RYS Challenge 7

Well...I'm on fire.  No, not really. 😂

See I planned to have my workspace de-cluttered and almost functional by now and promised not to make anything until it was a good part of the way there.  🤷

Yesterday I succumbed to the temptation of a clean desk. 😳😳😳

I have a lot I planned to do in January.  There is of course my vert special CKC kit (and no still haven't done any Forgery on the Fourth) and there is also a LOT going on at the Rediscover Your Stash Facebook group run by my friend Sara and Khristina Sorge.

January is traditionally a spending freeze and to boost morale (because let's be real - a shopping hiatus is bound to induce bouts of depression!) there are challenges and giveaways (including one hosted by yours truly so check it out and enter my giveaway if you want to win a scrappy prize!!)

I know I can cross over at least three layouts from these two challenges, but for now I bring you challenge 7 from RYS.  It would have been much more organized to start with Challenge 1, but I wanted something fast since I hoped to finish it before the rest of the fam woke up.  Didn't happen that way, but I got one finished nonetheless.

This is the sketch that Khristina posted in the group for everyone to use as Challenge 7.  A bit of banter later had me challenging Khristina to a scarp-off using this sketch! 😂

The first thing I needed to do was to convert it to a 12x12 layout since I don't scrap 8.5x11.

I decided to move the strip on the RHS to both the top and bottom, and the shapes on the RHS reminded me of retro video game elements.

I just so happened to have a photo of SmallCraftyDude playing a 1990s Sega Game Gear which happened to be taken with an "Old School" Polaroid camera.

I have loads of boy papers and plenty of gaming motifs.  In the end, most of the paper embellishments were partly from Crate Paper Boys Rule from 5 years ago and the rest from what REALLY inspired me - The Boyfriend collection by Cosmo Cricket.  Oh how I miss Cosmo!  😭😭😭

There is a little bit of Echo Park, Carta Bella, Jillibean Soup and a bit of Kaisercraft and some Cocoa Vanilla too.


 What I really wanted was to use lots and lots of textures.  I used plenty, but so many more possibilities remain for another day.   I was particularly pleased that a pack of Basic Grey rub ons - FLOCKED rub ons - still worked just fine!  I forgot I even had them and would have been ok even if they applied imperfectly.  More force was needed than standard rub ons, but they went on reasonably well!

I used some messy stitching to adhere the strips to the top and bottom, a few paper layers behind the photo and bravely tried some random stamping - in Distress Ink to get a slightly fuzzy imperfect feel.  Since I didn't know exactly where the embellishments would go, I had no idea whether the stamping would look OK.


It did require some pulling up and moving around.  This sketch is pretty far removed from my usual - no distinct areas of embellishment clusters and no scattered line either.

I decided to work it more into a diagonal line since I planned to have some in the top left corner anyway.

All that remained at that point was journaling.  That changed everything.  It created a large block of trapped space because I didn't wrap it all around to the right,  Disaster!!!  😫

Once I decided for certain to fill the space, I went with an acetate arrow and vellum word.  It just felt less heavy than chipboard or stickers or anything more solid and it had the bonus benefit of having a place to add more messy stitching.

I added another vellum video game critter to the top left to have another spot for stitching and to try and rectify something that just didn't sit quite right when I looked at it.  I got there in the end!

Well, back to clearing the craftermath and hoping to finish all my projects before the end of the month!  Hete's the finished page:

Love and successful crafty cleanups,