More September Birds of a Feather Layouts

My September Birds of a Feather Kit was packed full of scrap-happy loveliness, including papers from Echo Park's Victoria Gardens collection which I love, love, love! All the brightly colored papers in the collection make my heart happy, especially after I am able to add a little distressing (my favorite thing to do).

This month's kit also contained a mini-mister. At first, I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. I mean, I already have my regular bottles of Glimmer Mist, and it isn't as if they are so large and bulky that I need to use a smaller bottle. However, when I decided I wanted something white to spray on my background paper and realized I had no white glimmer mist, the answer became readily apparent! I filled the mini-mister up about halfway with white acrylic paint and filled the other half with regular tap water. And voila! I had a little water gun which sprayed white paint all over my background paper - it was EXACTLY what I needed!

I used SKETCH 54 found over at Sketchabilities to create my layout. In looking at my recent work, I realized that I haven't used circles in quite awhile so this sketch, which is full of circles, was perfect for me!

And, of course, I love the contrast provided by pairing distressed papers with lovely little items such as feathered flowers, jeweled stick pins and a little bling.

My second layout for my BOAF reveal is called Not Gonna Smile. I think the title is pretty obvious once you see the pictures:

These photos of my niece were all outtakes that weren't initially going to be used. But when I looked at them, I couldn't help but laughing. She can be such a stubborn little thing (a trait that runs quite strongly in my family), and she didn't care how perfect the lighting was or how pretty the scenery was - she was NOT in the mood to pose for pictures!

I really liked the kraft envelopes with journaling tags that were part of this month's kit, especially after I decided to use them to mat each of the smaller photographs. And with three journaling tags, I had even more room to tell my story!

Speaking of telling my story, Birds of a Feather has the September Challenges posted. Challenges this month include a journaling challenge so you can tell your story, too. They also include a photography challenge, a use your stash challenge, a sketch challenge and a color challenge - pretty much something for everyone. So what are you waiting for??? Go sign up and start challenging YOURSELF!

Let's Scrap August 31st Sketch

I am a couple of days behind on my sketch reveal for this week's wonderful sketch over at Let's Scrap, but to make up for it I have a story behind the layout to share with you. First, though, here's the sketch:

The papers used for my "Formal Dinner" layout come from one of the very first paper packs I ever purchased when I began scrapbooking back in 2009. BUT - I didn't get those nifty papers for myself - oh no. Don't ask me why, but I had this crazy (although perfectly logical-sounding in my head at the time) idea that my 100% red-blooded Texas husband would want to create a scrapbook, too, for all the exciting pictures I was sure he was going to want to take and souvenirs he was going to collect while working in Africa. Ummmm,yeah...no, that was never going to happen. And so, those papers got shoved into an organizer and completely forgotten about until I was trying to find some appropriately-themed travel papers for this layout. I pulled the pack back out, over two years later, with the tape still sealed around the edges!

As for the pictures in the layout - they are of my oldest daughter and her boyfriend taken last fall on a family cruise. It was formal dinner night, and I wanted to get nice pictures of everyone around the table since we were all dressed up. K and J had different ideas, however, and their mugging for the camera progressed from silly to sillier to silliest in each successive picture - thinking, I suppose, that they were somehow preventing me from getting good pictures. Well, look who made the layout using those pictures anyway. And guess who will be getting the last laugh when I post my layout on Facebook??? (insert evil laugh here)

So.....back to Let's Scrap. It's a new month and a new challenge. This month, Julie Bonner has provided a fantastic sketch for the September contest, and there is not one, but two, prizes to be given away! The first person will receive the Teresa Collins Haunted Hallows Collection, and the second winner will receive the Teresa Collins Christmas Home Collection. For more details, simply click HERE.