Monday, January 31, 2011

#164 Jan. 31- Hot or Cold

Janet here starting off my first challenge of 2011.

Hot or Cold take your pick.

It's winter here but I know it's not the same season for everyone. It's can also be a really long season if your in the snow and cold.

For this challenge I want you to create a layout that showcases your favorite drink--hot or cold is fine.

Then a countdown about it-
5 -embellishments
4- patterned papers
3- word title
2- circles ( can be buttons or brads)
1- photo

Have fun and I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.
Janet- We have a tradition along with all the Christmas baking of every year coming up with something fun to do for a hot chocolate recipe. A couple of years ago this was our choice and it was a big hit. I included the second page of the layout - it's going in my recipe book.



Anna-Karin: Such a fun idea for a challenge and I am happy to have scrapped the story about how I started to drink coffee. I didn’t have a coffee related photo developed so instead I used a photo from the month before I started to drink coffee, where I still have a cup of tea next to me. The chipboard letters and brackets were painted brown and then embossed with distress embossing powder, which makes them look almost like coffee powder. I used patterned papers and text stamps relating to the reason for why I started to drink coffee in 2007. I also used a piece of a coffee sleeve, on top of the tag. Thank you for this great challenge Janet!!

Journaling summary: I never particularly liked hot drinks. I could drink a hot chocolate now and then, but not tea or coffee. I started drinking tea while studying, but had the rule of ‘no tea after three’, since I cannot sleep if I drink caffeine too late. One day in early 2007, I was standing in the kitchen, planning to make myself a cup of tea and then continue editing the thesis, when I looked at the coffee and knew that if I made myself coffee I would be less tired. I was thinking that if I drink coffee now, I am going to be stuck, which was indeed the case. Since that day, I have drank coffee. Although I drink much less now, I want that cup of coffee in the morning. With milk, but no sugar (I really don’t like the taste of sugar in coffee), but in fact I still don’t think it tastes particularly good. I was so sure that I would never be a coffee drinker, as a child I could absolutely not understand why anyone would drink the vile stuff voluntarily.




Debbi T - This was a really fun challenge because I love scrapping about my tea obsession! I just recently made a layout documenting my very favorite tea, so I thought I'd put a little twist on this challenge and scrap about my tea cupboard. I had just received my February Work in Progress kit, and the October Afternoon Modern Homemaker was the perfect thing to use for my page!

I always have a hard time with the challenges that limit the number of things to include, so I counted my five embellishments as: 1) the chipboard lady, 2) the tags, 3)the cluster at the bottom, 4) the vintage tea ad, 5) the hidden journaling card, which reads:

Every afternoon, I come home and open my tea cupboard and decide which tea I'm going to enjoy that night. Right now, I have exactly 64 different teas. Sometimes I'll drink one flavor all evening, cup after cup; other days, if I'm in the mood for variety, I'll select a bunch of different ones. Opening my tea cabinet every afternoon makes me happy. {Journaled January 27, 2011}



Amanda - Ok, so I hate coffee and most hot beverages. I used to adore Dr. Pepper but I gave up all sodas. Iced tea is great. But what's really my favorite...COCKTAILS! (haha I swear, I'm really not a lush!) I love Margaritas, and Long Island Iced Teas, and Pomegrante Martinis...you name it. So if it's with lots of ice and a straw, then it's for me!
Elizabeth: Love to do a challenge about my love for coffee. I am known for my particular coffee desires, so I thought 'a coffee Snob' layout would be in order :P. I combined this challenge with the Color Combos Galore to help pick out a colour palette. I have a few more than 5 embellishments, but I think that is okay :).
To play, and have a shot at being chosen for our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and creating as a HMITM Guest Designer, just share your layout through Mr. Linky below! We can't wait to see what you create!

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Challenge #163 - One of a kind (Jan. 17 - Jan. 30)

Happy New Year from me!! I hope 2011 will be a year filled with happiness and lots of scrapbooking for everyone.

There are many 1’s in today’s date, so I thought I would use that as a theme for the challenge, and also since this is the first month of the year.

My challenge is to create a layout using:

1 color (you can use a neutral color in addition to the one color if you want to)
1 die cut shape
1 bird, butterfly or wild animal accent
1 sheet of patterned paper (or less)
0 letter stickers
7 other items

I hope you think it is a fun challenge! Looking forward to seeing what everyone creates!

Anna-Karin: I used shades of yellow with just a few touches of white. The layout is done on canvas which was painted and then dipped in water to make the paint look like watercolour. The die cut received the same treatment. Then I stamped and stitched on top of the canvas. I also used a chipboard bird painted with crackle paint and sponged with a bit of pearl paint for shine. I used a small piece of yellow patterned paper and white embossed tickets, sentiments and a journaling block on top of it. The title letters were stamped and then I stitched along the outline.




