friday...

First of all, I'm sorry that I haven't been around. My family and I are going through some hard times financially right now and it has been nearly impossible to get online. Please pray for my family if you have a second to spare...

On another note, I managed to finish a layout yesterday. Scrapping is very difficult right now since all my scrapbooking supplies are packed away and I have no idea where specific things are anymore. Also, there is that stress level that wont let me do much...

Here's my newest layout:


This is a picture of me taken this year during Earth Day. I figured that it would be a great idea to hug a tree on Earth Day so here I am! :)

I entered this layout in a lot of challenges. Below is a list, link, and a description of them.
July Pile it on Challenge-This is the challenge that started it all. Helene challenged us to pile 4 challenges into one so I took her challenge and came up with this!

Denise's Distressing Challenge-The challenge was, of course, to distress something in your layout. I took it a step further and distressed everything, and as you all can see, this layout is extremely distress. I distressed all the paper edges using a pair of scissors, inked them, wet them a little bit, and further distressed them with my fingers. I even distressed the handmade cardboard flowers with distress ink and white acrylic paint.

Lisa's Go Green Challenge-This challenge was to use at least 2 recycled or re-purposed items and make at least one embellie. I handmade the cardboard flowers out of a box using my Pazzles. I inked them using Tim Holtz Distress Ink (vintage photo) and white acrylic paint. I also used the tutorial under the tips and tutorials in PIT to make the paper bag flourishes out of an old paper bag (and now I have to find another container for my lace! lol).

Lacee's You've Got Style (shabby chic) Challenge-Now this one was fun and up my alley! This challenge was to do a Shabby Chic layout and to use brown/pink/white, butterflies and flowers. Of course that I had to handmake my own flowers and I did. Like I said before, I handmade the cardboard flowers and distressed them. The brown/cream flower in the center of the cluster I made using Lisa Gregory's tutorial and for the center I used a simpler version of this organza lollipop flower. The larger soft pink/white flower and smaller cream flower I made using this tutorial, which is very similar to the lollipop organza flowers. Finally, the smaller hot pink and soft pink/white flowers is just my version of twisted fabric blooms. I like how shabby chic they look! To finish them all off, I added pearls for a center and voila!

Barbara's Pearl Challenge-This one was kind of easy to incorporate since I was doing a Shabby Chic layout so of course that I wanted to make pearl centers for my flowers. Most centers are just 3 small pearls glued together but for the larger cardboard flower I made a ring of smaller pearls and added a bigger one in the center. I was inspired by Prima's flower center which are gorgeous but overpriced.

A few things that was not listed above was that I used the July 8th PIT sketch for this layout which is done by Robin. I cut the fence with my Pazzles and used Diamond Glaze on it to give it a glossy appearance. I also did this on the brackets. For the title, I printed the letters, cut them, inked them and distressed them and went over them with 3D glitter paint to give it an embossed (and glittery!) look. I handmade the butterflies (printed, inked, and stickled them) and the pearl flourishes.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I'll leave you all with some close up pictures of this layout: