6 butterflies add a perfect touch to the layout. Great job on this Tracee.