Debbi T: Well, you sure know how to challenge a girl, Anna-Karin! I'm a color junkie, and this was HARD for me, LOL! Thankfully, you let us add some neutrals! I also found it hard limiting myself to the "7 other things," so I used 7 types of things, thus I have more than 7 things. Is that cheating? (Sorry for the awful photo of my layout--I had to take it indoors.)






Debbie F: Thanks Anna-Karin for a great challenge. I chose pink for my color, and decided to use cream/tan for my accent color. My die cut is a K & Co flower, and I used a sheet of Crate Paper for my patterned paper. The beige and white sheet behind my picture is the packaging from the lace frames. Not using letter stickers was tough. I dug out these OLD (we're talking ancient) Chatterbox stencils, which I backed with pink cardstock. For my other things... chipboard, flowers, brads, a journal spot, inks & Glimmer Mist, stickers, cardstock and borders. (Hmm, that's more than 7, isn't it?)




Elizabeth: Fun challenge! loved using monochromatic colour scheme and challenging myself to not use letter stickers! tough one there! I pulled out a rubon for the title and used kraft cardstock as my accent colour. Simple layout...




Janet- This was a challenge to create with only one color but once I got satrted it was fun to come up with - I cut pieces of cardstock and my pp into pieces and then distressed the edges and sewed some of the edges down. My birds are fabric pieces and the little fox is chipboard.


We hope you can play along and look forward to seeing what you create! Please post a link to your layout in the HMITM thread at Two Peas, so that we can all see what you create. Remember that we will pick a player at the end of each month to join us as guest designer for the following month. Have fun!!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge 162

I chose Marianne's layout for our HAITA Gallery. I love that sweet photo and all the pretty bits she included on her page. The touches of pink with the cool snowy hues add a perfect touch of warmth to this sweet page!

Monday, January 03, 2011

Challenge #162 - Out With the Old, In With the New {January 3 - January 16}

Happy New Year! We're back with the first challenge of 2011! We have a few changes for the coming year. First, we are going to be posting our challenges every other Monday. The weeks just fly by, and this will give our players a chance to have more time to participate in the challenges. Second, we will select a player each month to join us as a guest designer for the following month. This should be a fun addition to our challenge!

Now on to this week's challenge: Let's dig into our new stash and also use some of our old--or get rid of it.

Use on your layout:



  • products from your newest batch of stuff

  • products that are your oldest, like from when you started scrapping--come on, you know you still have some of that old stuff hanging around-- and if you don't use it for this challenge, get rid of it!

and for the date 1/3/2011


  • one-word title

  • 3 patterned papers

  • 20 round things (buttons, brads, sequins, etc.)

  • 11 additional embellishments

Debbi T: I had so much fun incorporating old stuff with my new goodies that I just bought on Tuesday when I went on a "field trip" with my sister to a scrapbook store a couple of hours away. New stuff I used: The red polka dot MME paper, the Pink Paislee clear card, those ornaments, the Santa in the ballon, the sparkly silver letters, Mister Huey spray ink, and the journaling spots. Old stuff: I used FIBER and EYELETS! I thought for sure those would be doomed to languish in my stash forever. I also rescued some old patterned paper from way back when, Making Memories definition stickers from many, many years ago, and the vintage holiday images.







Anna-Karin: Happy New Year!! Such a great idea for the first challenge of the year. I used some my newest patterned paper (Basic Grey and Webster's Pages) and a new glitter ribbon and a whole bunch of old stuff. When I started scapping I got a ton of eyelets. I have no idea why I thought I needed so many eyelets. I used eyelets for the 20 round things and squashed them a bit to give them a different look. The crazy foam frogs are very old, I had totally forgotten about them. I also used some really old silver outline stickers, that I got when I started to make cards (which was quite some time before I started to scrap). The title is wordplay and a bit hard to translate, it means both ‘grassy’ and ‘terrible’. I used flower soft on the chipboard elements to imitate grass. Thank you for this fun challenge Debbi!

Journaling: You are not that used to grass yet and the grass where we took these photos was particularly sharp. You started to crawl away happily to discover exciting things, but soon realised that the grass was scary. You crawled like a cat and tried to touch the grass as little as possible. And then you got really sad. After a while it went better, but you didn’t want to crawl and you touch the grass suspiciously on many of the photos. The second time we went to the grass to take photos it went better and you crawled around a lot.



Elizabeth: This was fun, fun, fun! I have had these pictures sitting around all year and I finally tackled them! I had so many little pictures, that I decided to make them into circles and include as many as I could. I added extra stickers from Basic Grey to make 20 circles. I also used really old letter stickers and new journaling spots. The purple paper is very old Chatterbox and some 'older' Basic Grey green paper. Thanks for the great challenge Debbi!



We hope you will play along. Please post a link to your layout on the HMITM thread at the Two Peas Pub so we can see what you create!