Sketch Inspirations

I'm so happy to announce that Scraps of Darkness is sponsoring the sketch challenge this week at Sketch Inspiration!


If you haven't yet discovered Sketch Inspiration, head on over there, because Trisha puts up a fabulous new sketch every Sunday.

I thought I'd share the layouts the SOD Design Team did as examples for the sketch, because I think they did a beautiful job with it!

This layout was done by Lisa Novogrodski, and I just love the way she altered the whole look of the papers in this month's kit with her misting...

Memories Live Forever by Lisa Novogrodski

Mandy Harrell's example has such a rustic feel to it, but yet is still so pretty and feminine!

Passing Down The Past by Mandy Harrell

Celina Matthews gave us a wonderful heritage layout...

Your Ancestors by Celina Matthews

Nancy Hanttula really knows how to show off those Graphic 45 papers!

One Dapper Lil Dude by Nancy Hanttula

Be sure to see the sketch yourself at Sketch Inspiration and enter your layout by Saturday, March 26 for a chance to win a Scraps of Darkness kit!

Vintage Revelry

It's Reveal Day, and we are taking you back in time with our March kit!

This kit is our salute to The Roaring Twenties, Silent Movies, the birth of Jazz, and all that vintage glamour!
We've included papers from Graphic 45's gorgeous Curtain Call Collection and from The Paper Loft's beautiful For The Record Line, as well as lots of fun embellies to play with.  Along with the kit comes another fabulous sketch by our talented Sketch Artist, Charlotte Jenkins, aka Suepup:

I thought I'd share some of the gorgeous creations our Design Team has done with this sketch, I hope you enjoy them!

Mandy Harrell's interpretation

Lisa Novogrodski's interpretation

Nancy Hanttula's interpretation

Amanda Kurtz' interpretation

Celina Matthews' interpretation

Charlotte Jenkins' interpretation

I couldn't resist doing one, either!

I hope you've enjoyed what our Design Team has done with the sketch, please stop by our Gallery to see more of what they've done with this and past kits!

We've also got FOUR awesome new tutorials on the website, check them out!
Charlotte Jenkins' Burning Tyvek tutorial
Celina Matthews' tutorial on making Dechire-style flowers
Charlotte Jenkins' tutorial on Distressed Phone Book Flowers
Celina Matthew's tutorial on making embellishments with UTEE

And just a sneak peek on two of these tutorials!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great scrappy week!

Skeletons in the Closet

Do you scrap yours?
Lisa Novogrodski hosts this awesome challenge on our forum.  The challenge is open to everyone, not just our kit subscribers!

Each month Lisa provides you with a prompt for your inspiration. Either a word, a sentence or a photo of something. This will challenge you as a scrapper to think outside the box, starting with something other than one of your photos or papers as inspiration!

February's prompt was the word DRAMA, and I thought I'd share the winning layout with you all.

This wonderful layout was done by Cheryl Casas (aka C Mom Go), and is titled Family Night.

And this is what Cheryl had to say about her layout:
This page was created for the newest challenge called Skeletons in your closet. Any one can participate!! The prompt for this month is Drama!! So I decided to use one of my many not so good experiences, with taking the kids out to make this page. Hidden Journal: Drama at Mimi's What would a night out with the family be without drama? Whether it is with tears, screams or puke, it is always a night to remember. So here's the story: Gisselle and Jasmine went to the restroom while the rest of us sat at a nearby table. Moments later, we hear screams. Papi runs to them finding them crying. What happened? Gisselle was on the toilet and it flushed automatically, scaring her and since she freaked out, Jasmine did too. Needless to say, the whole resturant gave us "the look", so this is why we stay home.

Congratulations, Cheryl, we all loved this layout!

This month's prompt is "What Defines You?"  Lisa wants to see what you're  made of. Tell me or show me "what defines you"  Again, you can dig deep or keep it light. Have you had a defining moment in your life that has made you who you are? Do you have words that you live by? Do you lean on your career, friends, material things to define you? Or are you defined by the coffee you drink, your hair color, your organization skills, your sloppiness?

