Exploring the Solar System Layout

One more layout for Bella Blvd's challenge week. This one was to use circle punches, and as you can see, I went a little punch crazy.

The photos are from a playdate we had with some of Ellie's preschool friends at a nearby park. There's a sprayground there (which wasn't on as we were there in October). It's modeled after the solar system, and there are these big planets sprinkled around the area.

I thought it was a perfect event to scrap for this challenge since some of the photos lent themselves to being 'rounded'.

My punches are Creative Memories shape makers. I have both the large and small ones, so the circles range from 3/4" to 1 1/2". I also used CM's custom cutting system circles on the photos/mats in the bottom corners. The large partial circle shape at the top of the page was made by tracing a plate on the cardstock.

The letters were cut using the Wild Card Cricut cartridge. I really like the script font from that cartridge. The letters were run through my Xyron (in retrospect I should have run all the punched circles through there too).

This layout was a lot of fun to do, and I've been kind of re-energized in my scrapbooking this week, and I'm enjoying these one pagers. I've even got my next one all planned out.

I was thinking about how I don't normally do scrapbook challenges, and was wondering why since I had so much fun with these last two. I think that a lot of it is that most of the scrapbooking challenges out there are sketch challenges, and while I LOVE card sketches, I'm not a huge fan of scrapbook ones. I feel like they're often just so impractical. I don't have the luxury of owning a printer and home and being able to print photos in any size/configuration I want. I work almost exclusively with 4x6 photos which I print every couple of months from Shutterfly in large batches. Plus, I dont' think I've ever scrapped only one photo on a page, I think three is the 'minimum', and I generally like to have at least four.

I think that's why I enjoyed these challenges so much. It was more a technique/product challenge that allows you to scrapbook in the way you normally do, and the two week time limit made it a lot easier to complete some projects. I had a great time, and I hope that Bella does it again. And, I'll be on the lookout for some more scrapbooking challenges of this type.

Looking forward to a weekend with no sick kids!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: Bella Blvd - Winter Wonder Blizzard and Toasty papers; CTMH - Hollyhock and White Daisy cardstock
Other: Cricut Wild Card cartridge; CM - Large and small circle makers; custom cutting system circles, Zig black marker, Xyron 5" creative station