Embellish This - Alter it!.... Week 6

Welcome to week six, the final week, of the Scrap N Chat with T 'Embellish It' competition. Karen's challenge had you CREATE items with beads, felt and fabric; whilst Leanne's challenge saw you using wire and the colours red, white and green to DECORATE a gift package. Chelle's week saw you designing a fashion statement worthy of the Melbourne Cup with BLING. With the help of previous crafts and UFOs, Kylie's challenge saw you MIXing things up; and last week Tracey's pushed your boundaries further (and to your recycling bin!) as she asked you to use your ingenuity to RECYCLE items like toilet paper rolls on your project. Hooley dooley!! To those still standing, a mighty congratulations. The work produced over the last five weeks has been nothing short of breath-taking, at times jaw dropping, and always inspiring.

So now its time for our ALTER IT challenge. A challenge that epitomises the essence of Scrap N Chat with T ... a blog, a store, a gallery for paper (and other) crafters ... a source of inspiration as we admire the the many and various products in store, browse the blog for techniques and updates, and sit down with a cuppa to admire and be inspired by the work in the gallery. Then we sit at our PCs and wonder how we can incorporate all that we have seen into our own projects, how we can use them (can we use them?) in our preferred crafts, and 'can we ALTER them to suit our own styles?'.

This week we are asking you to return to the grass roots of scrapbooking and create a single or double page layout. You will need to use three or more photos; the theme is 'let the love shine through'; the required colours are the 'cool shades' of summer; your primary handmade embellishment must be made from sequin strands; and finally you must use at least ten different techniques to ALTER the products/items you use to create a harmonious layout where the photos remain the focus of the layout, not the techniques.

My example layout 'Love and laughter' features photos I recently took one warm, sunny day of Tanyah and her son Ben. A day filled with reminiscing, good times, fun, laughter, and family love. I scrapped the layout on my return home to a cold, grey Melbourne, with love and sunshine in my heart as I remembered fondly the many memories of my wonderful trip north. I have used three photos ... one larger focal photo and two smaller photos to further share the relationship between Tan and her son. The 'cool shades' of summer I have used are blues and greens ... reminiscent to me of Australia's famous beaches. I made a set of swirls with my sequin strands by placing a piece of paper with hand-drawn swirls underneath a piece of acetate; using a combination of Glossy Accents and a Xyron 150 adhering the sequin strands to the acetate; once dry and decorated with bling I carefully cut around the swirls leaving a boundary of acetate sufficient to give my swirls stability. I also used the following 10 or so techniques to ALTER the products/items I have used on my layout ...

* I hand-stitched around selected circles (or 'dots') on the Bazzill embossed cardstock "Dots"

* I used a template (TCW Trendy Bracket) to cut a shape out of my patterned paper (from the Prima Tropics collection)

* I doodled on various parts of the layout for definition and interest

* I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder (Swiss Dots) to emboss a piece of patterned paper and then inked the raised image

* I sanded the edges of my photos and added Kaiser pearl bling

* I used PhotoShop to alter my photos by increasing their brightness and contrast levels before printing

* I added layers to the Bella Journaling Tagz tag with a strip of patterned paper and a die-cut from the Crate Paper Little Sprout Collection

* I dusted the back of the small, self-adhesive, die-cut cardstock flowers and butterflies by Ruby Rock-It with talcum powder to remove the adhesive, moulded their shapes by hand, added bling, and in the case of the butterflies stapled their centres to create definition

* I free-hand cut a funky scallop border from patterned paper

* I cut a scalloped circle image out of a larger circle Bella Journaling Tagz tag

* I used a Kaiser quote rub-on to create my title within the extra journaling (the quote) by die-cutting plain acetate, cutting the rub-on into sections, applying the rub-on and adding Carolees Creations Adornit tiny alphas to form the words "love and", and then using Kaiser seabreeze paint, highlighted the word 'laughter' from the back of the acetate

The judging criteria this week are ...

* unique use of title
* journaling
* handmade embellishment
* best use of material
* overall design
* craftsmanship
* meet weekly criteria
* most inspiring

At first glance this challenge may seem fairly simple. The challenge is to use many and varied techniques (perhaps more complicated than those I have used) and at the same time keeping a delicate balance between what becomes the focus of your LO ... in this instance the photos must be your focal point. Further, this week, never have the judging criteria such as unique use of title and journaling been more important. How can you make your title individually unique? Mine is within a quote on a handmade journaling block. We want to see your journaling (not just a date or name or year) ... tell us a story ... and if we cannot actually read the journaling because you have used hidden journaling then we want to see the evidence of that hidden journaling. As previously mentioned your handmade embellishment must be made from sequin strands. What does best use of material mean? Have you used your materials to their maximum potential, in more than one way, or innovatively? When considering your overall design, ask yourself whether you have successfully created the balance we are looking for. Craftsmanship ... is your hand-stitching even, can we see the glue you have used to adhere an item, have you paid particular attention to detail? Then of course you need to meet the weekly criteria, and finally, 'most inspiring' ... well that's a personal choice.

Good luck this week girls ... I can't wait to see the no doubt spectacular layouts you come up with and like everyone else, I wait with bated breath to find out finally who the winner of Scrap N Craft with T's Embellish It competition's winner is.

Alz :)