Surprise Lift

A great challenge at XOXO this month – be inspired by the team being inspired by each other! We got to do what all of you challengers do each month: lift! But it was more: a 'surprise lift each other' challenge – which was a great opportunity for me to finally make something in the style of one of my scrap idols – Michelle. She has a very arty, graphic, laissez-faire style and has a great eye for photos and telling a story on a layout. It was a no-brainer that she would be my surprise lift.

Here is her page (from 2011):

courtesy of Michelle @ myanaloglife.blogspot.com

And here is my lift:

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Heavily influenced, I know. Very similar, I know. But Ioved this page so much for so long and just wanted one of my own. Do you ever get that about someone else’s work? For me it was this one’s great colour scheme, uplifting message, and rock n roll elements like the wings – all in all, it was perfect.

I took specific elements from Michelle’s page and adapted them, sometimes not very much, and sometimes quite a lot, to achieve my own page. I found some cloud paper (remnants from Echo Park’s Sweet Summertime collection) and used my Sass cloud stamps to both stamp and just get a good cloud shape to cut out of patterned paper. I chose some herringbone patterns too – from Crate’s Paper Heart collection, and a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The wings were actually a pair of earrings that were joke-given to me by my mum for my hen party as a nod to me saying how I didn’t want to see halos or angel wings or anything like that (things like this, and L-plates and tiaras, are quite typical British humiliate-the-bride-to-be things and since I was not the typical bride I did not want the typical stuff). I bent the backs flush with the page with a pair of pliers. I used a balloon stamp (Kaisercraft – Up, Up & Away) and also a balloon mask (Prima). For the positioning I pretty much stuck to Michelle’s, but changed the size and the number of photos, and the colour of the title.

And yes, I love it. I wish I’d come up with it myself! Thanks, Michelle – keep on churning out those beauties!

If that's not quite enough for you, there's also a challenge this month to design something for the XOXO webpages: a new site needs a new header, so submit your designs!