Welcome to April - 'Another Selfie' by Tess

Hi, Tess here. I want to start this challenge post with a big shout out to our wonderful XOXO followers. We are now a quarter of the way through to year already and most of your in the Northern Hemisphere would be starting to see Spring come to life! Us in the South are starting to see the daylight hours getting shorter and the weather turning colder.

So to brighten up all of our lives, here is the inspiration page for April. 

Do you scrap more 'boy' or 'girl' styles? Scrapping 'girly' comes very natural to me and especially using the main colours of pinks, yellows, teals and whites. This page is no different and I really can't wait to see how some of you 'boy' this one up.

Remember the best way to scraplift a page is to use it like a sketch. You can also draw inspiration for a couple of main elements and see where your page takes you. Just make sure you upload your link to the challenge link on the right hand side of our page. We want to see what you do and also give someone the chance to join us for the next couple of month as a guest design team member.

Meet our Guest DT - Kimberly Fordyce

We would love for you to meet our guest design team member for March and April

Kimberly Fordyce

Hi, I'm very excited to be a GDT for the month...what an honor.  

I'm a wife, empty nester to three grown children, and Mamaw to three grandsons...that I adore. I live in Florida and love the sunshine. I have a passion for scrapbooking family memories and look forward to any free time to create in my scraproom. My family is very supportive of me. My daughter and son in law bought me my first Cricut and my daughter is the one who encouraged me to start a blog and enter challenges. I was hooked right after I got my first follower and won my first challenge! I would love to have you come and visit me and if you like what you see become a follower!

You can find Kimberly on her blog Kim's Scrapbook Additction or her facebook page of the same name.

Here is Kimberly's take on the March scraplift

And if you haven't had a chance to enter the challenge yet, here is Kimmys original page for inspiration.

Get your entries uploaded to the blog for your chance to be a Guest DT with the XOXO girls just like Kimberly did.

January's Scraplift Challenge - Renee Miller

Our gorgeous new DT member Renee has stepped up this month and offered to be the first to give us our January Scraplift Challenge.

 

Here is Renees' layout

 

 

Your aim is to scraplift this layout. Its really simple and we hope you get a page scrapped by using this layout as a 'blue print'.

 

Through out this month you will see the rest of the design team showcase their take on this layout. There will be plenty of inspiration for all scrap styles and we want you to enter by linking your take on this to the link tool in the side bar, or emailing it to tessatmybest@hotmail.com. We want to give you the change to come behind the scenes with us for the month of February and become a guest design team member.

 

We look forward to seeing your take on this gorgeous layout.

Back To School Gear

(Singing) It's the most wonderful time of the year! (Big Smile)

My husband was going around the house the night before singing the above tune! Mind you we only have a daughter who is in 1st Grade this year. Our almost 4 year old son will only be in half day Kindergarten next year. What will he be singing or doing in two years!!!!

This year my daughter got excited for school well more excited about picking out school gear...So, this year I saved some of the tags/labels from her school supplies and made sure I took a pic before sending it all off the school.

Here is my 1st day Back To School page I created using those tags/labels.

It is hard to see the title, which I embossed. Also, used a gel pen and traced the edge to add dimension to the post bracket. Here is a better close-up.

Michelle

p.s....XOXO

Messy Metal with Tess

G'day from Australia! Tess here. We have a beautiful spring day for one of our last of winter.

I though I would quickly stop past and throw my bit in on the Metal Challenge. I hope you have gained some inspiration from the DT so far on how to use all of those bits and pieces that we all have laying around.

 

I have gone with a grunge look on this page (which I will let you know is very much out of my comfort zone). I knew exactly what photo I wanted to use and which metal, but the real challenge for me was how to make it look something like the idea I had in my head.

 

On the Other Side

 

Bring on a little bit of patients and lots of mediums to layer. I am spending a lot of time experimenting with new ideas at the moment and realised that worst case, I would have to throw this piece of cardstock in the bin and start again.

 

I have used a combination of mists, distress inks, H2Os and stamping to get this effect.

 

For the metal, I have used a few Tim Holtz Metal Mini Cogs as they were perfect for the feel of the page. There is nothing special about these. They have purely been positioned and stuck down. And you have to love a good flair button placed in there too!

 

Thanks for calling past. Check out the other gorgeous pages and have a go yourself. Don't forget to take a pic and upload it for us to see. You might just find yourself kicking back with us as a guest DT!

Heavy Metal

Good morning! Khristen here with more from our latest challenge, which is to use metal on your page. The sky's the limit with this one, so many scrapbook embellishments made of metal!

Now, when I was thinking about what I was going to do for my layout, I had grand ideas of metal all over the place...and then I sat down. Isn't it funny how things can take a completely different direction when we start cutting that paper? Here's my layout:

 This is an old, old pic of the girls on their first day of school, 2nd grade and Kindergarten. I turned to the Fancypants Off To School Collection for this one, leftovers from a Scraptastic kit. the metal elements are random...MM paper clips and a repurposed ball chain (hubby knows I hoard these things, and when he comes across one of them he'll stick it in my stash for me. What a great guy!) :) All embellishments are Fancypants Off To School.

 Next to the ball chain, I decided to add some black onyx Liquid Pearls in the shape of a heart and dots. The red square piece: I found it in the kit bag, a piece I punched squares out of ages ago...so I cut it out of the larger 12x12 paper and used it as an interesting frame-y element. Love it!

Don't forget to play along, link up your layout/card/altered item featuring metal elements in the sidebar!

Khristen

ps...XOXO

Thanks from Australia

Hi Lovely XOXO Scrapbooking Followers, Its Tess here saying Thanks from Australia. We hope you are ready for some really awesome challenges and we can't wait to see what you do with them.

I purchased a few packs of MAMBI cards on my recent trip to the USA (only for them to arrive in Australia about 2 weeks later). I love these and wanted to do something with them rather than Project Life. I also fed my Washi Tape addiction with a couple of trips to Michaels, so thought it best that I use them too.

You can never have too many thank you cards laying around the house, so thought I would make a set. Really simple design, but I think it works!!

Thanks for following us and thanks for checking back today. Don't forget to upload your take on the 'Thank You Note' Challenge to be in the running for the Guest Design Team position.

p.s XOXO

Welcome back, XoXo!

Welcome! We are happy to be back! We took a brief hiatus to think things through and come up with some new ideas. Get ready!

For starters, we are here, in our new home and with a new format and new challenges! Projects will be posted throughout the month, we want the party to last longer!

To kick things off, if you follow and/or subscribe to this blog, you will automatically be entered to be a guest design team member for a month with us.

Everything else is the same - be inspired by our challenge or by any one on the design team, add it to the inlinkz for the month, and you are eligible to win a gdt spot with us for a month. Winners will be announced on the last day of the month.

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To kick this off, we want to say thank you. Thank YOU! for being patient with us as we go through some growing changes, for being fans, whether new or lasting, for spending time with us! So starting soon, and going on for the next two weeks, you will see thank you notes from our design team members. 

What can you do? Be inspired. If this challenge inspires you, design some thank you notes and link them up here on the inlinkz list. If you are inspired by any one of us or our designs, create your project and link up in inlinkz, telling us how you were inspired by us on your blog. 

 It's easier than it sounds :) - and if you win, you will be a guest team designer with us for a month!