Design by Diana Anniversary Blog Hop

Hi Everyone and welcome to our Hop!!  Diana Fisher is celebrating her 3 year blog anniversary by giving the anniversary gifts to YOU — the readers! Hop on through the Blog Hop to find prizes and inspiration along the way.

You should have arrived here from the Blog of the very talented Tessa Buys.  If you did not, please go to the beginning of the Hop, by visiting Design by Diana and then follow through the Hop.  You won't want to miss out on all of the amazing inspiration and some awesome prize giveaways!!

Plus, there's a chance to play along with us! Use the sketch Diana made, link your entry back at her blog, and you could win a $30 shop credit to Scrapbook Circle.  You have until April 30th to complete the hop and link up your sketch challenge entry to be eligible for the hop prizes!

I just want to say how honored I was when Diana invited me to be a part of the Hop!!  I have been a big fan of hers, ever since I started participating in the weekly Sketch Challenges that were hosted at the former challenge Blog, Sketchy Thursdays.  So, needless to say, I was a little giddy to be included in such an amazingly talented group of Ladies.

Diana provided us with one of her amazing sketches to work with, and I decided to have a little fun and go bold with this one.  I recently purchased some of the BoBunny Alora collection at my LSS and thought the colors would be perfect with some photos of our oldest daughter enjoying an ice cream cone.  And a big plus, the paper colors worked well with the colors of her t-shirt, and I always love pulling colors from my photos to pick out my patterned papers!!  :)  These papers are also awesome for fussy cutting embellishments!!  I love to create embellishments for my pages, using elements that I cut from one of the coordinating papers.  Flowers are a favorite.  You can "dress" them up by adding buttons or brads for flower centers and add dimension by using pop dots.  Quick, easy, and cheap embellishments!!  So, here is the page I created and the sketch from Diana:

Now, I will admit that halfway through my page, I considered not using this layout, because I felt there was something that just was not working...but I usually think this on just about every layout, halfway through!!  :)  But when I added the black Thickers in my title, I had an A-HA moment!!  I decided to add in a little black accenting with some stitching and added some black punched half circles and then I loved it!  Voila!!  You never know what can turn a page around!!  :)  I used some bubble wrap and white acrylic paint to stamp on the Bazzill background paper to mimic the feel of the Birthday Cake Ice Cream that our daughter had in her cone.  And I stayed fairly close to the sketch, but decided to use the journaling area for a layered flower cluster and just added my journaling to the circle element on the right hand side of the page.

I hope you enjoyed stopping by to see my take on Diana's sketch...and what would a Blog Hop be without a fun giveaway and I just happen to have one!  To enter the giveaway, here on my Blog, become a new Follower and leave a comment letting me know you are.  If you are already following, you can just leave a comment on this post...random whatever you would like to say or any comments on my layout would be appreciated!!  :)  Since Diana is leaving the Hop open until April 30th, I will do the same and select a random winner and make an announcement on May 1st.  Wondering what you can win??  Here it is:

My Mind's Eye On the Bright Side Collection Pack - 

includes:  9 sheets of 12x12 double sided paper and a coordinating accessory sheet

AND THAT'S NOT ALL - also a collection of Smash products by K&Company

30 Sheet Blank List Pad, 6 Piece Pockets, 20 Piece red & white Clips; 
70 Piece Sticky Notes

So, now you are off to the amazing Sara Zenger's Blog to check out her awesome craftiness!!  Enjoy the rest of the Hop!!

Products Used:

Cardstock:  Bazzill
Patterned Paper:  BoBunny
Felt Flower:  Recollections
Thickers:  American Crafts
Font:  CK  Girl & CK Anything Goes
Mini Round Gems:  Recollections
Button:  Michael's
Brad:  Heidi Grace Designs
Acrylic Paint:  Apple Barrel
Embroidery Floss:  Janlynn
Punch:  Marvy
Other:  Bubble Wrap