The Story of Bling for Boys

Because the vast majority of my scrapping is all about my girls, when it comes to scrapping masculine topics I tend to carry over some of my usual habits. I've got no fear of adding things like butterflies and flowers etc on boy-layouts!

So when I heard that the October challenge at Flourish With a Bling was going to be about using 'Bling It On Boys' I didn't even  have to hesitate. In fact, I already had this photo on the top of my pile to scrap so it couldn't have come at a better time.

I'm not sure if it's cheating or not, because I think any celebratory project deserves some bling, and DEFINITELY a birthday party should have some bling involved... even if it's a boy's!! And because the photo already had some sparkle in it the rhinestones only served to enhance that.

I used FWAB Kate's Corner Flourish in Silver to frame the photo, and scattered some of the 'spare' rhinestones in my paint splatters. How fun! And speaking of fun... have you been scrapping long enough to recognise these papers I've used? LOL! Old-school Sassafras! Love it to bits, and i am SO glad I finally gathered the courage to dip into my stash of Sass :-)

The Bling It On Boys challenge is open until the end of the month, so there's plenty of time to get your entries in. There's a bundle of goodies to be won, including the same Kate's Corner I've used on my layout. All the details can be found on the FWAB blog here.

Supplies:

FWAB: Kate's Corner Flourish Silver

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The Story of a Boy with a Hose

Just popping in real quick to share one of my "boy" layouts. It's always so novel to me to do a bold and graphic masculine page given that the vast majority of my scrapping is either about my two gorgeous girls .... or myself ;-)

But my recent exciting adventure into boy-scrapping came about because I wanted to challenge and extend myself. And because I wanted to put together an album for my sister about her fun-loving son.

So I managed to score a whole bunch of photos from her, and amongst them was this series of photos. They made me giggle!! Just look at the awe and wonder on his face as he discovers the hose..... and then the outrage as it squirts him in the face! Heee heee he!

But after layering up the three 4x6" photos it really doesn't leave much room for too much more embellishments. Which is fine. In fact, I really like that this layout is more about a cool colour combination with a bold impact that focuses mainly on the photos.

And it meant that I could put that handmade Amy Tangerine "He" tag to good use after all (I'm pretty sure I used my "She" tag lllooooonnngg ago!)

I'm on night 4 of 7 y'all. Woohoo for hump night!

Sharing the love.... (winner announcement)

You know how I keep sharing all these boy layouts I've been making of my cute little nephew? Well perhaps you guessed what I was up to?

Some of it was about extending myself creatively and not just doing girly layouts all the time. It's been really fun putting together these masculine colour schemes and using different embellishments rather than the ones I reach for time and time again.

But the other part of the joy was knowing that secretly all this time I've been compiling a whole scrapbook album full of layouts to give to my sister and nephew as a gift! You see, when both of my girls turned one my sister gave them a photo book to commemorate. This was my version in return.

And just recently we celebrated his birthday so I presented my not-quite-complete-album to her. It was such a pleasure to watch her examine each page in turn and discover little details about them. What joy there is in giving! And speaking of which... it's time to announce the winner of my recent giveaway. Drumroll please.........

Through the boring (but practical) method of random.org the winner is...

LEAH CAMERON!!!!

Leah, please email me (nat@elphie.com) your postal address and I'll try and get your RAK to you as soon as I can.

Amazing Grace

Have you ever done monochrome layouts? I think they've got to be one of the hardest styles to perfect, I know I find it quite hard myself. I think this layout is about as close as I get!

Studio Calico's Boardwalk kit was filled with lots of greens and blues and I think I managed to get about 7 different patterned papers on this layout (that was my challenge to myself; use up more of my old kits)

Not to mention my other challenge to myself, which is about doing more boy layouts about my nephew. I've called it Amazing Grace and used some of the lyrics for the 'journaling'. It was quite a rough journey to bring this little boy out into the world but I thank God for His providence and protection over my sister during that time.

And speaking of which, my sister and her family could really use your prayers right now if you're so inclined. They need even more healing and guidance right now. Much appreciated.

xxx

And Away We Go

Time for another boy layout around here don't you think?! Lucky I've got one cute nephew to scrap about!

I can't believe it had taken me up until this year to realise that I could rapidly expand my scrapping field of topics, my product choices and style if I started to scrap some boy photos!

It's nice to get out of a creative rut of doing the same thing over and over. I mean, of course I will never tire of scrapping pages about my beautiful girls. They're the whole reason why I do scrap. But it's quite refreshing to change it all up and do something quite different.

And it feels really good to use up some of those papers and products that I otherwise struggle to get through. For example, I made this layout from an older Studio Calico kit "Paper Moon" which was quite boy-oriented in it's colour choices.

I really love how it all came together. What do you think? How do you get out of a creative rut?

All Smiles

I've still got quite a few Jenni Bowlin projects to share with you from my stint as a Guest DT there this month. What I loved most of all about the main Papercrafting kit is it's versatility to make either girl or boy layouts. So I put that theory to the test by scrapping this photo of my smiley nephew.

'Cos I'm naturally inclined to make sweety girly layouts about my gorgeous girls all the time. And there's plenty of the new Magpie papers that are perfectly suited to do that - just like the first page I made which I shared here.

But the bold graphic designs of some of these others were just made for more masculine pages. It was such a refreshing change for me to match grey with blue and red and kraft. The graph paper I used in the background then inspired me to make my own pie-chart. Mainly because I've been looking for an excuse to do just that :-)

And I like how it turned out. It doesn't have much relevance to the page I'll admit 'cos I didn't really label any of the pieces or explain what it represents. In fact, I was thinking of it more like a sun, that's why I went and misted in some 'sunrays'. And I had to laugh when The Man looked at the finished page and remarked that it looked more like a Powerpoint Presentation than a layout!!

But I'll still count it as a success. Here's to doing many more boy layouts in the future!

Supplies:

JBS Mini-Album Kit March 2012

JBS Papercrafting Kit March 2012

JBS Artisan Add-On March 2012

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