May Swirlydoos Challenge Layouts

Besides chatting on the forums with a group of great ladies, there are awesome challenges at Swirlydoos! There are four challenges every month. This layout is for Meg's "Round Robin" challenge. I got to go first this month:

This is an older picture of my daughter, but I just love it. The brown "stitching: is actually just doodling: I don't have a sewing machine, but I love the look of stitching! The blue cardstock die cut is from an SVG file I made from a picture of the Basic Grey Origins Doily. That shape is so hot right now, and it's really addicting to use.

Here is my submission for the monthly sketch challenge:

I really struggled with this sketch! I think it's because I wanted to use these pics, but the papers from the May kit didn't exactly go well with them. Again, I used my own form of "stitching." I used Stickles to color the die cut vines- I thought it gave a nice subtle look.

"My Boys" is the layout I came up with for Bonnie's "Use Your Scraps" challenge, which is self-explanatory. This was a fun idea, and I was surprised at how quickly this came together: 30 minutes from start to finish.

I adore this pic of my husband and son. I took it at the Muir Woods in March. I knew I wanted to use it for this layout, but it was too colorful with their clothes and background, so I used a black and white. I sprayed the flowers with the special Glimmer Mist called "Piece of Heart": the proceeds go to Autism research. (Yay!) I also used copper paint for the square chipboard, which I used a heat gun on so the paint would bubble up. I love that look.

The picture on this layout is of my daughter playing outside of my in-laws' house on Mother's Day. She loves those hollyhocks! I knew it would be perfect for what I had in mind for Tina's "Distress and Layer" challenge:

My Zutter Distrezz-it-All got a workout! Every layer except for the oval got "Zuttered"! We had to use at least six layers, and I could only come up with five, and something seemed off until I put that piece of green paper in the mix- it really ties in all the colors from the picture. The twist for the challenge was to make your own rose, which I did by following Tina's tutorial that she posted on her blog.

I love the challenges at SD- they make you stretch your imagination and inspire creativity!