Did you see this simply lovely layout by Joey (aka babyroo7) in the gallery? (And, like me, you may have only just realised the clever reason for her screen name!)

I say “simply” lovely and it is simple in the best sense of the world. Clean and crisp and with a beautifully balanced centred design. But definitely not ordinary, with its lovely detailing of delicate stitching, elements and text.

Another thing that struck me was what a perfect example it is of the guide to using color. I can’t remember the exact wording but it goes along the lines of a bucketful of one color, a cupful of another color and a teaspoonful of a third. You get the idea!

I hope you join us in lifting Joey’s beautiful page. Here’s what Yen, Heidi and Steph came up with:

Credits: layout by Yen, Little Black Dress2 by Kellie Mize, stitching and frame by Katie Pertiet, stamps by Jesse Edwards.

Credits: layout by Heidi, Lucky Gardener kit by Katie Pertiet (Heidi also used Katie’s watery washes brushes as an eraser on the photo).

Credits: layout by Steph, Crazy Beautiful paperpack by Mindy Terasawa, Notebook photo mats, scripted overlay, Hinged frames 1, iced delights hearts and letterbox Christmas paperpack all by Katie Pertiet.

Don’t forget to post in the Saturday Scraplift gallery. It was rocking last week with all these fantastic layouts:

This week over at the IdeaBooks4u blog, we decided to work on getting over our fear of combining patterned papers.  Never ones to back down from a challenge, we’re going to attempt to combine six (yes, you read that right) patterns in one layout.  We may be fearless, but we’re not crazy.  To help us in our journey, we’ve enlisted one of the best, Ali Edwards. Ali wrote the book, “A Designer’s Eye for Scrapbooking with Patterned Papers.”

In the book, Ali teaches how to “embrace the idea that patterns are cool, fun and super-inspiring (and so not scary).

Check out this fabulous page by Caroline:

I hope you’ll join us for this week’s challenge.  Come on over to the blog and we’ll show you how!

Make sure to checkout our Thrifty Thursday specials today.  There are 131 items marked down 30% AND 1 NEW item marked down to $ .99!  These specials last only until 6am EST Friday so don’t miss out!

It is Wednesday and as promised, I am on time with this week’s challenge!

I’m really excited this week because we all really had very different takes on the challenge and that is what 3K3W is all about. Mixing it up and using the same products in such totally different ways and with totally different subjects that you are inspired to play with your stash. Hopefully this week’s kits get you excited to play and a bit excited for Spring. Those of us in the northern hemisphere are seriously jonesing for some spring weather. So, I decided to pull out some beautiful spring goodies for this week’s challenge.

Here are the kits we used this week:

Spring Feast by Mindy Terasawa

Shades of Spring by Pattie Knox

Hemp Ribbons No. 1 by Katie Pertiet

The pages this week:

Page by Paula Gilarde

This page is such a WOW! page for me. I just love everything about it. The sweet photo and the perfect title to go with it, the softness of the page with the white space and ballet colors and the circle stitching which really pulls the eye to the middle of the page. Just wonderful. In addition to the 3 kits, Paula added the following products to her page: Star Chasers Kit (flossy stitches), Stitching holes, Pinned Photo Frames, Daylily Paper Pack (white paper) all by Katie Pertiet as well as the Torn n Tattered Paper Templates by Anna Aspnes. 

Page by Wendy McKeehan

I decided to work this product into a totally NON spring page. Yeah, all that talk about jonesing for spring and I go and do this page. But I wanted to show that this very feminine kit can be used for boy pages too. I did a lot of recoloring. In addition to recoloring all the papers, I desaturated the hemp ribbons so they matched the hat better and even turned the peony pink alpha to blue for my page. I also added a few other products to my page. Cabana White Paper and Graphic Pop Circles Brushes by Katie Pertiet, D&W Tuckables by Kellie Mize and DinoFabulous Page Kit by Anna Aspnes (for the grungy staples). In honor of the big staple discussion on the General Digital Talk board I found a fun and different staple to tied the girls over until Katie comes up with her uber cool staple set. I should also tell you that this page was totally inspired by Lenasmommy. I didn’t get around to scraplifting her last month, so I decided to honor her mad design skills on the blog this week.

Page by Debbie Hodge

Look at this awesome heritage page! I don’t think Debbie and Mark could be any cuter. I love how Debbie worked these whimsical products into a darling vintage page. The oval frame just adds to that feel and really makes this page work. The only thing that Debbie added to this page was the Vintage Photo Frames No. 5 Curled and Flat by Katie Pertiet.

Thanks so much for stopping by the 3K3W challenge this week! If you’d like to join in on the challenge, we’d love to see your work. Just remember to post it in the 3 Kits 3 Ways Gallery.