Tuesday, May 24, 2011

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge #171

It was fun seeing layouts on the bike theme! Lots of different types of bicycles. Thanks so much for playing! The HAITA winner for challenge #171 is Tracee with her layout 'Carefree'. Tracee created such a sweet layout and we love the bubblewrap stamped background, all the borders, cute owls, the little key, bicycle badge and the cute photos.



Congrats Tracee! You have been added to our How Awesome Is Too Awesome? Hall of Fame!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Challenge #172 - Inner Geek {May 23 - June 5}

This week celebrates National Geek Pride Day. Now, I know we all have a little geek inside of us. Let's scrap about it! Show us in a layout something that's a little geeky about you (or a loved one)! We'll be using prime numbers on our layout.


Use:
2 photos
a 3 word title
5 different patterned papers
7 stickers
11 metal items
13 buttons

Have fun and enjoy your inner geek this week!

Here is the layout created by our May guest designer, Sharon Bessinger, and some thoughts from her: "This was great fun!! Loved the Inner Geek Inspiration! I qualify on so many levels! Thank you for the challenge, and for the invite to be a guest designer!!"


Amanda - Ok, so don't laugh too hard at my geeky photos! I admit I had a hard time with all of the buttons...sorry if I went overboard with the challenge! But I had fun with the geeky photos! I got to play with the new Echo Park Summer Days collections...so fun!

Janet M - These picture would have never been scrapped if you hadn't come up with this fun challenge. They were on the CPU because they were taken a couple of years ago I had to search my files for them. Thanks for the great challenge showing off my Geek side.
The elements for all this were fun to incorporate into the layout.
Perfect place to use the phone dial stickers also.

My journaling is: Just because I was born when we still had rotary dials on our phones and color TV wasn't even available doesn't mean I can't keep up with all the times.
Moving along with all the changes is difficult at times but I'm pretty good with my computer, a wizz on the cell phones and repairing my hard drive - a piece of cake.
Really I was completely amazed when I did the repair myself from the directions at the store.
I just don't want to have to do it again! Considering Chris and Linda were here at the time , it was perfect to get my picture of this accomplishment. I really think that if I hadn't had a couple of glasses of wine to help the repair would have been more difficult.

Great challenge.
Elizabeth: This was a cool challenge. I didn't really plan on scrapbooking these pictures, because I do not love them, but I saw them in my album and knew they would work perfect for this 'geeky' challenge. The funny thing is that I do love how the layout turned out and am glad I worked with these pictures. The other tricky part was getting all the metal on there, but I had fun with my stapler and they were on in no time :)



Debbi T: This was such a fun and clever challenge, Amanda! I proudly proclaim that I am a geek. I decided to document my passion for words, and I immediately thought of the Noel Mignon Office Party kit. I'd say the trickiest parts of the challenge for me were the 7 stickers (I used a bunch of labels and word stickers) and the 11 metal items--I used a bunch of brads (inside some of the buttons and on the striped strip at the top) and a clip as well as four staples on the title. Oh, and the 13 buttons were tricky for me, too--8 x 8 is a small canvas to work on--but fortuntely, I found these itty-bitty buttons in my stash. The photo shows me playing Bananagrams (I always win!).


Anna-Karin: It took me quite a while, and a bit of help, to think of a topic for my layout, but I think it qualifies as geeky (I am not so used to the term, have only really seen it in movies). The title translates ‘The Book Book’, and I am so happy to have done a layout about my 20 years of recording and reviewing books. I love books and since I was about 8, I kept a record of all the books I read, numbering each one, writing the title, author, number of pages, date I read it, and giving it a grade from 1-5. I also wrote a little summary/review and one or two quotes from the book. The last entry is from 2003, and I now regret having neglected my Book Book, because it is fun to read. Instead of using two photos, I scanned a page from my most recent Book Book. I tore out some blank pages from the actual book, printed the scanned page on the first one and wrote the journaling on the others and assembled them on the page like a book. I read the list wrong and used 7 patterned papers instead of 5. For the stickers, I used number stickers and the metal consists of brads, staples, and a bookplate. Thank you for this great challenge Amanda!



Fiona - Okay I was a little worried about the Geek side of things for this Challenge when I remembered that I had a friend take some photos for a frame that I wanted for my husbands work desk. She took 6 different shots of me pulling faces, well not really pulling faces more like expressions that he see's on my face from time to time, you know what I mean ladies...lol.

So I suppose scrapping has in some ways turned me into a scrapping nerd. Anyway I had printed these photos awhile ago and thought why not use them. I will post full details over on my blog. I also used the Colors from Color Combos Galore Palette.



