Sunday Challenge

Good morning! I'm really delighted to welcome a special guest challenger to 'The Studio' today. Take a helping of Rachel Ray, a sprinkle of Martha Stewart, and a dash of Ellen DeGeneres, shake well until blended, and what do you get? Lain Ehmann, scrapbook lover! Lain is a fast-talking, fast-scrapping human dynamo with three kids, tons of ideas, and more books than she could ever read in this lifetime. The author of several books on scrapbooking, including "Snippets: Mostly True Tales from the Lighter Side of Scrapbooking" and "20 Secrets of Happy Scrapbookers" (co-authored with Stacy Julian), Lain helps women make their scrapbooking fun, fast, and fabulous. Download her "Super-Secret Guide to Fast Scrapbooking" at http://www.getscraphappy.com.

Lain has set us quite a challenge today and I hope that, like the design team, you'll embrace it :)



If you're like me (and I'll bet you are!) you can't resist the adorable themed holiday products that come out each and every year. But the number of holiday-themed layouts just don't keep pace with the mounting supplies. So what's a scrapper to do? My challenge for you this week is to think outside the box -- the calendar box, that is! Use holiday-themed items on a non-holiday page. I can't wait to see what you come up with!
For this page, "Caught in Your Web," I chose some fun Halloween embellishments from My Mind's Eye (die-cut spiders) and Little Yellow Bicycle (letters ). Going against my usual scrapbook regulations of never spending more than 30 minutes on a page, I hand-stitched a spider web using DMC floss. I won't be doing that again any time soon! I love the look, but talk about time-intensive. I sat through at least three "What Not to Wear" episodes on iTunes! But hey, it was a sacrifice for a good cause. :)

So just incase you missed the challenge in Lain's description:
Use holiday theme stuff on a page that's NOT about that holiday. I have tons of holiday stuff (Christmas and Halloween in particular) that only makes it out once a year - I'd love to use it in some creative ways and see what other people can do.

Amanda I decided to go with halloween themed product from Echo Park as I thought the colours worked for a 60s themed layout. I like how it turned out, but think maybe I should have skipped the 'sun' (aka spooky moon) and 'tree' stickers as I think they look a bit too spooky! The purple paint was added to help my title stand out and cover the bats flying across the moon!

Andrea
Oh wow . . . this was a tough one for me! I definitely only use my themed papers for themed layouts or projects . . .I thought that the red on the trees and the other papers went good with the giant red shoes! My brother actually wore these when he was last home . . . I thought they were hilarious and just had to snap a photo of them! I tried to make it look like the snowman was saying this . . . have fun! Can't wait to see your creations!!

Anna

This was a interesting challenge for me as I don't really buy themed papers! The only themed papers I had was some Christmas ones left over from my Christmas journal last year so I used those! Luckily there weren't too Christmassy! This is my little nephew waving at the ducks!

Lisa


I've used the Scenic Route - Lynden Easter- Collection for my page. This is my daughter using her first ever face mask in preparation for her school disco. Seeing as it was a chocolate face mask, it went well with the chipboard and sticker sentiments from this Easter collection. I decided to change the photo to black and white so that the papers really stood out.

Nic

Wow, this was a great challenge! and one that really got my cogs turning. I knew I wanted to use some of my christmas themed papers as these tend to sit in my stash more than other 'themed' collections. I chose a variety of papers from Luxe's candy cane collection which I received in a kit a couple of years back and got to work!

As I was making the page, I kept thinking to myself, umm, not sure if this is going to work....not sure about using these papers....hhmmm, not sure I'm going to like this. But, as it evolved I've ended up with a LO that I'm really pleased with, so just goes to show - it's good to be challenged! Thanks Lain! :-)

RebekahI recently got a publication call from a UK magazine for their Halloween issue. I don't do Halloween and I never have, but I found that I had one piece of halloween paper in my stash and I had the odd scrap left from the LO for the magazine. Since I live with two little horrors and one of them has been particularly horror-ish recently the link was quickly made. The nail was put in my idea coffin when I came home from dropping Connor at preschool to find that Bailey had been attacking my stash which is now homed in the conservatory, where we leave Bailey when we go out. I wasn't sure how it would work, but I like the LO and think that the papers work pretty well .

Sara

I knew that I didn't have too many 'themed' items in my stash as I don't find them easy to use hence don't buy them but this layout came together quite quickly. All the themed items are from a Cosmo Cricket Xmas line from last year. The papers and music strip were non themed enough for it to be easy to stick them down. The journal block had a Xmas sentiment across the bottom, so I covered it with the border strip. And the gingerbread man are just too cute.

Tessa

After making my sons' lunches for school, which included juicy red apples, I was searching through my holiday papers. When I came to the Christmas paper you see in my layout, I thought the red and green paper looked like the apple seeds I had just cleaned from my cutting board. I knew exactly what I wanted to do - turn a Christmas theme into an apple theme! With my title in mind, I found a photo of my son that coordinated and used my sweet little apple stamp for the first time. To further distance my papers from Christmas, I added the black mist.

Val

Even though it's Halloween paper, I thought this American Crafts paper with the stars would be a perfect backdrop for this photo of my son. I cut out some of the stars and backed them with small scraps of silver metallic paper.

I then took the reverse of the star cut outs (the purple stars) and tacked them here & there. Other Halloween themed items on the layout are the flair buttons and the alphabet.
Materials: Patterned paper, cardstock, metallic paper, flair: American Crafts; journal spots: Basic Grey; letter stickers: Making Memories; stamp: Stampin Up
Upload your LO using Inlinkz in the sidebar by 2nd October 2010. We can't wait to see how you use your holiday paper :)