LOTW and GSO at ScrapMatters

Yesterday I browsed ScrapMatters' blog because I remembered seeing some great layouts I want to scraplift to be used on my next project. Surprisingly I found that some of my layouts were featured as Layout of The Week & Gallery Stand Out. Yaay.... Three of the layouts are done with Siamese Studio's kits while the last one is created with Picture Designs' kit.

This is the first layout submitted during the Queen of Scrap contest using Peacock Dreams. It received a whooping 13 comments! Wow,  I've never got that many before. I certainly must join the contest again next year :).

This one is the second layout I created with Summerwings, another beautiful kit full of colorful flowers and unique papers. It is also featured on the blog. I love reading all the nice comments I received in my gallery!

And this one the the third one, using Autumn Breeze. Here is the link to the GSO thread. I really proud of the clustering I made around the page. It's not easy to alternate different shadow style for various elements, but it surely paid off!

Last but no least, this is the layout I made with Picture Designs' Visible Changes. I got 9 comments and LOTW with this one :).

I hope to get many more in the future. So, let's be more creative and always learn new techniques!

Ginger Scraps : A Work in Progress by Inspired Designs

The time has come to scrap my struggle on fat loss past pregnancy. I have decided a long time ago that I would use this kit by Inspired Designs to create it. The elements inside are specifically designed toward loss weight issue which is perfect! These are the complete list  : 6 uppercase alphas (in sheets), 12 patterned and textured papers, 7 solid papers, 9 lbs labels, 1 before sticker, 1 after sticker, 1 banner, 2 bows, 6 buttons, 2 clips, 5 flowers, 3 frames, 1 heart with tape, 3 journal tags, 1 heart with tape, 1 measuring spoons, 1 measuring tape, 1 starting weight label, 1 goal weight label, 2 ricrac, 1 weight scales, 1 running shoe, 3 layered stackers, 1 staple, 1 string, 1 swirl, 4 tags, 1 vitamin bottle, 1 water bottle, 7 wordstrips, 1 yo-yo flower.

A Work in Progress by Inspired Designs

Zig Zag Scrap : Simplicity by Designs by Hilde & Punched Petals Vol 2 by

I just took picture of Acha wearing a princess dress and this kit and template really captured her innocence perfectly. I turned the picture into sepia to match them with the kit tone but I think the lost of color enhance the layout contrast really well. 

Simplicity by Designs by Hilde

Punched Petals Vol 2 by Magnolia Street Studio

Ginger Scraps : Country Chic Wedding by Keep in Touch Designs (28 September)

When I saw this wedding kit, I thought of scrapping an old photo of my parents wedding. I scanned the photo and try to bring back the color. Since the photo is quite old and worn, this is the best retouch work I can do. I tried to match the photo color with the background by playing with Saturation menu. Here it is... don't they look perfect together? A handsome broom and an elegant bride...

Country Chic Wedding by Keep in Touch Designs

Ginger Scraps : Monthly Mix - Who's Wise (28 September)

Hi all! Check out this super cute and fun kit! It's the first Monthly Mix kit ever at Ginger Scraps called Who's Wise. You can never get tired of school theme kit, especially the one containing colorful owls like this one :)

Monthly Mix: Who's Wise?

Extraction Tutorial

I found a really good extraction tutorial at Scrapbookgraphic. It is really details and shows how to extract the most gruesome part : THE HAIR. Check it out here!

Before

After

There is one more tutorial about brush here that you might find useful too!

First Contest Winner!

Remember last week when I told you that I'm running into Studio Blagovesta's kit contest. Guess what? I'm the first winner ...Yaaay! This is the email I just received from Maya, SBG's owner :

Congratulations Swasti, you are the 1st place winner of our Coffee with Friends layout contest. The judges loved your layout, and how you scrapped a very poignant moment in your life using a coffee themed kit! Beautiful! Your layout will be posted in this week's coming newsletter.

I'm so excited to win! I never win anything before, so to get $50 as the first prize is just awesome... I should do this more often, don't you think? I was inspired by layouts from Kristin Aagard's gallery which I think showcase the papers collection beautifully and I ended up scraplifting it especially for this contest. Here is the layout again :

I also posted the layout into Studio Blagovesta's gallery and she herself gave me a comment : Oh! Our winner! Love this layout! It is wonderful! And It realy touched my heart! You completely deserve you first place! Thank you for using my kit for this special memory! ♥

Another nice surprise is when I posted this layout to Ginger Scraps gallery, just within few hours I received so many lovely comments and was nominated in Baker's Best! Yaaay.... I'm so excited! I knew I couldn't win, being the site CT, but I still felt honored to be mentioned there. I guess my dad is really my lucky charm anyway....

