I'm The Only One Who Can Love You Like That

When I heard that one of our weekly challenge themes at Scrapz.biz was going to be "Gelati" last month I was so excited! So many possibilities came to mind about photos I could scrap, colour combos it evoked, techniques it inspired, etc etc.

I was assigned the Base Jump challenge which is where I start off giving you the bare basics of a page and you get to take it from there. It's always fun to see the totally different interpretations of the page by different people. But I feel like I have to keep it fairly simple and straight-forward, at least to begin with. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, and I do love a bit of linear scrapping every now and then. As long as I can still fling around a bit of paint at the end!!

I went with a lot of quite bright colours for my page, which isn't perhaps what you first think of with the theme of "Gelati" but it just seemed to work much better with these pictures of Moodles enjoying her (almost neon) frozen treat at her birthday dinner.

I'm really trying hard to include more memorabilia on my pages this year as I think it will be an extra meaningful touch in time to come, so I've included one of my daughters birthday cards right in the midst of my layout. With plenty of embellishment around it you can barely even notice it as a birthday card hey?

Supplies:

American Crafts vanilla	Crate Paper Random Pattern	October Afternoon Boarding Pass Venice	October Afternoon Boarding Pass Sydney
October Afternoon Boarding Pass Amsterdam	October Afternoon Boarding Pass alphas	Crate Paper Random Alphabet Stickers	Crate Paper Random Accent Cuts
October Afternoon Sidewalks Miscellany	Crafters Workshop Punchinella	Studio Calico Mister Huey Calico White

InLinkz.com

Calvinball points = 2

Calvinblog points = 1

Total = 13.5

Confetti Card

So I joined the ranks of those who are going with the confetti craze... and I did love it!
Makes for a happy fun Birthday card don't you think?

I thought I would get a little organised by having a stash of pre-emptive 6th birthday cards ready to go for this coming year. And I think I could get away with this being uni-sex?

Well, that's it for today I'm afraid.
It's off to bed for me.
Night duty you see.

Calvinblog points = 1

Calvinball points = 0.5

Total = 10.5

They Won't Let you Remember

Lucky I've got quite a backlog of projects to share with you if I'm going to try and keep up with this daily Clavinblogging idea isn't it?
Still, I make no promises.

So this was last week's effort for my Scrap Write Now challenge on the Scrapz.biz forum. The whole idea behind this challenge is to encourage you to get more journaling onto your pages and to tell your story.

The story behind this page is how my Dad and brother went to Hong Kong last year and as part of the experience they each had a tailor-made suit fitted. The problem only came when they both wore their new suits to a family wedding a few months later and not only realised they looked identical to each other, but they no longer fit so well either!

Lately all our weekly themes at Scrapz.biz have been product focused, and for this challenge the key 'ingredient' was paint. There are so many different ways to add paint to your layouts, and they don't have to be scary at all :-) On my layout I used my JBS paint dabbers and a stencil to add some background details and I also swiped them across my white buttons for some coordinating colour. Using the paint dabbers means there's not even any mess to clean up!

I also cracked out my gesso to tone down some of the distracting bright background colours where I wanted to let my title stand out (for example) and those cute scissors which I cut with my Silhouette.

Supplies:

October Afternoon 5 and Dime Jawbreakers	Cosmo Cricket Clementine Olivia	Cosmo Cricket Colour Picks Dandelion / Grass	Cosmo Cricket Clementine Phoebe
Echo Park Victoria Gardens Windchime	Echo Park Victoria Gardens Sunshine	Echo Park Victoria Gardens Cheerful Words	October Afternoon 5 and Dime Rock Candy
October Afternoon Boarding Pass Amsterdam	Jillibean Soup Sweet and Sour Soup - Sour Salt	Jillibean Soup Sweet and Soup Soup - Shredded Cabbage	October Afternoon Mini Market stickers
Crafters Workshop stencil Houndstooth	Gesso	Jenni Bowlin paint dabber Lemon Drops	Jenni Bowlin paint dabber Chicken Feed

InLinkz.com

And while we're on the subject, here's little sneak into this weeks' RUBON challenge that I'm hosting at Scrapz.biz. You can check out the full project here.

