Scrapping Survivor

Scrapping Survivor began on Wednesday at GingerScraps.  I've never watched Survivor, so I'm not sure how this works, but I know people are going to be eliminated. I'm not even sure that my first layout meets all the requirements as I "interpreted" them a little. Here are rules for the first challenge:

• The LO must have at least one "Aged" Photograph.
• The "Aged" Photograph must be shown twice on the LO, the original and the aged version.
• Your LO can have additional photos BUT the "Aged" Photograph MUST be the largest and the focal point of the LO.
• Remember NO TEMPLATES in this challenge.

And here is my layout:

White Boots
Layout Credits:
Friday Afternoon by By Becca;
Just Dis-Stressed Out Samples by JustJaimee;
House of 3 Sampler Brushes
Fonts: Printcess, Porcelain
Photo Aging Credits:
House of 3 Sampler Brushes
TTV texture is  Texture-Fake TTV #1 (bus stop window) by Steffen Jakob
Photocorners by PSHero

The journaling reads:
When I was in third grade and making my First Communion, I wanted to wear white cowboy boots with my dress and veil. My mother refused to allow it and forced me to wear shoes. In a fit of anger I told her that I'd wear white cowboy boots when I got married. She said that would be fine. They weren't exactly cowboy boots, but they were close enough to live up to the dire predictions of an eight year old.

Backyard Blog Party at Unforgettable Moments!!

Hello! Today a backyard blog party starts on Unforgettable Moments blog. Head on over to Amy's blog to grab freebies, play games and have a lot of fun. During the days of September 16 through September 28 you will find many awesome "party favors," on Amy's blog. The "party favors" are freebies created by Amy's CT using her products.  Whenever a party favor is offered there will also be a coupon code to pick up the corresponding kit for 50% off. And on some of the days during the blog party you will be offered a piece of a full kit that hasn't been released yet called An Autumn Afternoon. Head on over to Amy's blog and check it out!

More Shanghai

I made this layout a couple of weeks ago during a slow, speed scrap:

Destination Shanghai
A Little Me time by Audrey Stromberg;
Crazy Beautiful by Fei-Fei's Stuff;
I'm Outta Here Word Art by Captivated Visions;
Ianthine by Captivated Visions;
Echoes of Asia by Jessica Sprague;
Sheng Xiao by ViVa Artistry;
This is Me by Captivated Visons;
The Joy of Life by Captivated Visions;
Fonts: OldNewspaperTypes

The instructions were:
1) choose your photo(s) (the amount is up to you) and choose 2 background papers. Attach one of your papers to the other paper some how with one or more fastener element(s) (with stitching, buttons, tape, staples, etc).

2) Arrange your photos on your layout, and tilt at least one. Matt, frame, OR stroke your photos however you want.

3) Add a title to your layout with an alpha. You can also add tags, WA, or font to enhance your alpha title if you'd like. Choose an element that can be placed over your title.

4) Add some journaling on your page. You can journal on the background paper, on a matt, or a journal tag- it is up to you. If you are not a "journaler" at least describe some details in the photo(s).

5) Choose 3 different elements and use each of them more than once. Use them however you want: Spread them around, cluster them, and tuck them all over your layout and around your photo.

6) Add some string and a scatter (spill, splat, etc.) and add two more things- anything you want.

7) Include any finishing touches.



I was very happy with the minimalist look I had going up until step 5. I worked hard with the minimum of 6 elements, plus string and a scatter until I was happy again. Thank goodness it was a slow, speed scrap! I'm not sure if I should strip out the clusters of flowers and string and scatter before printing or leave it as is. 

I recently purchased a credit tracker script by Anna Forrest Designs. It is amazing. It keeps track of every product you use and generates the credits for you. It will even do BB Code.  It has freed me up to scrap the way I used to.  I digiscrapped for about a year before really discovering galleries, and I freely scrapped with any product I wanted to from multiple designers  and didn't keep track of what I was using. When I truly discovered the world of online digital scrapbooking, I started keeping track of the products I used and I quickly found that sticking (mostly) to a kit made my life easier. I love this credit tracker, because now I can search through my stash and pick whatever product I want. Just look at how many different kits I used in the Destination Shanghai layout. I purchased the credit tracker with the add on panel that is only for PSCS 4 and 5 only , but there is also a credit tracker for PSE as well as one without the add on panel for PSCS 3 and above.