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!




Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How Awesome Is Too Awesome? - Challenge #170

The layouts made for this challenge were all fabulous and it was really hard to pick a winner. The HAITA winner for challenge #170 is Belinda with her wonderful layout ‘The very thought of you makes me smile’. We love the dragonflies, the mixed lettering title, the sweet photo, fun embellishments and design.



Congrats Belinda! You have been added to our How Awesome Is Too Awesome? Hall of Fame! Thank you so much for playing everyone!

Monday, May 09, 2011

Challenge 171: Build a Bike {May 9 - May 22}

Happy Monday! Debbie Fitz here, with Challenge 171.


First, I'd like to introduce our guest designer for this month, Sharon Bessinger.




Here is a little about Sharon, in her own words: I am called “Mom”-- by three wonderful kids. I have a pretty cool husband too. I am a wee bit obsessed with paper, and have been playing with it for over 12 years. I am a stay at home Mom & silversmith, so when I am not running with scissors, I am lighting a torch.

You can see more of Sharon's work on her blog Sharon Scraps.

Now on to this week's challenge!

May is American Bike Month. Biking is good for you and the environment. Not only is it green, it gets you off the couch, into the lovely spring weather. You burn calories and save money. Many towns and cities around the country are having events to particpate in this celebration. This was the inspiration for my challenge.

Please create a layout that has:
-Your favorite color(s)
-2 circles for wheels
-2 pictures
-3 or more metal embellishments
-ribbon for handlebar streamers
-a flag or pennant
-something shiny for the reflectors
-And an image of a bike somewhere on your page.


The theme of the layout is up to you. Hope you have fun with it!


Guest Designer, Sharon Bessinger: Many thanks for letting me share as a guest designer... What fun I had coming up with the different challenges in this theme. My daughter and her friend, are so much fun to be around, and such colorful little characters, that it seemed natural to do this page about them.


Debbie Fitzgerald: My favorite colors are blues, pinks, and yellow. I used a variety of patterned papers from Fancy Pants and Crate Paper. I created my "flag" with a label sticker from My Minds Eye. My buttons are my circles, and also my metallic embellishment (along with the pink flower). I used some older Dear Lizzy Thickers items for my bike, the ribbon, and the sparkly chipboard photo corners. My layout is about how my daughter just seems to be growing up so fast. Sigh.

Anna-Karin: I love my bike, so I had lots of fun making a bike-themed layout. I don’t really have favorite colours, so instead I used some of the colours I like (kraft, green, yellow and bits of red). For the circles I used really old Scrapwork Hugz and placed a patterned paper circle looking like a wheel in the middle. I used a bike charm, three screw eyelets and a dog tag for the metals, a ribbon looking like a bike road with a mid-line and made a banner. The title letters were made with a faux-metal technique, using UTEE and silver embossing powder and stamping into the hot UTEE for texture. I also silver embossed a line as a road at the bottom of the layout. The background was stamped with two different bicycle stamps. Thank you for this fun challenge Debbie!

Journaling: Bicycles are the best means of transportation: fun and wonderful, gives you a feeling of freedom, exercise, you see much more than from a car, environmentally friendly, you get to be out in nature, cheap, no waiting for busses or trams, no queues, easy to park, quick, but more than anything – nothing beats a bike ride.


Debbi Tehrani: This was such a fun and clever challenge, Debbie! Pink has been my favorite color ever since I was a little girl, so I used almost all pink on my layout. My layout is called "Home Spun--The Sequel" because I made a layout last year called Home Spun when my friend rented a cotton candy machine, and it's now becoming something of a tradition .I used an old Noel Mignon kit to make my page, which had all the elements I needed to meet the details of the challenge, except for the bicycle, and I was wondering how I was going to add that--silly me, leaving it for the last minute--and lo and behold, I found a BasicGrey brad in my stash that had a little bicycle on it. I used a Creative Scrappers sketch as the inspiration for my page design.


Janet M. This was really a fun challenge and gave me a chance to get a page done about my new bike that my husband got me for my birthday last year. Finding my paper with the bicycles on it really determined my color of the layout but lately I have loved using the greens, oranges and yellows so I'm happy I found the base paper.
Everything else on al the elements came together so easily - loved this challenge Debbie- thanks for it, what a perfect thing to get this picture done.

My journaling is: It's the perfect birthday gift, I needed a new bike to have up here. I miss my riding time in Florida even if I'm not out breaking records it's some exercise and such a great time to just relax and enjoy seeing everything around. Bob did a perfect job picking it out so perfect I had to give it a photo session to show off all the fun details on it.


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!