You can use photos of yourself, or other things on this one.  TWIST- If you cut yourself out of a photo and use it on your page you get an extra point this month!

Stop by our message board and play along!  March Skeletons in the Closet Challenge

Layout of the Month - February

Each month, we choose one layout from our gallery to win Layout of the Month.  This is the layout that caught my eye from the layouts uploaded during the month of February:

Last Wishes by Joy (aka Vanillabliss)

The layout is just so beautiful, the misting and distressing are wonderful, and you can just tell how much feeling she put into creating it.

This is what Joy said about her lo:  "This LO was done with the White Magic (Jan) kit from SOD. It's a bittersweet one of the trip I took with my dad to Niagara Falls after he was diagnosed terminally ill with lung & liver cancer. He had never been there and wanted to see before he passed."

Congratulations, Joy!

Congratulations, Nancy!

Nancy Hanttula, one of our talented Designers, is in the running for Photo Fave of the week at Scrapbooks, Etc!
This is the gorgeous layout she did that got their attention:

The name of the layout is Tragic Love, she did it for Suepup's Darkside Love Story Challenge, and this is what she said about her beautiful lo:

I chose Mark Antony & Cleopatra’s tragic love affair for this challenge.  They met in 41 B.c. … Cleopatra, an Egyptian Queen, seduced Mark Antony, a powerful (and married) Roman general,  into tumultuous love affair & alliance between their territories.  Octovian, the future emperor, convinced the Roman Empire that Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra and declared war in 31 B.C.  To avoid capture, Antony & Cleopatra committed suicide.
This is a photo of a painting of Antony & Cleopatra done by Lawrence Alm-Tadema in 1885.
I hand-stitched the harlequin background on the entire page…accented the diamonds with sequins that I individually glued down.  I painted the flowers to co0rdinate with the page using my newest favorite paint Glam from Tattered Angels in Stiletto and Be Positive….it is mixed with glitter…it’s not opaque and not completely sheer….and I LOVE IT!   The scalloped edges are tied with silk ribbon.  Some of the flourishes & key were made with CTMH stamps and Technique Tuesday chipboard pieces….colored in by a black permanent Sharpie marker.  I used the same Glam paint on the Rainboot’s American Crafts Thickers in the title.
I used Tim Holtz’s crackle paint in Rock Candy on the photo…and it is impossible to see on the larger photo.

We are so proud of Nancy, please take a moment and vote for her layout here!

February's Guest Designer and a tutorial!

This month, we were lucky to have Cheryl Casas, aka C Mom Go, back to Guest Design for us for a second time! I just love Cheryl's work, and wanted to share what she's done with our February kit, The Telltale Heart.

Cheryl used the sketch that Suepup designed for this kit to do this wonderful layout:

Blood and Sand:  Cheryl created this layout for the Darkside Love Story Challenge, hosted by Suepup on our forum:

She created this layout for the challenge Lisa hosts on our site, Skeletons in the Closet?:

This gorgeous layout, Sweet Devil?, is what Cheryl created for the Darkest Side Challenge that Celina hosts at Scraps of Darkness:

And this is the last layout I have to share with you from Cheryl this month.  Don't you just love all the lacing that Cheryl is known for?

I also wanted to let you know that the talented Lisa Novogrodski has done another wonderful tutorial!
Lisa shares her Double Punch Ring technique in this tutorial.  You can see the turorial here, and I just love this layout she did, which shows what you can do with the tutorial!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope everyone is having a great weekend and getting lots of scrapping done!

Layout of the Week by Vanillabliss

This weeks LOTW was chosen by Celina!! She chose a beautiful layout created by Joy aka Vanillabliss. Celina chose this layout because of how this page blows her away with all the drama it portrays and she absolutely loves the black an white color scheme!  Celina loved the striking photo and said this entire layout ROCKS!!!  Congrats Joy!!

Posted by Mandy :)