Cool Doggie & Urban Rebel by Monkey Mesh Designs

Monkey Mesh Designs is releasing a wonderful kit today. I saw the kit preview and immediately knew that I needed it to scrap my 2000 Halloween photos of my dog, Blue. Here is the kit preview:

Urban Rebel By Monkey Mesh Designs

And here is a page of my dog:

Cool Blue
Urban Rebel By Monkey Mesh Designs

The kit had a couple of pretty cool background papers with dimensionality. I had never seen background papers like those before. They inspired me to scrap totally outside my normal style. Here's a paper I fell in love with:

See what I mean? It looks like it has a floor. (And don't you just love that grunginess?) It inspired me to extract a photo of my cool dog, Blue and make this layout:

Blue
Urban Rebel By Monkey Mesh Designs

Now I've never extracted photos for a layout or cast shadows before, so this layout was a challenge for me. And the cast shadows are mostly off the page, but I was OK with that. I found some great tutorials for casting shadows on the web, they are here and here if you are interested.

Making the Most of Challenges & Final Body of Art Challenge

This is the final week of the Body of Art Challenge at DigiScrapConnect. The challenges must all be completed by September 7th, if you want to win the Sponsor Membership for the year. The final week focused on the brain and the challenge was "Our brain has two sides, which respond to things differently. Show us two sides in one layout". I chose to scrap about my schizophrenic scrappin' style.  One half of my brain likes clean & simple/graphic layouts and the other half likes lots of flowers, ribbons and layers. Here is my challenge layout.

What Is My Style

Pickles and Ice Cream by Digilicious Designs

Fantasy Cupcakes by Binty Design 

Daydreamer by Bintys Designs

Chocoholic by Starving Artist Designs

Ocean Breeze by Digital Harmony Design Studio

Fonts: StampActJumbled and Garamond

Now these are pictures taken during our last trip to the zoo and I need a double page layout for my album. I actually started this layout as a double pager about the zoo trip and when it was around 85% done, I cropped out this page and made the challenge layout. Later I returned to my zoo layout and finished it up. Here is the final zoo layout:

ABQ ZOO (click for larger)

Pickles and Ice Cream by Digilicious Designs; 

Fantasy Cupcakes by Binty Design; 

Daydreamer by Bintys Designs; 

Chocoholic by Starving Artist Designs; 

Ocean Breeze by Digital Harmony Design Studio; 

Buttoned Up by Farynar's Wings;  

Fonts: Garamond, CKJournaling

I'm still not sure what my style is, but I got another album page done and a challenge too! 

GingerScraps September Buffet

Today is September first and you know what that means, it is time for a fresh buffet at GingerScraps. Every month the GingerScraps Designers release a slew of coordinating products; such as mini-kits, templates, paper and element kits, etc. with a common theme and color palette. And on the first day of each month, all of these buffet items are on sale for a dollar each. However, this month, it is GingerScraps third birthday and in honor of that the buffet items will be $1 each for the first week of September. The theme for this month is birthdays.


I combined two of the buffet items to make this layout, a template by Unforgettable Moments and a mini-kit by Pixels by Jen:

Made with Love

It's My Birthday Template half-pack by Unforgettable Moments; 

It's My Birthday by Pixels by Jen;  

Fonts: Chalkboard, AYummyApology, CKJournaling

And here are the product previews:

It's My Birthday by Pixels by Jen

It's My Birthday Template Half-Pack by Unforgettable Moments

Continuing the 4th Vacation and Grab bag at GingerScraps

I am continuing to scrap my way through our Fourth of July Vacation layouts.  One of our very stops in DC was the Natural History Museum to see the Hope Diamond. The Hope Diamond has been removed from its traditional setting and placed in a more modern setting to celebrate its 50 year anniversary of being on display at the Smithsonian.  While we were there we took in the rest of the mineral and gem collection which includes:

The Logan Sapphire, which at 423 carats is the second largest known faceted blue sapphire.

A gold butterfly set with 333 fancy-colored Montana Sapphires.

A platinum flower brooch made of tanzanites surrounded by diamonds.

A natural sandstone formation from Fontainebleau, France. 

The Portuguese Diamond, the largest cut diamond in the collection at the National Museum of Natural History.

A veritable rainbow of minerals.

An ore specimen from Bayard, New Mexico of Chalcopyrite. The large brassy crystals of chalcopyrite were covered with black sphalerite and white dolomite.

And a gold nugget from the Maxwell Land Grant in Colfax County, NM. 

All of these can be found in my layout below.

Rocks (click for larger)

Block Party Template by Unforgettable Moments from the GingerScraps Free With Purchase grab bag; 

Smile For the Camera by Unforgettable Moments from the GingerScraps Free With Purchase grab bag;  

Fonts: CenturyGothic, CKPirateHand

And close ups of the two sides:

I had photos cross the half-way point in this layout, which I have never done before. I guess I'll find out if it was a good idea after it gets printed!

I used the new September "Free with 10 dollar Purchase" for this layout. It's by Unforgettable Moments with Amy Peck and it is free with a 10 dollar purchase throughout the Month of September. Here is the product preview.

And here are detailed previews of what's inside! (Click for larger images)