Welcome to this week’s 4 Play challenge!  I scoured the shop trying to find 4 kits that would work great together to help you scrap your memories.  I hope I’ve succeeded.  For those of you that don’t know what the 4 Play Challenge is, it is a weekly post where we feature 4 kits (3 $1 kits and 1 free!) and challenge you to use ONLY those 4 kits to create a layout.  To help you get your mojo going, 4 of our uber-talented Decorators take this challenge on as well to inspire you.

Here are the picks for this week:

Sunlight’s Delight Papers by Tiffany Tillman
Scarborough Fair: Open Air Paper vol. 1 by Deena Rutter
Some Like It Hotter Hodgepodge by Mye De Leon
My Life In It by Juliana Kneipp

And here is some inspiration from our Decorators:

Layout by Jennifer Valencia

Jen says: I loved the fresh colors, especially the oranges and greens, which made me think of lettuce and carrots, and THAT made me think of a conversation with my daughter about where bacon comes from. (Because, BLT? And bunnies eat carrots, and some people eat bunnies too, and it’s hard to tell kids that people eat bunnies, just like it was hard for me to tell my daughter that we get bacon from pigs. So you see: pretty greens/oranges = convo about bacon.) I found some cliparts on the web, and used the gorgeous colors from our 4 designers to create a lovely bucolic setting for my clipart animals, one of whom is going to have a VERY rough day when his/her question mark is finally answered. Now maybe you don’t have bacon in mind when you see these colors, but I’m eager to find out what you DO scrap along with them! Please share. If it’s bacon, I’ll be extra excited.

Layout by Mary Rogers

Mary says: I love the color choices this week….orange really is my go to color lately, works with so many layout themes. My daughter and I spend a lot of time at the pain clinic and this time I remembered to bring my camera. The waiting room is always decorated so nice, I am sure to try and distract you from what is about to take place. Madison isn’t buying any of it!! anyway, I blended a few of the papers for my base to soften the edges a bit, popped on a frame from Ju’s kit, added my title and journaling and a heart clip (I erased the clip part from it). I placed the hodge podge behind the photo and extracted a few circles from it to place on the frame. I added the papers (from both Tiffany and Deena’s kits) under the photo to make it pop.

Layout by Carey Bridges

Carey says: The great color combinations of the four kits go so well together! I had a lot of fun working with the 4play kits to create this layout. With the fun paints and elements, I knew I wanted to create a fun and playful layout. I chose some silly photos my son and I took with my iphone. They are not great quality photos, but they captured a fun moment and a glimpse into our relationship and personalities. To incorporate the photos, I kept them small and created a filmstrip look to showcase the progression and also keep with the playful mood. There’s a lot going on in this layout, so I repeated chipboard arrow circles to draw attention to the photos. I also used Robyn Meierotto’s Cut It Out – Edges and Blocks to add some paper strips along the side to help balance the page. Don’t be afraid to use less-than-perfect photos – they can tell a great story or capture a moment too.

Layout by Jennifer Flaherty

I had the basic design of the page laid out before I even knew what photo or story I was going to tell!  This was because I wanted Tiffany’s orange paper to play a pretty prominent role in the layout because I loved it so much, so I designed the page around it.  Then I selected a pretty generic photo of my daughter that was not connected to a specific story.  Next, motivated by Jen V.’s journal-centric page above, I thought hard about a memory I wanted to share that didn’t have a photo connected to it.  I used Deena’s papers as the background paper and to mat the words to the song that my daughter found so amusing.  Finally, I used Mye’s hodge podge and Ju’s elements to add the finishing touches to the page.

Don’t forget that today only (ends Monday at midnight PST), you can get each of these kits for only one dollar, and one is even FREE!  So go grab them quick and play along. Upload your layout using these four kits to the DHD Gallery by next Sunday, then come back here and post a link to it.  Not only will you learn to stretch your kits, but you could win a gift certificate to DHD!

**Congratulations to Barbara Sokee for winning a DHD gift certificate for last week’s 4 Play Challenge for her layout, Effortless!**

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Tags: 4 Play, deena rutter, Juliana Kneipp, Mye De Leon, Tiffany Tillman