"Hive Creative Challenge" - Spring!

I have always found this odd, but our school district takes two sets of pictures every year. One in September and the other in the Spring which are much more informal. This layout features last year's Spring portrait of my daughter. I discovered when starting this layout that I don't have many papers in the yellow family. I like yellow well enough, but I guess I'm not drawn to it when picking out scrapbook papers! I thought that was rather odd too!  Guess I'm finding lots of things odd today!  :)

I remedied my lack of yellow papers by using a lot of Glimmer Mist! the very bottom layer is white cardstock that I sprayed along the edges with Lemon Grass Glimmer Mist. The second layer is a sheet of Bazzill yellow cardstock that I sprayed with water and them crumpled up in a tight ball. Being impatient I then ironed it so that the paper would dry and I could move on. I'm not a fan of taking forever on one layout and this one....FIVE HOURS! Once dry, I ran the cardstock through my Distrezz It All to soften the edges. The next layer is a piece of yellow paper from an older Basic Grey line - Lime Rickey. It has some orange-y tones to it so I fixed that by misting it with Meadow Green and Wheat Beer Glimmer Mist and wiping it off really quick so it only tinted the paper. I edged that paper with a scallop lace Martha Stewart punch and sort of distressed it . The next layer is a sheet of green paper out of the same Lime Rickey line. Didn't do a thing to this one and as it turns out, after I finished adding all my embellishments, you really don't even notice the paper! I topped that with a white paper doily and finally the 5x7 photo. I added leftover pieces of a scalloped border by K&Co and put green dew drops on top of each scallop.

The big yellow flowers are from a Prima Calypso tin that I got for a steal on clearance at Michael's the other day! I layered and twisted two sizes to make the flowers resemble a daffodil. I put a yellow rhinestone in the center of each. The small yellow roses I got at YourScrapbookStash.com but not sure who makes them. The little yellow flowers are from a "Got Prima" bottle named March Daffodil. I put yellow bling and/or pearls in the centers. The leaves and stems I cut by hand. The crochet butterflies are from Creative Charms and the ribbon from my stash. Now on to the title!

These look like wooden scrabble tiles, right? Nope! They are cardstock and chipboard and I made them myself--which is part of the reason this layout took 5 hours! A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon a blog called "What a Beautiful Mess". LISA NAZARIO-GREGORY is the owner of the blog and she has some of the most awesome tutorials I have seen! These "faux scrabble tiles" are just one of MANY! She shares some beautiful layouts and beautiful stories of her life. She is currently mourning the loss of her sweet mother-in-law and I am sure she would welcome any prayers for her family. Be sure to check out her blog HERE!

This layout was done with several challenges in mind!
At Creating The Hive, the challenge is to "create anything that inspires you from the season".  

For the Chopped Challenge at Challenge Masters...yay, we all survived round one and here is the recipe for round two:

Yellow;
Dimensional Flowers;
Scallops

I am loving this challenge and the creations everyone is coming up with using the same recipe! If you haven't checked out Challege Masters you should! There's so much to join in with there!

I am also entering into the monthly challenge at http://scrapbookers-anonymous.blogspot.com/ which is to use at least 7 store bought flowers.  I used way more than that!!

There is a Spring Fling challenge over at http://scrapbookchallenges.ning.com/ which is to create a layout that makes you think about Spring.  The colors, the daffodils I made, the trees in the background of the photo and the fact that I know the portrait was taken in Spring all make me feel "springy" about this layout!

And finally, since I never met a sketch challenge I didn't want to do....I used the March Sketch for for challenge ASC6 at Artful Delight as my inspiration! It happens to be designed by my scrapping idol, and friend, Debbie Burns! If you want to see some AMAZING art-full layouts, stop by Debbie's blog at Love Life's Little Pleasures. You will NOT be dissapointed in what you find there!