www.paperartistsonline.com

While tackling the sorting/purging of my craft books which no longer all fit on my shelves, I was reminded of a series Julie Fei-Fan Balzer did on her blog a few years ago where she profiled an art/craft book each month and made something inspired by it. I thought that concept would be fun to revisit.

The Challenge then, is to pick any craft book you own and make something inspired by it. You can make whatever you want: a card, layout, art journal page, canvas, fiber art piece, etc. Your book can be new or old. If you don’t own any craft books – but seriously, what self-respecting PAO sister doesn’t own a craft book? – you can take inspiration from something in a magazine, a book from the library, or if you have no physical resource, something online. You can combine the challenge with Pam C’s summer and/or Pam P’s stash challenges or even one of the card challenges. Please cross-post if you do.

Bonus points if your craft book is 3 years old or more. Even more bonus points if it's the first thing you've made inspired by that book. I'll share what I made in the next post. Can’t wait to see what you make; please include your source of inspiration with your finished project.

While not done, I set aside the book sorting to make a layout for the challenge. It was pretty easy to purge the Yes, It’s a Scrapbook series by Donna Downey until I got to Designing Layouts. Here I’ve used one of 25 basic multi-photo sketches from the book, and kept my layout as simple as her examples. I don’t think I’ve ever made a page before where I didn’t add at least one embellishment.

The current owner of this schoolhouse-turned-tea room once attended classes here; indeed his kindergarten class photo is still hanging on the wall. The building was restored to how it looked when built in 1921, and many school materials from individual workbooks to wall maps are still present. In fact, we were given a hand-held chalkboard on which to record our lunch order for the kitchen. Ormsby is a small, rural town; with a population of 40 back in the day, this would have been the only classroom for all the students. I’ve opted not to crowd any journaling on the front but will instead attach an information brochure and web address to the back of the layout.

My title was inspired by another book collecting dust on my shelves, Making Memories Fresh Paint. I decided recently to keep my foam stamps, and the colour gradation technique is straight out of the book – which I’ve now happily recycled.

Great idea and a beautiful layout!

That turned out very nicely! The flower colors are perfect with the fancy plate of food and your jacket. I still really like those foam stamps, nearly used them on my journal title but they were too big.

Interesting challenge, I have a few books I've kept that each time I look at purging I can't bear to give up! Most are stamping related, many from Mary Jo McGraw. It will be fun, I'm sure there are things to re-explore! Maybe for the ATCs!

Beautiful Keitha!

This is a clever idea and like Nancy suggested I'm thinking maybe for the ATC challenge this could work. I have a "few" books I could check out that I haven't touched in years.

I actually did this challenge Friday night, and I've been "out of it" for so long, that it really was quite a challenge! LOL. I went through no fewer than 7 craft books (none of which I could consider purging yet) looking for my inspiration. I started with 4 of my oldest sketch books, but nothing spoke to me. Then I moved on to quote books. And that's where I settled. I've never been very clever with titles, and the only quotes I use usually come from printed tags or vellum. So adding this hand-written quote to the page was actually something very different for me.

Nice, Julie. Your kids are growing up before our eyes. It's been a pleasure watching them grow and develop into young citizens! I feel like a proud grandma!

Debbie J wrote:Nice, Julie. Your kids are growing up before our eyes. It's been a pleasure watching them grow and develop into young citizens! I feel like a proud grandma!

Awe! That's so kind of you to say. Thank you.

Very nice layout Julie! It's hard to believe they've grown so much. (sniff! sniff!)

Indeed, Pam! Jake is entering into his last year of elementary school, and Nicole is a freshman in high school. She's already neck deep into the HS scene too. She started marching band camp last week (with temps in the mid-90s to mid-100s), and she took a semester class this summer so she could free up her schedule for a different elective. She seems to be acclimating well with the band people, so hopefully the next four years will be a time for her to shine.

Jake, on the other hand, has been so easy-going by comparison, that we often miss how fast he's growing also. His big project this year is his Arrow of Light award, and bridging to Boy Scouts. Rob even "retired" from his Pack leadership position so that he could spend more time withe Jake and the den in this final year.

It's all been such a "blink of an eye" the past few years! We've even started to figure that we're probably down to only three or so family vacations with Nicole before she's out of the house. It's crazy!

Great layout, Julie - so glad I could tempt you into scrapping again. Lovely photos of Nicole and Jake, I'm sure you're proud of them, as you should be.

That's a lovely layout and it's nice to see you taking a little time for scrapping!
Your kids are at busy ages and it's great you take time with them!
They sure have grown during out time here at PAO - time flies!