What's Your Favourite...?

The latest Simon Says Stamp Challenge is: What's your favourite Stamp, Tool, Product?

For me I love tools and I consider stamps as tools too! Such a good investment as they are reuseable on every product! Ev-er-y creation people. Layouts? Mini albums? Cards? Off the Page Items? Stamps and tools are good for them all. Reuseable = more $$$$ to spend on product. Basically I love it all: stamps, tool and products!

Cast your mind back a ways and you will remember me saying I won a kit from Artfull Crafts. I finally got around to creating with it. Best bit of all - I got to scrapbook a layout. I truly do enjoy creating layouts the most. I've been putting my latest designs out on display lately and I enjoy seeing them as I go about my day.

The gorgeous subject of my layout is my second oldest niece and I love seeing her lovely face every time I walk by. The picture itself was taken from a webcam and then she altered it digitally so it is really terrible quality in real life. When I ordered the print the developing programme suggested it was too poor quality to print. I'm glad I took the risk of developing it (at 9cents a print I figured I couldn't lose!) as the picture looks fine from a distance and you only notice how grainy and pixelated it is the closer you get.What a shame I didn't have a professional shot of this pose as it would be on permanent display in my home.

I can't claim any ownership of the design as it was a kit put together by Artfull Craft and it came with pictures of cards and 2 layouts you could make with the contents. I did make some changes and individual flair to the layout though.  A key piece was not included in the kit so off to my stash I went. That's where the square, almost see through, element in the bottom right corner of the photo came from. When I raided my stash I found other bits I wanted to substitute for examples in the original layout too (top right corner and the lower right flower instead of heart). I also early on decided to use a chipboard sticker from the supplied sheet instead of a word cut from the provided paper.

One cool thing, from my perspective, was that I got to curl the stems of the roses and use them as part of the design. Looks so cool and is super easy. Why did I waste time trimming them off before? Never again!

The original layout was done by Lisa at Artfull Crafts and the blog link is here and it has all the items I could make with the kit. Of all the options the layout is my favourite. Here's the original layout for you to compare.

Thanks for the inspirations Lisa!

Am I submitting it to the SSS Challenge? Sure am!

This layout used not only gorgeous product but also one of my favourite tools: border punches. I tell ya, a simple border punch edge can really add some oomph to a layout and a border trim really can easily and simply finish a mini album page.  I'm in love with them - but in a good way :)

Simon Says Stamp Challenge: What's Your Favourite?
http://www.simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/simon-says-whats-your-favourite.html