Shop and Crop: Tic Tac Toe May Challenge

Hello crafty friends, Sarah with you today - feeling so inspired by the May Tic Tac Toe challenge that I have two layouts for you! The first one, as pictured above uses a red and white striped paper bag (from D-lish Scraps), patterned paper (some of the last of my Crate Paper Cool Kid collection available in store here) and cardstock (from my stash). Let's have a look at the challenge set by Shop and Crop...

For this layout I created the background smearing on Dylusions paints in Postbox Red and Campso Teal with a palette knife. The range of Dylusions paints is available in store here. I left this overnight to dry as I tend to be a bit heavy handed with paints! I then used some stamps from my stash to add a little more background interest. The Shop and Crop online store have a great range of stamps, particularly mixed media ones.

I used the paper bag in this layout as a pocket to hold a large tag. I used the small piece of vellum I had left over from the Cool Kid collection to cover the tag and wrote on the back some points about my son at the age of 3 that I wanted to remember - his favourite foods, traits about him I love, what he calls himself etc. The photo is layered on Cool Kid patterned papers and stickers from this collection were used as embellishments. That cute handmade heart embellie is from Charms Creations. Let's take a closer look...

Now for the second project, a Planner Page layout. This is a Basic Planner Kit from Scrapper's Delights. I am pleased to have been offered a position on their Planner Design team. For more information about setting up and decorating your own planner, pop on over to their website by clicking here. I designed this layout also inline with in the Tic Tac Toe challenge, I used cardstock (300gsm cardstock that the planner page was printed on), stamps and embossing powder (gold from Stampin Up).

The background of the planner pages were completed using distress ink and the 'smoosching' technique. The range of distress inks can be purchased instore here. The stamps used with the gold embossing are the Kaisercraft Captured Moments Calendar stamps - also instore here. The day and date stamps are stamped with black ink with the Echo Park Paper Co Through the Year Calendar stamp that is also available in store here. The cute bear stamps are the 'Honey Bears' by The Ton. Lets take a closer look...

Whilst I have never really been in to 'planning' in the creative sense, I am using this planner to capture my Design Team commitments and a few photos of my children week to week. For more planner layouts, please see my blog here. I like to include reminders of everyday chores, appointments, events etc - all in a pretty format that is alot of fun to design and create. Lets take one last look at those cute bears - they are stamped in black ink, embossed with clear embossing powder and coloured using Zig Clean Colour real brush markers.