More 5 product challenge layouts

When Emily set this challenge earlier this week, little did she know that it would be such a success. I found this challenge intriguing. My personal feelings are that we are often inundated with a vast choice of supplies that we feel that are over faced with how to collate them without losing effect of our story telling. Cue the 5 product challenge and suddenly we are bursting with output. I believe that by limiting our supplies, it makes it so much more exciting and less daunting about wanting to whop our entire stash on a layout!

Emily picked out two further layouts from the entries to share with you all and here is what the girls had to say:

Stephenie Wheeler:

My thoughts: I will be honest, I'm not much of a challenge scrapbooker - I generally find that I am more a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants girl when it comes to getting crafty. I don't use sketches, I rarely scraplift, and I pretty much never plan anything before I sit down to work. So when Emily asked me to make a layout for this challenge, I will admit I was more than a little bit nervous.

I was told that I could use 5 products, a few of which I hardly ever use. I'm not really comfortable with paint quite yet, although I'm starting to use it more in my scrapbooking. I have a HUGE collection of embroidery floss, but I usually use it to embroider fabric - not paper. So I decided that this challenge would be a good chance to go in a different direction than I usually do. But before beginning my layout, I was pretty sure I wanted a few things - to use my pictures from our trip to Nashville from the previous weekend and to use some stuff from my overflowing Studio Calico kit collection.

The process: I am a typical one-page, one-photo scrapper. Every once in a while I'll use more than one picture, but because I love white space so much, I try to keep each picture small but still large enough to be important. I really wanted to include a few pictures from our trip to Nashville, so I picked five pictures that stood out, had a similar color scheme, and really caught the feeling of walking through downtown Nashville and taking random pictures. I wanted the pictures to be in a straight line, but I didn't want the pictures to be too flat, so I roughed up the edges to make them stand up a bit.

I tend to really like to use plain cardstock for my backgrounds, because I like to accentuate with patterned paper rather than using multiple patterns that fight, and while I really love the subdued look of mists, I had to use paint, so I thought I'd do some dripping, just to give a bit of pattern to the cream cardstock. I knew I wanted to use the cute Sassafras paper from this month's SC kit, but the whole sheet was much too bold for my taste, so I cut it up, using the balloons (with stitching!) as my main "embellishment." The flag cut-off border was a perfect page divider, the music notes were a nice touch since the page was about "Music City" and the stitched banner was the perfect spot for a little bit of journaling. I chose Thickers as my alphabet option, because, c'mon, who can resist? Finally, I used some empty tag frames for my metal, because I wanted to add some circles, and they were pretty much the perfect size.

Challenge afterthoughts: I am honestly, REALLY happy and surprised at how my page turned out. I was mainly afraid that only using 5 products would box me in, but turns out, it was easier than I thought to use just a few products and be really creative. Who knows? Maybe I'll be doing more challenges in the future ;)


Kristin Faust:

My thoughts: When I was asked to participate in this challenge I immediately said yes! However when I actually sat down to scrap, I realized that I next to never use paint or make a LO without buttons. I honestly wondered for a few minutes what I had gotten myself into! But once I decided on my products things started to move right along.

The Process: I knew I wanted to incorporate these Making Memories Metal Rims on my LO. When I realized that they looked a little like gifts I decided to pick these photos. I have a craft glue that dries quickly and clear that I used to adhere them. To make my, "gift boxes" I cut my pattern paper to fit the tag but instead of making them into tags, I adhered my paper first and then added the tag over the paper. It adds some neat dimension without adding a ton of bulk.

To make bows I first stitched around the rim and then threaded my string through my stitch. See Photo. My LO is bottom heavy so I added my paint and journaling around the top edge to add some balance. The stitched frame was an easy and fun accent that just added a nice finishing touch.

Challenge afterthoughts: I love these photos of my son and mom. I don't have a ton of photos of them together and I love how she is coaching him through blowing out his candles. She's always right there to lend a hand!

Emily asked if I might share mine and after blushing for a few moments I thought "why not?"

My Thoughts: 5 products? oh yes, bring it on. Limit me, threaten me, choke me.... I'm going to do this baby

The process: Paints, espesh the Adirondak dabbers are my absolute staple favorite product. So that was a steal to do; I slapped it on as the base to create a bold focus. It matched perfectly with the Studio Calico paper and so I layered a smidgeon of that on top. Black and white photos don't detract the focus of your colour scheme and this photo of my friend Dyan, that I took earlier this year, was begging to be scrapped. Next came the metally bit. Panic stations! Metal? I ransacked my jars of odds and ends and selected these book labels to add my title. I was so surprised how quickly it came together. Having alphas in the challenge helped and my red ones (my favourite ever scenic route alphas) created that crimson impact that I was craving. And finally, that stitched heart (swoon). I totally scored that idea from a Creating Keepsakes Magazine (Feb 2009) which I feel drew the whole layout together.

Challenge afterthoughts: In about 20 minutes flat I had a layout I was completely smitten with and I do feel it was down to limiting my supplies. And so my new layout creative formula goes like this:

crazy 5 product challenge+twenty minutes =best ways to use the minimum products for maximum effect ............ (ha! - Einstein, go and suck on your e=mc2)

Thanks, Emily :)

You can read the thread relating to the challenge and links to individual galleries here