Scraplift

 Hey my friends and followers...  Hope you are having a blessed Sunday!

I had this layout finished and wanted to share it with you.  It's a scraplift from Scrapper's Place, which is a local store lead by Rebecca.  Her work is beautiful and she has a style that everybody loves.  

I usually don't scraplift too perfectly ... I always need to change a bit in most of inspirational layouts to make them "mine"... but this one I tried to be as faithful as possible because it had elements I would definitely use in my own layouts, and techniques I love.  

You can visit Scrapper's Place blog HERE.

Here are some of the elements I loved about this page.

The Flowers

They look beautiful and delicate all placed together framing the photo.  The spirals were pre-cut by Rebecca for the class and I just had to assemble the flowers.  I loved the process and enjoyed it a lot.  One of the things I love is to make my own embellishments or modify the already made ones.

The Banners

I love to use banners and support journalism with these kind of elements that embellish and also communicate or symbolize something.  I pretty much kept with Rebecca's design.  Just added an additional one to show a date.

The use of paper

I love to use papers at their whole capacity... and this means I don't trow away the pieces. This is not necessarily a good thing because I end up with lots of scrap accumulated... and I'm trying to improve that...  But when it comes to papers with designs, texture, messages... I try to use it all.  Rebecca achieved this with these papers in this layout!!!

Inking and Distressing

I love to ink it all.  I sometimes try to not ink my projects and I just end up with so much stress because I feel something is missing... LOL...  So I go with the flow.  With Rebecca's layout this was easy to do because she really rocked with the distressing and inking in this page.

Another change in my layout version is that I added a journaling just below my photo.

The Versatility

I love that this layout can be dedicated to a daughter (as original Rebecca's page), or just to someone else, (probably more suitable for a girl)...   I decided to dedicate it to myself.  I have lots of random photos of me, and thought I had a good one for this layout.  

The Non-Title Inspiration

Rebecca did not titled the original layout for the class.  She did use some phrases around the page that communicated very well but left the opportunity of the title for each one of the scrap-lifters.

I added my title and love the result.

The Whole Look

It's a beautiful layout.  Colors and technique are very inspiring.  It's one of those pages you feel have a lot going on, but they look so uniform that they flow, right?

Hope you liked it.  I'm glad I chose to take this class with Rebecca.

Tks for your comments.

Unity Friday, SEM, and Page Maps... all combined!

 Today is Friday... and I'm so excited about having some rest.  I've had so much tension at work lately and the upcoming weeks do not promise to be better... so I'm conscious about it and don't want to let it affect me... so let's enjoy Friday!  And this means Friday Friends with Flair too!

I wanted to participate in the SEM challenge this month.  They are asking for a layout or project to describe "created beauty" referring to nature, things or abstract feelings/concepts you appreciate...  When I first read about this challenge I thought of making a layout about my marriage, or my relationship with my dog and how he has become so special... but then I said to myself:  "You are a beautiful creation yourself!"  It's not that I am selfish or think I am better than anyone... no...  It's that feeling of being thankful about being alive!  It is also true that sometimes I don't like myself... not that I don't accept me, but you know... from time to time I wish not being getting old, or would like prettier feet... LOL!  I am human after all!  But the truth is that I appreciate myself, give thanks to God everyday for being pretty healthy, and for having the opportunity to have lived so many beautiful things in my life.  I know, I know, there are a lot of things I don't have, or will never have... and I've suffered, and I am sure this is part of life, but I focus on the ones God has given me, and the ones he hasn't that make me fight for more... because he knows what he's doing... right?

So once I decided I was going to do the layout about myself (a very difficult task), I saw this sketch from Page Maps and decided to use it.  So it's a double challenge inspired in the "created beauty" theme from SEM, and this sketch from Page Maps:

I had a sticker from Glitz Designs that I soooo wanted to use and had not found the right project.  It says "I feel pretty oh so pretty".

Note that the patterned paper has faux stitching, and I also added some handmade stitching in several sections of the page... I used a ruler and a pen to draw/write it... :)

I also used lots of washi tapes...  Here on top o the page I used one with dots and another one with stripes.. and I used some other in blue lace and another with blue plaid, under the oval tab with handwritten journaling.

The title is "Me myself and I", and is just one of multiple Unity stamps I used in the layout.

 The sentiment "I am thankful" is another stamp, and the arrows, as well as the banner with the yellow word stickers...  all stamps.  Can you tell I love Unity stamps?

I used lots of embelishments from The Girls Paperie, and Glitz, and pieces of patterned papers (Cosmo Cricket and DCWV).

I also sprayed pink mist in some spots of the page.

The journaling says:  "I love the fact that I am alive and was created imperfect, so I can learn, love and enjoy life everyday."

I hope you liked my page and somehow it inspires you to appreciate you as the great creation you are.

Thanks for your comments.