Monday, April 1, 2013

"Adventure" SEM April Main Challenge #27 ~ All God's Creatures

I hope you had a wonderful Easter! We went to church then had all the family over for some homemade lasagne and a time of sweet family fellowship.

It's the first Monday of the month and that means it's time to share the Scrapping Everyday Miracles Main Challenge. Nicole is hosting a wonderful challenge for you this month. Here are the details:
For this month's main challenge we would like you to create a project inspired by your pets.  Even if you arent animal person or don't have any pets you can still be inspired by this challenge.  You can create a project inspired by any animal in God's creation. Your projects can even be about an animal related experience like a day at the zoo or a farm. What is important is that we see that God is blessing us with everyday miracles using both the animals within our families and those outside our homes.  

SCRAP TWIST: USE AN ANIMAL RELATED QUOTE SAYING OR EVEN BIBLE VERSE ON YOUR PROJECT.   You can use it for your title, journaling or just addition to your project! Just to help you get started here's a link to a bunch of animal quotes :

Here is my project based on this challenge:

"Adventure"

My husband and I never had a dog. or even discussed the possibility of getting one. Then we moved back to Ohio in 2000 to be closer to our families. My brother taught dog obedience classes including a dog 4-H club. He also did a little breeding. He decided to keep one of the pups as an experiment. He often had clients bring in 2 or 3 year old dogs with no former obedience training, and these dogs were more of a challenge. So he decided to keep Ellie. While he didn't allow her to jump on people, she had no obedience training and had only been on a leash a couple times to go to the vet. You may have guessed it. He offered Grace the opportunity to have 15 month old Ellie so she could be in his 4-H club, and Grace became part of the experiment. Now dogs became a "big" part of our lives. Grace wanted to make Uncle Paul proud and put a lot of time and effort into training her new pal. She defied the odds and with Ellie became one of the top obedience teams in the UKC. They attained every possible obedience title and in their final year of competition placed 3rd in the country in Utility - the most advanced obedience class. 

Now, you do see three dogs in the photo. It didn't take long for our two other daughters to get dogs and join in the fun. From the left you see Tori, Ellie then Bounder. The girls have always been in charge of their dogs including training, feeding, grooming, vet appointments ~ everything. They learned so much responsibility, and the Lord has opened up many doors for us to share our faith along the way. There are people from many walks of life in the dog world, and I pray that the Lord has been able to touch some of them through us. While Elizabeth and Maria did not train for the advanced classes, they were recognized as top Junior handlers by qualifying for an invitation to the National UKC Dog Show each year they showed. 

This sweet photo was taken a year ago ~ one of the last photos before Ellie left us. Grace has just picked a new border collie puppy and is excited to have a dog in her life again. 

Tips and Techniques:
Inking ~ The larger jeweled flower started out as layers of creamy Prima flowers - the kind you used to buy in the pillars - I simply rubbed on some distress ink. The wooden leaves were also lightly inked. The background paper was somewhat teal, so more rubbing with distress ink brought it to the right color to coordinate with this photo. The white doilies were inked up as well. 

Lace Trim ~ Such an easy addition to any border strip to add a pretty touch.

Title and Trinkets ~ I was so thrilled the other day to find these fabulous vintage lightbulb word trinkets by Prima and thought the word "Adventure" would be the perfect title for this page since our daughters have had quite an adventure with their dogs!! I also enjoy adding little trinkets, buttons, wooden pieces into my clusters.


Stamping ~ I repeated this charming background stamp before adding my embellishments. To get a soft edge, I just tear a piece of paper towel and place where I want the stamped edges to be and stamp right over it.

Flourishes ~ I cut this gorgeous flourish into two pieces and used in each corner for balance.


Twine Flower ~ My tutorial for the handcrafted twine flower can be found here.

Distressing ~ So quick and easy with my Donna Salazar Distrezz-It-All by Zutter to get these nice "thick" edges. 

Canvas Tape ~ I simply folded and laid some this canvas tape at the edge of the clusters. A little talc powder on the adhesive edge that is up takes care of the stickiness. 

Fussy Cutting ~ I tucked a few fussy cut pieces in as well. 


Journaling ~ I wanted my "required element" to blend seamlessly into my layout, so hand wrote it at the bottom under the green paper strip. It says "Dogs are not our whole lives, but they make our lives whole." Roger Caras

Our Sponsor this month is:

Hello there! I'm Leena and I live in the tiny island of Singapore. I've been scrapbooking for 6 years now and the recent one year, I've turned from a traditional scrapbooker to Project Lifer. It's been an amazing year just dedicating my time and days documenting week after week worth of stories about me, my family and friends, my full time job, the places I've travelled to for work and holidays, celebrations and many more interesting journey of my life. I've also set up a very small online shop just a year ago, just to share handmade items that was originally created for my own use. Then I realized, I had a lot of request from scrapbookers all over the world asking for my handmade items to be made available for sale. That's how it got started. The response has been overwhelming and I'm so thankful to all my buyers for their support. My shop sells mainly core handmade items such as flair buttons or also known as badges which can be used for any kind of craft projects. They're a very popular scrapbook product amongst scrapbookers! Once again thank you to Scrapping Everyday Miracles for this opportunity to sponsor my shop products for their challenge this April! 

