I Entered a Blog Challenge

Back in September I entered a Blog Challenge on one of the blogs I follow regularly. Karen M. of Real Life in Pictures. hosted the challenge in honor of National Sewing Day on September 10th, The "Sew Happy" challenge which was to:

"add something that you would typically use when sewing" and add it to your card, layout, or project! Some examples of items are the following (pins, thread, buttons, zippers, material, rick-rack, ribbon, lace etc). You can find her blog post HERE.

Click HERE to see my layout for this challenge.

This is the prize I won for entering.

When I opened the envelope I immediately "fell in love" with the papers and embellishments that I received. All the embellishments were handmade and absolutely beautiful. I use a lot of turquoise and green so I knew I wouldn't have any trouble at all using this wonderful prize. As I laid everything out on the table to look at it, I realized I had THE PERFECT PICTURE. The picture was one of my favorites that I have been saving for the right inspiration. And when I looked at this set of papers and embellishments, I was inspired. It was a picture taken in April of 2008. At a family gathering, I asked Mike to take a picture of me with my boys and grandboys. I loved the outcome so much that I had it put on a credit card so I could carry it with me all the time.

And here is my layout using the kit.

The only thing I added to the mix was the Making Memories Rubons that I used for the title, Me & My Boys, a few pieces of solid cardstock, and the Making Memories Chipboard Flourishes and butterfly. The turquoise mat was border punched using an EK Success Single Embossed Curve border punch.

The spots from left to right across the top of the page:

• The journaling spot that I added "Me & my" to was part of the kit
• The metal rimmed Family tag. The words family were printed on transparency also came I will be attempting to make some of these myself in the future.
• This spot was created using Spellbinders scalloped circle cut from purple patterned paper and circle of black cardstock. The turquoise piece was first border punched with the Fiskars threading waters punch and then cut using a circle die positioned over the border.
• The last spot is a black cardstock scalloped circle topped with a flower included in the RAK.
  The white flower is layers of paper flowers that had been Cuttlebug embossed and topped with a small silk flower.

The spots from top to bottom.

• The top spot in this picture is created with a turquoise scalloped circle, a white and black patterned paper circle, and the border was punched with a Martha Stewart border punch and then circle cut. The 3 little heart brads that embellish this spot were included in the RAK.
• Turquoise patterned paper circle topped by black and white polka dot patterned paper border punched using the Martha Stewart loopy punch.
• Green dotted patterned paper scalloped circle topped with turquoise cardstock circle. White and black patterned paper is border punched with a dotted scalloped punch by EK Success This spot is topped with a chipboard butterfly sprayed with my homemade "glimmer mist". The tiny pearl strip down the middle of the butterfly was part of the RAK.
  
  The grouping of embellishments in the lower right corner all came from the RAK, except the chipboard flourishes. I painted them using my homemade "glimmer mist". I used a Ranger mini mister filled half full with water. To the water I added 3 drops of Peeled Paint Distress Ink Reinker, a tiny scoop of Pearl Ex gold pigment powder, and 3 drops of Gum Arabic, which is a binder. I shook it all up and sprayed it on the chipboard in layers until I reached the desired intensity allowing it to dry between layers.

Thanks goes out to Karen at Real Life in Pictures for the wonderful RAK of beautiful papers and embellishments. Check out her blog to see some of her beautiful items that she makes using her Cuttlebug.