Calvinblog points for today: 1

Calvinball points for today: 2

Grand total: 9

A little story...

all about me!
Yep, that's what the current challenge is at Once Upon a Sketch.
(sorry to disappoint if you thought I was about to tell you a story about myself!! LOL!)

This time around we want you to journal all about yourself and something you're good at! And combine it with this beautiful sketch by Nadia of course :-)

This is your chance to win a Guest Designer spot for next month's challenges!!
Or one of our fabulous prizes such as this kit from Berry71Bleu:

Or these paper collections from Feature Art:

and more! Find out all the details on the OUAS blog. You know, if you enter a page in our challenge that's going to be worth 2 Calvinball points!!

Calvinblog points: 1
Bonus points: 1 (weekly handicap point for being a paper scrapper!)
                       1 (for working wounded.... or at least I'm claiming them because I just started night duty)

Calvinball

Calvinball? Have you heard of this before (in the scrapping world I mean?)

So I've been doing a bit of hanging out in the Jenni Bowlin Studios Mercantile forum this month because 1) it's a cool place to be and the girls are so friendly there, and 2) because I just so happen to be the Guest Designer this month! EEEEEEEKKKKkkkkkkkk!!! Can you believe it? I just about fell over when I got an email from Doris Sander asking if I would be interested, except I was already in bed so that was lucky (anyone else check their email first thing in the morning before their eyes have even adjusted to the light? Or is that just me?)

Oh my gosh, the DT at JBS are second to none! It's like a roll call of all my scrappy idols in one place, and I am so nervous that my work is going to be alongside theirs in direct comparison. But as I said, the girls are so friendly and have been so encouraging. My gallery reveal is on the 10th, so I'll just show you some sneaks for now ok?

Anyway, back to the Calvinball story....
So the idea is that this is a blogging and scrapping challenge that runs for the whole month of March and you accumulate points as you go along. The interesting part is that the rules are pretty much made up along the way and can change at any time!

Currently as it stands the scoring is as follows:
layouts = 1 point
The layout is the gold standard. All other projects are measured against the almighty layout. For example, 4 cards = 1 point, 2 mini-album spreads = 1 point, altered art pointage is awarded at the viewers discretion (there might be arguments. It's calvinball).

Blogging every day = 1 point, but if you blog after missing a day then it's only 1/2 a point. 

Scrapping for a challenge = a bonus point

Linking on Facebook and/or Pinterest = 1 point

And there's plenty more new rules to come I'm sure!
So I'm currently starting on a measly 3 points, far below the bar that's already been set by Celeste Smith who's already up to 15. But there's time. There's definately time :-)

For a start, I'm going to have 5 JBS layouts and a mini-album to collect on. That's right, I created all that in a mere 48 hours!! That's some kind of new record for me I'm sure. But the new Magpie collection which is featured in this month's Papercrafting Kit is stunning, and a perfect match for me. So all you Calvinball girls better watch out because at this pace you'll be eating my dust :-)

Smashin' It

Can you believe how long it's taken me to join the Smash craze?!! I can't believe I dragged my feet on this one! But don't worry, 'cos I'm making up for lost time now :-)

I've been churnning out the pages like some kind of scrapping/journaling machine.And lets not forget about then Instagramming all of them :-) Yes I know that makes for some poor quality images for the blogosphere, but it's quick and easy to be honest. I'll make an effort to take proper photographs of some of the other pages I've done so far if you're interested?

And speaking of interesting (and nail-biting exciting!!!!) if you look closely at the first photo and the last photo and can figure out which of the supplies are made by the same manufacturer then you'll have a head-start on working out who I happen to be Guest Designing for this month! EEEeekkkkkK!!!!!

I know some people question what you might do with a Smash folio because a short time ago I was one of them. But I am just loving that I can fill my pages with all my left over photos and left over products.

I'm using up all those photos that have either been scrapped before (and now I can tell a different side of the story) or never made it onto a page because of their quality. And for the first time I can honestly say I am 'killing kits' (as my definition of that is quite pedantic) because now I'm gluing down all the bits and pieces and making pretty things from them.

Do you Smash?
I'd love to see some links :-)