Marie H Designs : Grand Connection Bundle

OMG! This bundle is truly breathtaking! What a complete pack to honor and tribute grandparents around the world. I especially adore the word arts and quites. I even had trouble picking which one to be included in my layout since they are all so touching and true. A perfect bundle to keep great moments of the kids and their grandpa. We miss you too much, Bapak!

Grand Connection Bundle by Marie H Designs

Kristin Aagard : Jungle Boogie

I've got this safari kit in my stash since last INSD on May 2012. Inspired by a total cuteness of my smiling nephew, Satria, I finally felt my creative juices flowing back in :). Look at those cute animals and the patterned papers. They are just to fun to resist, don't you think? I rarely scrap with alpha, but these sets of giraffe, zebra and cheetah skin papers are too cute not to work with...

Jungle Boogie by Kristin Aagard and Boutique Cute Girls

My daughter, Alyssa, loves this kit too and she made something for herself. She picked.... Can you guess? Yes, monkey background paper! Partly because when she was little all she ever dreamed of was to become KINGKONG and she liked hopping from window bar to the bed from time to time :). She created this page absolutely by herself, including arranging the tittle made from cheetah skin alpha. I only helped with the shadowing. For the final touch, she also added the blue ribbon on the lion's head. What a sweet detail! Not bad for an 8 years old.... Proud of you, wushu girl :)

Marie H Designs : Fall-ing for You

Marie has opened a new store AT Digital Scrapbook Page. she's got these 8 new packs from 22-29 September as part of CAKE (Create A Kit Event). I also used her latest big photos template to finish my layout. These templates are just awesome! I'm sure I'm gonna keep recycling the, for countless occasion :)

Fall-ing for You Alpha by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing for You Brushes by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing for You Glitters by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing for You Elements part 2 by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing for You Elements part 1 by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing For You Solids by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing For You Papers volume 2 by Marie H Designs

Fall-ing For You Papers volume 1 by Marie H Designs

Big photos templates vol. 3 by Marie H Designs

Kristin Aagard : Twinkle Toes

Acha and Alyssa have just started taking ballet lesson. It is Acha dream to be a prima ballerina. She had this desire since she was 4 years old but I kept waiting until finally, I went to Arabesque ballet course at jl.Cihapit. Acha and Alyssa first joined trial lesson and they both liked it. So, they both enrolled with different schedule. Acha, Beginner 1 level, only on Saturday at 1 o'clock. Alyssa, Beginner 2 level, on Wednesday and Saturday at 4 o'clock.

Of course, I'm gonna need a ballerina kit! You betcha! And I found one... made by Kristin Aagard by the name Twinkle Toes. The ballerina figures are to cute! Look...

Twinkle Toes by Kristin Aagard

I haven't taken their photos in their tutu yet but I can't wait to start using this kit so I scrap my newly born niece, Qeyla. I hope you'll like it, dear...

Thaty Borges : Tripping Out

Every month I always do Me, Myself and I challenge hosted by Eva of eqrAveziur at Digital Scrapbooking Studio. This month's theme is : Where in the world do you like to travel? Simple rules:

• Scrap JUST about you 
• At least a title 
• Journaling (long or short) 
• You Can Use Any digital items from designer. Make sure you credit your work appropriately in the MMI gallery 
• Then come back to the thread and post here the link (and your LO as well) to your layout in the gallery 
• Have too much fun! 

Award: If you Participate 10 months or 10 LO's (do not need to be in a row) You Will Have a $ 10 coupon from her store. AND they are offering a 10% discount on ALL of your purchases for the following month! So, if you participate this month and get a layout posted, you will receive 10% off of every purchase made next month! No coupons required, the discount will automatically apply to your purchase(s)! And, this is on top of any/all sale prices in effect at the time of purchase!

By pure coincidence. I found the perfect kit while browsing through After Five Designs during their 35% birthday sale that lasted unti 19 September. I just adore all the world landmark pieces she created here! Eiffel tower, Big Ben tower, Taj Mahal palace, Sydney opera house, even Egypt's piramide! Wow, I'm totally in love with this pack! I said to myself "Gotta grab this quick while it still on sale." And I did... :)

Tripping Out by Thaty Borges

Siamese Studio : Autumn Breeze (21 September)

Aww... finally I could make the full flower clustering like I always dream of! At start, I kinda doubt myself, could I do it or not? Because I never tried heavy clustering before, I always feel I'm not really good at clustering different flowers to create a certain depth. I used this perfect autumn kit from Siamese Studio called Autumn Breeze which the colours just tickle myself to play!

