Always.

It's Monday, the sun is shining and I'm in a good mood!

Could be something to do with the fact that I had an awesome weekend, scrapping the days (and nights!) away with a fabulous bunch of ladies, lots of great food and general all round fun.  Technically I should be pretty miserable today considering it'll be a fair few months before the next scrapping getaway, but I'm not gonna go there!

Today,  I'm killing two birds with one stone........a Crafty Challenge over on the Two Scrapbook Friends Forum and the first reveal for one of the paper collections I recently got to play with for Scrapfest samples........Down By The Shore from Fancy Pants Designs.

I had a slight dilemma when I was given this collection to work with.

Although I LOVE the colour scheme......can't go wrong with navy blue and red (think Tommy Hilfiger), there's no getting away from the fact that the theme is pretty nautical........extremely nautical actually and did I have one single photograph that encompasses anything remotely of that kind?...........Nope of course not!

Plan B!

Scrapbookers are a pretty resourceful bunch when they need to be, so this is a classic case of using a fairly 'themed' collection, for something entirely different to which it was originally intended.

Oh this is all sounding so very technical so let's get on with it shall we?

Here's my completely 'NON-nautical but oh so lovey dovey' themed page.

Now it's safe to say you would not find my hubby battling the high seas, not in this lifetime anyhow, but the theme of this page was triggered by the caption on one of the tags included in my kit - "Sail away with me".  A little online research delivered a nice little quote to match, and a romantic page was born.

The cute buttons are included in an embellishment pack for this collection, and the flags are made using scraps of paper and toothpicks........mint flavoured no less!

Fancy Pants produce a whole variety of awesome stencil sets and I was given one with wavy lines.  Rather than using the stencil frame for this page, I popped out the inserts, added a little texture paste, inked then stuck them to the page.

 
The focal embellishment for this layout is a collection of torn, rolled paper strips which brings me, finally, to the second reason for today's post.

As it's my turn to deliver this weeks Crafty Challenge over on the Two Scrapbook Friends Forum, I'd like you to rediscover your paper stash.

We all hoard paper I'm sure, but one of the reasons I love it so much is because it's one of the most versatile and economical embellishments out there.  There are 101 things you can do with paper.......tear it, distress it, roll it, ink it, use it like ribbon, stitch it, weave it, crimp it, scrunch it, pleat it, fold it, emboss it, die cut, punch it, curl it......to name but a few!

For this weeks challenge I'd like you to use paper as a focal embellishment on your creation, instead of allowing it to play bridesmaid to the rest of the elements.

My effort includes a little tearing, rolling, tied with jute and placed on a backdrop of cheesecloth.  The perfect little chipboard anchor was also included in the 'button' embellie pack.

And that's it from me.

I hope you enjoy your day, and are lucky enough to have some of the beautiful sunshine we're experiencing here.

I'll see you on Wednesday when I'll be digging into my Little Red Wagon of stash.

Have a good one,
Jayne.x.