The Big Reveal!

Yesterday, I hoped you joined us in our extra Counterfeit Kit Challenge spring team activity, "Scrap Crush" where we created pages inspired by one of our (no doubt many) scrapbooking celebrity crushes.

We asked you to guess who they were and comments on yesterday's posts will be put into a draw on Friday 24th for a small prize. Who doesn't love a giveaway?

Many of you made some good guesses on mine but first, let me enlighten you with the problems I went through with my page.

When I first set the challenge, I knew right away that I wanted to crush on Ashli Oliver (soapHOUSEmama) whose style is one I totally love. I should have just sat down and made my page right away. But of course, being Last Minute Lisa means that I didn't. Noooo, I waited until just a few days before our challenge only to find out that another of our Master Forger team had chosen her. Bummer! Of course, I could have just continued - the MFs didn't know each others' crushes but because I was coordinating the challenge, I did and thought that as I knew, it would be better if I made another choice - to keep up the variety.

If I had continued with Ashli, I would definitely have looked at these layouts as inspiration - as well as all the others I have on my Scrapbook Pinterest Board of course.

Ashli Oliver at Purple Mailbox

Ashli Oliver for A Flair for Buttons

Anyway, Leslie did a fantastic job of nailing her artsy, pale on white, whimsical style so I will save my take on Ashli for another day.

So, then I decided to go with another of my crushes. One that I've had a long time. I've talked about her pages before on here and find her layered up, relaxed style so appealing. I think Rahel Menig over at Swiss Girl Designs is just so talented and I had plenty on my board to look at, such as this one

Rahel Menig for Blue Moon Scrapbooking

I picked out the idea of very minimal colours on a white background with a large amount of layers. Nothing is cut using a trimmer - just by hand with scissors, or even just torn. There are layers of tissue paper, lots of thread, some papers along the top, usually a large and small letter title, black handwritten journalling and small photos.

I came up with this.

I think I need to add that the title is a quote by Coco Chanel herself - this should be on there otherwise it looks like wise words from me!

I used my April Counterfeit Kit Challenge Vivid kit for this, selecting the papers with just a hint of colour to contrast with that bright scarlet tissue paper

I felt that the colours I'd selected were somehow appropriate for Chanel and was surprised to be able to come up with this toned down page out of that brightly coloured kit.

I've never used tissue paper on my pages before but I likes the translucent effect it gives and the rough, torn edge gives some interest to the layers

It was only after I'd finished the page and went over to look at Rahel's blog did I realise that she has given up scrapping to concentrate on her photography. Fail!

That is when I moved on to someone who's been fascinating me for some time, and seems to be one of the names of the moment. I first came to know her name when she was a Garden Girl and I was fascinated with how many different page designs she could come up with based on quilts and patchwork patterns. And how much patience she had in executing these elaborate designs. She's quite the girl for mixing patterns and using tiny scraps of paper in repeating designs and shapes. Paige Evans of course! Who else could it be?? She lives right here in Germany too which made me smile. And her family is racing round the country and Europe getting as many impressions as possible while they are still here. Her list of places visited in the last 18 months or so is incredible and puts me to shame!

I am particularly in love with this page

Paige Evans for American Crafts

And this one too

Paige Evans for Studio Calico

I already shared my page yesterday, but just for direct comparison, here it is again.

But I also mentioned that I had a bit of a nightmare with this one too - it really tested my patience - perhaps the background was too complex for a first attempt!

I cut out the main background overlay and added foam squares to give it a hint of dimension. First 30 minutes of work! But so far so good.

Then I realised that adding all those shapes to the background was going to take precision work. Every space was small and different to the next. But I persevered with an extra template to cut out the shapes slightly larger than the "hole" as well as using it to show me where to stick it. The background doesn't look very good while you're working on it!

But then I was finished! Hurrah! Only to find out that I'd done it back to front so to speak and the overlay I'd already prepared was mirrored with the foam dots on the other side!

Then I had to cut out another overlay and giving up on all the effort of the foam dots, I decided just to use a glue runner and promptly stuck it to my mat. When I lifted it off, some of the front of the overlay came away and THAT is the reason I have the large doily top right - to cover that up!!! Talk about a difficult birth. But even though I went through all this "trauma", I had a lot of fun and LOVE the final result.

I am still in awe of Paige and will continue to ooh and ahh over her creations, even if I don't manage to make so many of them myself. She has a class over at BPC which I will check out.

I could have chosen any of at least a dozen or more Crushes for this challenge (Shimelle, Wilna, Janna Werner, Jill Sprott, Marcy Penner, Sasha Farina just to name a few) so maybe I'll save those girls for another day and another go at this challenge. Won't you join me?

Don't forget that there's something to be won if you comment on any of our posts from yesterday's blog hop. All names will go in the pot for comments posted by the end of Friday 24th April and I'll pick a winner out over the weekend.