Our April Sketch Challenge

Happy April everyone!  I hope you have not fallen victim to an April Fool's prank today.  We're back again this month with a beautiful new sketch created by designer Michele Singh.  This sketch gives you an opportunity to use two photos if you'd like.

Here's a look at how some of our design team used the sketch with our April Kit (which is sold out).

"Cool" by Camilla Ekman

My son is a very cool guy. And for me cool means that you have a kind heart and that you can joke about yourself. I tried to keep the design simple and just added some texture paste and mist as a background to the photo.

"Be You" by Erin Blegen

 Wyatt is my oldest child, and I often struggle with some of his personality traits. He can be very particular, he is extremely intelligent so he's ALWAYS asking questions, and sometimes I catch myself trying to suppress those traits. I think it's because he is SO much like myself. So I just have to remember to encourage these qualities- for it's his curiosity and persistence which allow him to gain his incredible brainpower!
The masculine blues and blacks available in this kit were just perfect for a page about him. I find that as he gets older, I am drifting away from the more feminine colors that were once okay when he was little. 

"Sweet Face" by Keren Tamir

 My daughter loves making these cute faces when I point the iPhone her way. This photo was taken randomly one day!! I loved combining the purple and green tones together. 

"Angelic" by our Guest Designer Michelle Frisby

 Tips / Techniques : I've noticed of late that many scrappers have been using their border punches randomly along their paper edge and I too felt that it was the right time to do just that, throw in a little distressing, a little inking, tuck a little music paper in between the layers and I was more than happy with the result. Run Prima's gorgeous creamy pastel brown chalk ink around the edge and voila ... what a fabulous collection of papers, the colours are dreamy.

I've used two lots of packaging from gorgeous product in the kit and I've grabbed one of my Memory Box dies - Fresh Foliage metal die, cut out some foliage and gently brushed a little gesso on the top and tucked it in under my main floral embellishment cluster.

My chipboard flourish was gesso'd and sprinkled with diamond dust and then misted - but I felt it was a little on the 'blue' side, so I lightly retouched it with a little more gesso.

And let's not forget the photo ... a photo of my daughter when she was young, innocent and angelic. One of those photos taken many years ago, as parents we would go and visit the photographer, have numerous stunning 'shots' taken and feel obliged to buy them all and back then, a very costly photographic opportunity. Definitely pre digital cameras.

Now that we've given you some ideas as to how to use the sketch,  it's your turn to give it a try.  Our sketch challenges are open to everyone - even if you're not a member of our kit club.  You can interpret the sketch any way you want, but we do want to look at your layout and be able to tell you used the sketch.  But feel free to flip it on its side, or turn it upside down if that's what works best for you.

We will be offering two prizes, awarded randomly to participants in our Sketch Challenge.  The first prize is this beautiful assortment of paper, embellishments, and chipboard!  The winner of this prize package will also be able to shop in the C'est Magnifique Store, and have their purchases sent with the prize package, so that means you won't have to pay for shipping charges!

Our second prize, a $10 gift certificate to the C'est Magnifique Store,  will be awarded randomly to one of our participants who obviously uses one of our kits to create their Sketch Challenge layout. 

We will also chose 5 (or maybe more) layouts to feature on our blog!  

And you have the entire month of April to submit your layout.

What do you have to do to enter our sketch challenge?

1.  You must be a follower of our blog.  It's easy to become follower -see the left sidebar.

2.  Create a layout using the sketch, and add it to our blog using the Inlinkz tool below.  Please link to the blog post where you have uploaded your layout  (not your general blog address). If you do not have a blog, you may link to an online gallery.

 Deadline for entering the sketch challenge is midnight, April 30 (US time).

We look forward to seeing your layouts!