Substitution - scrappers best friend, check out my weekend layouts

I was cruising the scrapbook.com gallery the other night and came across a couple of gorgeous layouts that I couldn't resist scrap-lifting. Now the trick with a good scrap-lift is having the products used on hand, or being an expert in substitution. Being a designer and preparing kits for classes makes you an expert in substitution. I design at home so often when we decide which layouts we will use for a class we may not have what we need in stock, invariably we will need to substitute something to make up the kits. It's a very handy skill to have, when you see a layout that you like the design of but hate the colours - substitute with your own colour way. Scrap-lifting also includes taking elements from other people's designs, how they rolled that paper, altered that flower etc etc. So blessed with a rare six days off after a month of very long weeks at work I decided to unwind and recover with a scrap-lift weekend.

My first challenge was this gorgeous layout by Tarra Orr at scrapbook.com.

I love the colours and the concept in this, she did it as a no patterned paper challenge so she has created the background paper.
Here's my interpretation of Tarra's gorgeous design ....

My first challenge was to create the background, I chose to use my Ezy shade, using a blue / green combination my result was a lot softer than Tara's but I was happy with it. Next was the embossing down the centre I chose my new craft concepts flutterby plate to emboss some paper loft paper I had left over from a couple of years ago. Then I used perfect pearls kiwi to highlight the embossed areas. I used kaiser lace for the sides purely because I had it on hand and it worked quite well.
My next challenge was the stamp Tara used for the grasses, nothing close to be found so I grabbed my journal pen and drew them in, I was delighted with the result.Next challenge Tara's frame - ok into the scrapfx box of goodies, some swirls and doodads substituted very well. I altered them with Tim Holtz's frayed burlap distress inks, cut the ends off a couple to make them work and voila perfect frame.

Next the photo, I knew I had this shot of Eliza in Chas's hat from a few years ago I altered it to sepia, played with the hue to brown it up - and off to Echuca Camera House, Trista as usual printed it for me straight away - great service guys.
I chose a more peachy shade of flower because it worked best with my softer tones and pink pearl swirls  rather than white as it was what I had on hand, I used Kaiser white pearls on the frame and some flourish with a bling vines to finish off. I am delighted with the result and it's much prettier in real life.

My next challenge was also a Tara Orr design

I had to substitute everything but the centre circle for my design.

I had the paper for the centre but had used my Crate Paper Dear Prudence circle so I substituted with the Lemon Grass circle instead, I chose a darker background than Tara.
My biggest challenge was the vine and balls, after scouring Hobbysew the only ones I could find were  gold, so I hit them with some beige paint and they were perfect. The vines were from scrap ware and painted antique white and beige were perfect. I chose not to put the corners on to the background page. I substituted the hessian with some bone sinamay which I have had for ever.My tags were left over Pink Paislee Queen Bee range. I used my Irock white glam-rocks around the scallop.

I don't know who this layout belongs to, when I went back to find it I couldn't, so I'm sorry if it's yours but I loved the concept - didn't like the colours so substituted everything except the design.

I had some gorgeous river shots that I wanted to highlight and this design was perfect. I changed the colours to neutral browns and greens and this is what I came up with.

I chose the kaiser up up and away range of papers. I used my Friskers scallop border punch, and some chocolate brown cardstock to frame the photos.
I wanted to do some thing special to the Scrapfx bull rushes and have been wanting to play with flower soft for ages. I inked then smooched the stems, then used the flower soft to cover the rush heads, I was delighted with the results.

Next I found some tiny dragon flies in a scrapware sample pack I picked up somewhere and inked them black, I used black hotrocks and my Irock to make the dragon fly swirls.I found an old skeleton leaf from years ago, so I spritzed it with spun sugar and placed a flower over the base of the stem.Then I used my Kaiser tag stamp to create a tag to journal on.

I really had fun and found it quite challenging working out what I could use to substitute. I found I used a lot of stash that I have had for ages in these layouts which is always good and proves nothing goes to waste in scrapping.

Happy scrapping H