Shawn Michaels HBK

I am not sure what I was thinking when I did this LO with Shawn Michaels, the Heartbreak Kid, The Showstopper, Mr Wrestlemania etc. In retrospect I probably wasn´t. It was the green from HBK´s jacket that I wanted as a base but somehow I chose something in a completely different tone (even thought its closer in real). Breaking hearts, yes, and the text from the bottom photo, yes, and also the ribbon and the name that reminded a bit of HBK´s tattoo. All good ideas really but when put together, no! I see now what I should have done. A different green paper and a much larger broken heart would have done it. Of course I would have to place the other stuff differently, and probably loose the top photo but I actually think that would work. Lots of ideas for one LO is fine but if you cant get the ideas to work together, well, then one should contenplate on doing something else and not as I just go bang on and hope for the best! Papers are nice though, Basic Grey, Crate and something I cant remember the name of. One of these days I will just have to make a new one.

A-Train

There are two ways for me to find inspiration from the photographs I use in my layouts. The first is of course the normal, colours, shapes and the actual motif. The other way is what the persons in the photographs represent. Take this one for instance. The giant person who on the photo is squeezing the daylights out of my son goes under the name of A-Train, or at least he did when he was in the WWE. So instead of going with the white & black colours in the photograph I went more for the character and the name when deciding on how to decorate this one. The A represents his name of course but its also a tunnel where the speeding train comes rushing out. To create a feeling of speed I cut out my own letters and had them connected to the A/tunnel. The tracks are merely there as a decoration and to emphasize the "train"-theme and also to get a balance in the LO with the tracks laid out in a similar fashion as the A. I am not trying to sound like an artist or anything like that, God knows I have created some really useless LO`s, I am merely trying to explain how I think when I "create". Everything on this LO is also originally made and cut out by me and yes, its Basic Grey!

Below you see a close-up of the letters and the track. I used 3D-cushions for the letters to enhance the speed-effect and gluedots for the rails on the track to make them look more real.

And to finish things off, A-Train left my son unhurt even though I wished he had squeezed a bit more sense into him!

Stacey Keibler

This LO is with Stacey Keibler, former WWE-Diva, Dancing with the stars-star and actress, and of course my darling daughter. This one I really enjoyed to do since the colours in the photo were so thankfull to work with. Its usually a lot of dark photos of big wrestlers wearing dark clothes so with this one I could go "all in" to our paper stock. I used papers from Basic Grey of course but also Bohemé and different CS. I really enjoy cutting out swirls and shapes, it takes time but its well worth it in the end. Also laying some of the swirls over the photo and the photo mat creates a very nice effect, or at least I think so. Some bling, some flowers and some stickles as well and one of my better LO´s was ready. The only thing I was not entirely happy with is the namestrap. The colours should have been the other way around to match the photo with Stacys strap and her blonde hair, but still, this is one of the few I am really happy with.

Gregory Helms

Less is more is a saying and on this LO I quite agree. Notmuch has been done on this one which has a paper from My Minds Eye as a base. I then used a tool (you will have to excuse me, I can mention about a thousand wrestling moves like that but remembering what the scrapbooking-stuff is called, totally blank!) from Fiskars to dry emboss the corners of the paper and dabbed some goldcolour on it. The photo of Gregory Helms I cut out by hand and then took some CS to extend the cape and use it as a photo mat. The hardest part of this LO was to talk my wife into writing the name in calligraphy. It was well worth it though. She writes beautifully and after I heat-embossed the name it was more than enough with embellishments, less is more sometimes!

Randy Orton times two

WWEs badboy number one is Randy Orton. There are many stories about him getting involved in troublein real life. We have met Randy twice and we can only say good things about him, he is truly a nice person who has really given us time and just because of that he is one of our favorite WWE Superstars, heel or not! I did want to do something special with the photos and I thought I had the perfect paper when I found this one from Creative Imaginations. The tribal pattern matched Randys tattoos perfectly and the colours where just right for the top photo. I just added some homemade letters to match the pattern and a Basic Grey paper as a photo mat that blended into the layout. I was more than happy but then I looked carefully at it. Not good at all! Its just not enough and that is a problem I do find quite often when working with this beautiful designer papers. They are so nice you dont want to change them and just adding photos on them does not feel creative at all. Anyways, I made up fo my lack of creativity on the next Orton LO.

This one I did not do much on either but I did do something original, and that is really what scrapbooking is about to me, trying new ways and trying things that you dont see a lot. Here I used a Basic Grey Dasher paper as background and it almost looks like sparks from the firework on the bottom photo and another Basic Grey paper that looked just like Randys shirt. I cut some strips out and had it run "through" Randy and added some drops for effect. The title I heatembossed on a title-mat that was similar to the Wrestlemania-sign on top. Its not really much more than the top LO but its something of my own and therefore something I am much more pleased with. And it does really look a lot better when seeing it for real.

Funaki

My Funaki LO took some time to make since it was a lot of cutting involved but it was still an easy LO to make. Sometimes, and this does not happen very often, I do get bright ideas and using the colours and Funakis japanese heritage as inspiration for the LO was one of them. One of the cheaper LO´s I have made as well since I only used two sheets of cardstock and some scrap-parts for the letters that are "You are not the boss of me". One thing I did forget was to chalk but since this was in the beginning I have forgiven myself. However I will do something similar in the future with another wrestler of japanese heritage and when I do the chalk will be right there with me. Still, I quite like this one!

Nunzio

Simplicity is often the word when I try to do something, and that also applies to my scrapbooking. The idea for this LO was easy since Nunzio is of italian heritage and with Basic Grey papers I did not really have to work so hard on this one. Some Crate paper for the photo mats and a couple of copper brads and I was ready. Probably one of the easiest and quickest LO´s I have ever made but still one of my favorites.