Sunday 26 April 2015

New challenge at Lasting Memories and more






 
 


Its time for a new challenge over at Lasting Memories!!!  This weeks challenge is the first one of May - which has a theme of "Life affirmations". This weeks theme is gratitude - someone or something you are grateful for.... When I think of being grateful three main people come to mind, a friend (who I dont have any photos of at present), my fiance and my sister.

As I was still feeling very inspired by some other challenges this month (even though I have already entered) I decided to go back to my sea themes from Scrap around the world this month and use this photo.

When this photo was taken I was a widow with three children under three. I was having a very tough time with the kids and no help. It was almost impossible to maintain friendships as we couldnt visit anyone and the kids required so much supervision I didnt ever get a chance to stop and chat. My sister at the time lived up in Cairns and was working at a Barrier reef tour operator as a scuba dive instructor (If you are ever in Cairns dont miss the "Passions of Paradise"). We decided to head up and visit and she offered us a free trip out on the reef on the boat. Then she also looked after the kids so that I could go snorkelling and scuba diving. It was an amazing trip, the highlight of a really tough few years.We took this picture with the underwater camera....

I started with a sketch from Cest Magnifique this month, flipped it to suit my treasure chest and made the mixed media background in the shape from the sketch background. I used the treasure chest and sea elements instead of the flowers and watch.

I just couldnt quite get this layout to photograph well.... so Im adding a lot of detail shots! I had a lot of fun with this one. I tried out the technique of melding the photo into the background for the first time and went nuts with pen and pencil shading, tracing and adding texture - I was very inspired by the technique challenge over at Scrap Africa this month to use pencil on your layout. Even though I had already entered once I still had some ideas left! I started by drawing this treasure chest and shading in some shadows. I then traced and shaded many of my design elements with a black pen i.e seashells to give them more texture and traced circles from a stencil with black pen too.

18 comments:

  1. great page! thanks for playing with us at Scrap Africa :)

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  2. WOW AWESOME! layout. Your sister has a beautiful heart. As a single mother of 3 I know exactly where you are coming from and family is the most important to us during times of toughness. Your layout is just amazing so many details are brought to life on the layout (I would frame this one if it was mine :)

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  3. Fantastic page!
    The background you have created si completely Awesome!
    Thanks for playing with us at Scrap Africa!
    Xoxo

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  4. Great layout. Thank you for playing at Scrap Africa.

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  5. Lots of gorgeous details! Thank you for joining the SATW challenge!

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  6. This is so gorgeous. Love all your details and the gold against the blue. Looks like it was an awesome trip.

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  7. This is so gorgeous. Love all your details and the gold against the blue. Looks like it was an awesome trip.

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  8. Fabulous layout! Love your color choices! Great background! Love the photo! All the best from SATW! :)

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  9. This is a fantastic layout !! Thank you for joining us at SATW xx

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  10. Super layout Renee...super elements and pencil work....really clever and creative! ;-) Thanks so much for playing along with us at Scrap Africa! ;-)

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  11. Very cool layout! I love your pencil drawing and the gorgeous photo. Thanks for joining the C´est Magnifique April Sketch Challenge!

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  12. Gorgeous Renee! I love the layers of embellishments and all of the wonderful 'sea' colors - so pretty! Thank you so much for sharing and playing along with us at Scrap Africa!

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  13. Great take on the challenge. I especially like the little treasure chest! Thanks for joining us at Scrap Africa :)

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  14. What a clever layout! Thank you for joining us at SATW!

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  15. Super cool design! I LOVE the treasure chest! Thanks for joining the C'est Magnifique April Sketch Challenge! :)

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  16. Wow! Your page is so creative and beautiful.
    Thanks so much for joining us at SATW!

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  17. Oh, my favourite Sea Theme! Love all the details!
    Thank you for joining the Scrap Africa Pencil Challenge!

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  18. oh, wow, what a fun page! Love it! Claire, LMDT

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