I am lucky enough to go to three scrapbook retreats a year. Three long weekends that are all about playing with paper and chatting with friends. I sit and scrap with sisters Shar and Brande at each retreat and love watching them work. There are differences in our styles and tastes, which keeps things interesting. Each retreat, we come up with a challenge. (Remember One Template, Four Layouts?) This time, we each scraplifted two of the layouts Brande brought in her idea book.

The first is this great half circle digital layout from Ideas for Scrappers.

Brande found this one on Pinterest. She and Shar often rock the circles, whereas I have a circle block!  🙂  This is the kind of layout I love but never do. Challenge on.

Here’s Brande’s take:

I love the unexpected colour combo, the pop of black and white washi and the layers of small circles.

Here’s Shar’s layout:

I owe Shar an apology, because when I took this photo the background was distracting and some of the awesome distressed edges aren’t represented well above. The edges of the background are distressed, just like all the layers you see. I love the mix of patterns and the embellishment cluster at the bottom corner of the photo.

My turn:

Supplies: My Mind’s Eye paper and stickers, Stampin’ Up! punch, American Crafts ribbon, unknown washi tape, Silhouette Cameo

Look, white on cream! Breakin’ the rules! (I’ve been joking about that since I did this page, because I don’t do that often.) I added a square frame to the background before I placed my half circles and used several border pieces, some ribbon and washi tape for the centre line between the circles. The flower at the bottom of the corner is actually meant to flip up to show other photos underneath.

So, from one inspiration page came three very different looks. On to round 2 …

For that we used a layout with some paper strips and negative space. Check it out here, in an issue of CK, it’s the Baby Lily layout on the left. I don’t have a photo (we just passed around the magazine clipping) but it’s by Jen Jockisch.

Here’s Brande:

I love how energetic her layouts always look. There is always so much movement and visual interest!

And Shar:

I adore the banner and the photo frame that highlights the title.

My turn:

Supplies: Creative Memories paper, Echo Park paper, American Crafts paper and stickers, My Mind’s Eye brads, Martha Stewart punch, Stampin’ Up! punch, Colorbox ink, Silhouette Cameo

I finally used some brads! Write that down, it’s been rare lately. This is a great layout to use up scraps and any punches you may have been neglecting lately.

I don’t have supply lists for Brande or Shar’s pages (maybe you two can add them in the comments?), so I’ll put a note in my inspiration book to write those down next time. I’ve said before that I wish these two had blogs, but I will have to settle for them letting me share their layouts with you here. (Rough job! :)) They do amazing work and we are planning more posts to feature them soon.

Thanks for stopping by!