SBG1 Challenge #5 - The Pink Laundry Room

This 12x12 scrapbook page was made for a challenge for a blogger group I am in. It was Siobhan's turn to host the challenge, and you can find her blog HERE, if you get a minute, stop by and visit her, it's well worth the time. Her challenge was to create a card based on the laundry room of a wonderful woman named Stephanie Vest, a mother of young children, who recently lost her battle with cancer. Stephanie certainly had a "flair" for design, her laundry room was bright pink, with a B/W zebra striped ceiling, complete with a blingy chandelier and tassles hanging from the cabinet knobs! Click HERE to see pics of the laundry room which served as the challenge inspiration.

I didn't use the zebra print, although I REALLY wanted to! The base of this page is Basic Black CS, layered with Whisper White. Photo strips are made with the Spiral Punch, the flower was colored with a Pink Passion marker, pink CS is the same color. There are Square Rhinestones along each bottom edge. The middle mat is going to hold a pic (5x7) of my 4 year old Diva in her pink sequin dress (dress-up), the strips along the sides will hold little punched face shots of her taken during the same month. The bottom black rectangular piece will hold a piece of white CS with journaling. The colors and rhinestones are directly inspired by Stephanie's laundry room, it being a LO to hold pics of my daughter is inspired mostly because Stephanie's story makes me really think about my kids, so I wanted to do a scrapbook LO instead of a card, and I hope that's ok for this challenge.

All paper, ink and punches are SU. DRAMA QUEEN is computer generated, and cut out. Paper flower and Square Rhinestones are from my stash, as is the ribbon. No clue their origin, or their age...LOL! Clear Rhinestone brad in the center of the flower is SU.

SBG1 Challenge #4

I am a member of a wonderful blogger group, where I am blessed to enjoy the work of some very talented ladies. This time, the challenge host was Mel, you can visit her blog HERE. Her challenge was a bit tricky for me, use CS only as a base for your card, and use ONLY pattern papers, stamping in such a way as to show the paper underneath (ie...on vellum, etc). I decided to keep mine fairly simple so I could still have time to clean the kitchen before bed...LOL! My card base is SU Kraft, which you can't see. I used some beautiful, retired DSP from SU called Porcelain Prints. I used the Big Shot and Top Notes Die (from SU) for the middle of the card. The sentiment and flower stamp are from the SU set, Close As A Memory. Sympathy cards are something noone likes to make, but it's nice to have them on hand as sometimes when tragedy strikes, there isn't time to make something special. I planned to use vellum to stamp on before realizing I only had 2 sheets of it, and they were White Vellum, and it's heavier so you couldn't see my pattern paper through it. So, I clear embossed the flower stamp so that the paper shows through the stamping. I stamped the sentiment in Not Quite Navy ink underneath. The flowers in the corners are from Kaiser Scrapbook, and are stippled with the navy ink as well, 1/4" circles punched out of the paper are under the brads, and show just a little. I added pearls from Mark Richards in the corners.

I really do like this card, the simplicity is perfect for a Sympathy card and this challenge really made me think! It's really hard not using cardstock!!! It's also a great way to use up your pattern paper stash! Let me know what you think about this one.

PS---This pic is dark, after 10 shots, I gave up. I take awesome pics of my kids, but can't get a decent shot of a card to save my life. I will try to work on that this year...LOL!