Ok I am really excited to be doing this and praying I don’t sound like a dork that talks too much because she is so excited that she gets to post a challenge on the SSD blog…..ok…so maybe I getting close to that line, huh?  Ok back to the topic at hand….mixin’-it-up!

I was a paper scrapper for seven years and I loved browsing my LSS for the newest letter stickers, foam stamps or Making Memories alphas.  But when I got home and tried to figure out how to add those on my layouts, I would always struggle to get them just right.  Then after I used them once or twice – they would be tossed into the “I-will-use-those-again-one-day-I- promise” pile.  When I discovered digital – I again had the same excitement seeing all the different kinds of alphas and brushes out there….and I thought this time I could use the “undo” over and over until I got it right without having to throw out any supplies!  This worked out well but as I started amassing kits – I would find that I would not go back to those wonderful alphas and brushes I loved so much and there they sat on my hard drive just taking up disk space!  So when I got this assignment to mix-it-up – I thought “Hey, let’s play with all those alphas I have and mix-it-up!”  Ok in all honesty that wasn’t really what I said but as the guest blog writer, I was taking a little dramatic license there!

When I started my layout, I thought this would be a bit easy – pull together several different alphas and brushes and BAM! you are done…..but being the perfectionist, it kind of didn’t go that way.  I learned that although there are really no rules except make sure you spell your title/phrase correctly – you kind of have to play with it to make it work and this is what I came up with:

So here is what I did to create this – I took Christy Lyle’s “Circle of Friends” kit and then added some elements from “Wings of Change” kit by Suzy Nunes and Robin Carlton (measuring tape and notebook paper) and “Expecting Sweets: The Photo Shoot” by Robin Carlton and Christy Lyle (stitches and photo frame) – then I started my hunt for the alphas.  I used some from Christy’s kit (the “P” and the “E”) to keep the color balance and as my frame of reference to find what I wanted next.  As luck would have it – Robin Carlton released her new “Stick It Up” collection this weekend and right in the middle was my “O” that says “It’s a way of life” – which was absolutely perfect for my whole layout theme!  Next I was looking for a more funky flair to add to this and saw Amy Bleser’s “Freestyle Alphas” and Christy Lyle’s “Distressed Hand Stamped Ticket Alphas” and knew instantly where to pick out my “E” and “L”.  Now I needed my “X” and “R” and I found them in Paula Duncan’s “Modern Day Philosopher” kit – which by the way actually has 3 different colors of alphas – all of which I could have used for this particular layout.  With a little title size tweaking, a folded corner action (Jen Caputo’s) and a word stip (Jen Wilson’s) – I had the layout you see above!