Our Team Challenge

With my latest layout I decided to kill two birds with one stone and scrap a photo for my growing up album as well as completing the upcoming Chocolate Buttons team challenge for UKScrappers. The rules were it had to be blue (for bluebells), include ribbons (for the maypole), have rectangles on it (for the opening of Legoland) and also include a handmade tag.

This is what I came up with. Though I like working from sketches sometimes (though my layouts rarely end up looking like the original sketch) I'm not very good at challenges that restrict colours/materials etc. I'm a bit of a slave to the photo I'm working on at that moment and if it doesn't fit with the challenge, I'm not happy. So I'm glad this forced me to have a go. These pictures were perfect for the blue paper because they make the pink of my top stand out as well as picking out the blue in my eyes and the cord for the swing. This is the first time I've had a go at writing on a photo either - I've never been daring enough before in case I ruin it, but this worked really well against the dark background of the shot. The handmade tag is tucked behind the main photo. I stitched several bits of card together and wrote the first verse of Robert Louis Stevenson's 'The Swing' on it which was ideal for my layout. Looking at it now, I might add some thread to the buttons to finish it off, but I'll have to investigate how easy it will be to put holes through as the buttons are stuck on now.

I have been considering entering the Scrapbook Inspirations competition in the Best New Talent Category. I haven't been scrapping for long so I would fit into this category. I probably don't stand a chance of winning as I know the talent on UK Scrappers alone is outstanding, but sometimes you've just got to have a go and see what happens. I would definitely like to send a layout in for the Reader Gallery anyway so when I see a suitable topic that I have a decent layout on thats what I'll do.