Instagram - username is "findingnana"

Leena has sponsored it us with a wonderful prize that you could win by linking up a project to our April Challenges!  Wanna see it? That is $40 worth of flair buttons!  WOW!

Guess what everyone? Leena has prepared a discount code for all of you!!!! You can save  20% off total purchase of any products in her shop, valid from now until April 30thThe code is SEM20You just need to enter this during check out. This discount does not apply on the shipping fee. She ships from Singapore to all over the world. 

**NOTE: You may submit the project you create for Scrapping Everyday Miracles to other challenge blogs but your project must be mainly created for the Scrapping Everyday Miracles challenge in order to win the sponsor prize and/or be one of Top 3**

 All entries must be linked HERE by April 30th, 11:59pm PST.

*Important: Make sure your link is to the blog post with your project & not just your blog in general...and be sure to remember the SCRAP TWIST!

Thanks for stopping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~

29 comments:

  1. Beautiful layout! We are pretty happy that we got a puppy in December. I am allergic, but he has brought a lot of joy to us. Thanks for sharing your story!

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  2. So beautiful. Love the movement in the photo with the doggies on a gallop.
    Hugs Desíre {Doing Life}

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  3. I absolutely adore this layout! I love all the beautiful hues of green. What gorgeous dogs!!!

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  4. What gorgeous dogs!! They are so beautiful!! And the layout is stunning!! I love the colors!! As always, you embellished it perfectly!! Happy Monday :)

    Lisa
    A Mermaid's Crafts

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  5. What a fabulous challenge and gorgeous layout! I love the story behind the photo and how dogs became a part of your life!!!

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  6. Beautiful page, and I loved learning the story behind it.

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  7. So very beautiful! Love the design, colors, and perfect details.

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  8. What gorgeous beautiful dogs. We have two little ones of our own. Could not live without them. Your layout is stunning Tracey as always. The colours are perfect, your flowers are so beautiful and that flourish is stunning. Also love the story of how the dogs came into your life. God Bless. ox Marg

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  9. Your fur babies are beautiful and sooooooooo is your lo!! I love love love love the colors and all the flowers!!

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  10. such a gorgeous layout...LOVE the colors

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  11. What lovely dogs..and a great layout too Tracey!
    Alison xx

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  12. Your layout is beautiful and I loved hearing the story behind the photo.

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  13. Absolutely gorgeous layout Tracey.. I have always had dogs, grew up on a farm and dogs were like workers with the cattle, and after I got married have always had a dog.. we have 2 at the moment.. they are very special friends to have!

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  14. So beautiful! It actually blends with your blog background,too! So happy to have you and your inspiring creations at SEM!

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  15. Gorgeous page Tracey!! Love the mix of Green and Light Browns and Cream!

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  16. amazing LO Tracey!! I love the composition of this one!! fabulous job!!

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  17. Oooooh...your layout is beautiful Tracey. I just love how you cluster your blooms. Dogs bring such joy to our lives, eh?

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  18. I absolutely LOVE this layout. Great choice of papers and embelishments.

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  19. What a lovely page. Thanks for sharing it and your story. It made me smile.

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  20. Gorgeous LO Tracey!! Love all the flowers and other beautiful details you have used. A very special story to go along with the picture :)

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  21. Oooo! Those pearl flourishes are divine, Tracey, and I really love the natural color palette!

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  22. Tracey...this page is just gorgeous. That photo is just awesome and all the beautiful touches you've added make it so lovely. Love how the colors you chose coordinate perfectly with the photo too!

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  23. This is so pretty!!! Perfect papers for that image!

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  24. Hi Tracey! I saw this over at sb.com, but just had to visit your blog, too! Such an amazing page. I love the photo of your three beauties, and am so sorry for the loss of Ellie. You created a beautiful page in honor of God's creatures!!!!!

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  25. Wow Tracey, I've never seen a more beautiful dog layout!! I would never have thought to use those elements on an animal page. It's stunning and I enjoyed reading the story behind your girls' dogs.

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  26. Beautiful LO. Love the colors and flowers. It is so great to scrap about your pets. They are such a big part of our lives.

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  27. Totally and completely stunning!!my friend

    hugs carla

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  28. GORGEOUS!!! love everyhting on this: the colors, the design, the flowers...

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Thanks for taking the time to stop by and leave a message! I treasure your comments.