I Did It!

Yay!  I've been selected to be on a really cool Design Team!  I'm now part of the Scrapbook Challenge Team over at Mark's Finest Papers, A Heinrich Co.  They make the most beautiful stamps, and I will be using these on the scrapbook layouts I make for their team.

The scrapbook challenges start each Thursday and run until the following Wednesday   The one requirement to enter your layout in the challenge is that there's a stamp used somewhere on it.  It's NOT required that you use a Mark's Finest Paper stamp on your layout to join in the challenge, but once you see these cuties, you'll really want to.  Plus, each week, a random entry will be chosen to win a stamp set!  They have tons of other challenges going on at the same time...usually one for each day of the week.

The stamp set up for grabs this week is "Sand Dollar."

So here's my first offering...

And here's the full layout...

I plan on adding some journaling to it, but wanted to get it posted first.  The layout is of my son (in 2011) playing Santa at a church-sponsored event in an underprivileged area where he lives.  Families came to pick up Christmas presents, food and clothes, and Chris was asked to play Santa.  He had the time of his life.  He's so good with kids and this role suited him perfectly.  Although it's hard to see in the photograph, the title is Christopher Claus.  Since his name is Chris, I thought it fit perfectly!

On the two opposite corners of my layout, I used the Christmas Greetings stamp set from Mark's Finest Papers, A Heinrich Co.  The stamp set doesn't seem to be available in their store any longer, but you can get the same sentiment in a different set called Mini Christmas Wishes.  For both stamps, I started with white paper and then used a combination of Old Paper and Tumbled Glass Distress Inks to bring the paper to the color I wanted.  I clear-embossed the church before I went over it with the Tumbled Glass Ink.  The papers are mostly from Quick Quotes, with a few scraps from my stash mixed in.  They're actually a beautiful rich red color, but are photographing with a blue tinge that really isn't there.  Hmmm...I'll have to figure that one out!

Thanks for looking and don't forget to go enter this week's challenge!  You have through Wednesday, and the theme is Anything Goes, so it should be easy!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E