Family...

I love my family more than anything else!And I rarely get to scrap photos that I am in, so it was so much fun to scrap this one of my brother,sisters, and me. I was inspired by a couple of challenges for this page: A sketch (#172) from Creative Scrappers, and the challenge from The Paper Variety to "make a monochromatic creation using your favorite color"- my favorite color is blue of all shades (aqua, navy, sea blue, periwinkle (my wedding colors were periwinkle and white), teal, sky....I could go on and on...

This is the way I do monochromatic-a few different shades of the color I am using, mixed in and tempered with a good bit of neutrals (kraft, cream, and black in this case):

Supplies used for this layout:

Lily Bee Designs This&That "Milk Bottle" patterned cardstock,Lily Bee This&That banner stickers, ZVA cream pearl flourish, handmade blue houndstooth (made with Lindsay's Stamp Stuff Uptown Houndstooth digi paper) flower, a sky blue glittered cardstock punchout border from Colorbok's Flea Market Punchout pad, American Crafts puffy black Thickers, scraps of cream shimmer and kraft cardstock, pale aqua pearls from the wedding section at Hobby Lobby, and an ANCIENT quote from one of those DCWV vellum quote stacks (this was one of my earlier scrapbooking obsessions-I loved those stacks-not that I used them much ;-p  ). I mounted the quote on another scrap of the cream shimmer cardstock and inked the edges with Tim Holtz Sapphire Distress Ink, and attached it with pop dots to make it stand out.

Handmade Flower Mini Tutorial:

Here is a closer look at my handmade flower:

For this flower, I first printed out this paper from my Counterfeit digi kit:

I printed it out on 8 1/2 by 11 white cardstock first, then I cut out the 6 pt flower on the Mother's Day Bouquet Cricut Cartridge (last flower on the right, third row down) in several different sizes, starting at 2 3/4, and then stepping down a quarter inch at a time, with the exception of the last one, which is 1/2 to 3/4 smaller than the previous layer. I misted each layer of petals with Sea Glass and Turquoise Glimmer Mist, and then dried with my heat embossing tool. I scrunched and shaped the petals with my fingers (another idea would be to use an icepick or pencil), then glued them on top of one another, offsetting the petals, with my trusty hot glue gun. I put Crystal Stickles on a paintbrush and dabbed it on the edges of the petals and left the flowers alone to dry over night. I really do have to say, this is such a fun way to use those digi papers that you are hoarding!! Try it out-you can even flip the paper over and print on the other side for your own double sided paper!