Autumn Breeze by Siamese Studio

Note : You know what, this layout received a GSO at ScrapMatters for the week 15-21 September! And on the same week, my other layout with another Siamese Studio kit called Summerwings also got GSO. Double GSO! How awesome is that.... lucky me!! The sad thing is I accidentally saved the PSD file while in flattening form so I lost all the layers. Oh no.... my first full clustering work around the page and I messed it up! To think that I have to redo all the flowers resizing and shadowing... so painful!

Ginger Scraps : Flower Power by Twin Mom Scraps

So colorful, bright and extra pretty! Those are words to describe this fantastic kit by Twim Mom Scraps which was just released this Friday at Ginger Scraps. Don't you just love the sweet pattern papers?

Flower Power by Twin Mom Scraps

Zig Zag Scrap : Self Confidence by ValC Designs & Beedesign (21 September)

This amazing vintage kit is a collaboration of ValC. Designs and Beedesign. I really love the self empowering word arts and water brush papers choice you could get here. This pack is perfect for all kind of layout, especially for ART journaling essay. It includes over 50 UNIQUE elements birds bradsbut also brush, cluster and inked element...(and much more!)

Self Confidence - Bundle by ValC Designs and Beedesign

Layout Contest : Coffee with a Friend by Studio Blagovesta

As they enter into their 10th year of business, Scrapbookgraphics would like to express their gratitude, Scrapbookgraphic by giving us this gorgeous kit for free! Coffee with a Friend was created especially for you by the very talented Studio Girl, Blagovesta Gosheva. There is also a LAYOUT CONTEST for you to participate using this free kit & I'm trying my hands on! Here is the detail it you'd like to join us...

Coffee with a Friend by Studio Blagovesta

This is the layout I made with the kit. I scraplifted layout I saw in Kristin Aagard's gallery and created my own template with some change in the photo and journaling mat. I like the look of each tiny stacked paper blocks with different element on top of them. This is really a clever idea to showcase all gorgeous papers I found here! An experiment truly worth trying...

And, on top of that, this layout is nominated in Baker's Best and got Honorable Mention at Ginger Scraps. Bapak... you're really my lucky charm :)

Siamese Studio : Summer Wings

I love this pretty kit so much... the bright yellow colors, the sparkles, the birds and all the different unusual flowers and leaves just tickle my hands to play with them. I got this kit from Siamese Studio's existing collection and I think it's just drop dead gorgeous!

Summer Wings by Siamese Studio

Initially I want to fill all the sides with flower clustering and leave the middle empty, only with words arts. I always want to create such a layout. But, I don't know why I ended up with this gorgeous bird background paper and included my daughters photos on it! Oh well, I like this too...

The next day after I posted this layout to ScrapMatters' gallery, I checked the comments and surprisingly found this comment by Dolores (one of the ScrapMatters' girl) :"Absolutely gorgeous! The realistic elements on the beautiful background paper is awesome! The pops of yellow are great! GSO!!! http://scrapmatters.com/forums/showt...353#post449353". Wow, it's really made my day... first GSO at ScrapMatters :)

PictureDesigns : Visible Changes

Yesterday, I was so excited to receive an email from Mayya Al Rawahi, my dear friend from Oman whom I just met on last fasting month. She is the wife of Hamed, my husband's business partner, and she has four kids. Wow, I couldn't imagined having four kids and still managed to spare the time traveling the world like she did... Even though we just met, I thought we shared many things in common and we clicked right away like old friends!

She sent me photos of our kids trip to Trans Studio and I made it into scrap as a remembrance of the good time we had in Bandung. Too bad I forgot to take picture of us, me and her together, when we went shopping at Heritage Factory Outlets or while we were having dinner at The Valley. It would have been great to have something to remember her of! I turned the photo into sepia to match the tone of the autumn kit and put loads of flower clustering around the frame. I really glad to have a dear friend like her from across the continent and I hope we can see each other again real soon...

On top of all, this layout received LOTW (Lay Out of the Week) at ScrapMatters. So many lovely comments are left in my gallery. I'm so surprised :)

Fall is almost here and this is the first autumn kit that I worked on this season. Sandra of Picture Designs re-released this kit at ScrapMatters and I think this is truly a very versatile kit with some beautiful fall elements, but also perfect for preserving all kind of your memories.

Visible Changed by PictureDesigns