Sassafras Lass, Basic Grey and Echo Park projects

Over the past two weekends, I've managed to complete three more projects.  The first is for a sketch challenge over at the Sassafras Lass blog.  The sketch given is a design from Marcy Penner, and it looks a little something like this:

Normally when I'm going off a sketch, I tend to stay fairly true to the exact components and placement of the elements.  This time I challenged myself to mix it up a little!  I kept the three stars, but I masked and misted them and scattered them about.  I also liked the boxes, but I moved them about as well.  And so the finished result was...

This is a little more free-flowing than my usual style, but I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with it!  :)

I also had some time to paw through my stash and pull out an oldie but goodie, Basic Grey's Sugar Rush.  When it first released, I got the whole paper pack and sticker elements and chipboards.  Then...it sat and sat.  I donated some of the wilder papers I knew I'd never be able to work with.  The rest continued to sit and sit.  Then, beautiful inspiration struck!  I used some pictures from Paige last August waiting for the fireworks at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and voila!

I'm particularly proud of the die cuts, chips and border embellishment cluster here. 

Embellishment clusters and I don't always get along so well.  :)



Last, but not least, I took some pictures of Paige recently in an outfit of her own creation.  She *really* loves to have girly clothes, and I'm just a throw-on-what-I-can-find-to-wear kind of girl, so her fascination with "style" is a little foreign to me. But fun too!

Looking at the colors in her outfit, Echo Park's "For the Record" collection spoke to me.  Off to my local scrapbook dealer (thank you, Vanessa!) I went, and away I came with the beautiful reds, yellows and greens of this collection.

The design is a scraplift of a layout I clipped from one of my scrapbooking magazines several years ago.  I don't even know who to give credit to, but I knew I really wanted to use the three pictures on a double page layout so I could give them some space to breathe and be seen properly.  I got a little punchy on here too, as you can see.  That adorable little flower came from a heart punch tutorial on October Afternoon's blog

http://octoberafternoon.typepad.com/october_afternoon/2011/05/tutorial-3d-florals.html

Yes, I actually went out and bought one heart punch (okay, okay, it was two)

so I could make this flower.  I loved the results!!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you women who make such a difference in children's lives--

whether or not you are their physical mom!