Wednesday 30 June 2010

Wednesday World Cup Extra 30th June

Our World Cup challenge this week is inspired by this little fella:


As Zakumi is the World Cup mascot, we'd like to set you the challenge of using Zakumi as your muse when creating a LO. 
Here are just a few ideas to get the creativity rolling: did you have a mascot that saw you through your exams and is still a fixture in your bedroom? How about those photos of a visit to the zoo that you've not scrapped yet? Perhaps you fancy scrapping in yellow and green? Or maybe you fancy using long threads like the lion's mane or spots on your LO?  If you'd like to find out more about Zakumi, he has his own Wikipedia page Wikipedia page and you can check out the FIFA website .

And we have yet more fabulous pages to share with you!  This week the Design Team is joined by the talented Kathleen Glossop who created this page for the challenge:



Kathleen told us: Ummm, so I had a go at the challenge, but I think I may have gone off on a tangent, lol! I don’t “plan” pages so I never know what I’m going to end up with! I started off with the Sassafras Lion and the yellow striped material...  You can view more of Kathleen's work on her blog.

And our World Cup Guest Designer - Sandie Dunne created this wonderful page:
 
This photograph was taken in April of this year at the zoo, where they were having a special children's week with face painting and children's crafts. I have so many zoo pictures and haven't gotten around the scrapping them so this challenge was a perfect excuse.

And Zakumi inspired our Design Team in the following ways:

Tessa



I was inspired by the polka dots and the color scheme.  I even took this picture at a soccer field :).  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't add any handmade flowers to this layout.  So I made heart embellies and a handmade title instead.  I love my Twinkling H2O's - they're watercolors infused with mica and I LOVE working with them!
 
Rebekah



I decided to try to keep the colours of Zakumi so chose some green and yellow paper with some complementary yellow paper and green flowers. The photos are of our Eurovision party at the end of May. We went all out on the Euro theme and I made desserts from 18 countries in mini form so that people could have all of them if they chose. Tony and I dressed up too :) I chose spotty paper because Zakumi has spots and added a thread below the desserts photo to represent his mane.

Lisa


Colours and spots for me : )
 
Amanda

I used the colours of the mascot to inspire my page, and I think the flower and doiley look a bit like a Lion's mane (come on, squint and tilt your head a bit..!) The flower is one that our Tessa made for me, and I've finally given in and stopped stroking and started using!
 
Anna


They may have painted elephants on parade in London but in Bath we have painted lions! I went to Bath recently and did a bit of lion spotting and managed to spot this guy wearing a England shirt, he's called Wayne Roarney!!! I had to scrap it!

We'd love to see your Zakumi inspired pages, link us up to your LO's using the link below and one lucky scrapper will be chosen to receive a box full of scrapping goodies courtesy of our Design Team :-)

Sunday 27 June 2010

27th June Sunday Challenge

Splish splash! Summer is well and truly upon us (well, most of us!) :) And so Amanda's challenge is really apt this week (but isn't it always!). Here's this week's challenge to get your teeth in to.

Splash! We want to see your pages about the beach, sunshine... anything summer-ish! How do you spend your summer holidays?



Need some inspiration? Look no further...

Amanda
This layout features a picture from the 1920s of my Great-Aunt who is now in her eighties, dressed in a pretty dress to be a flower girl at a summer wedding. It was a hand coloured b/w photo, so I used vintage hues of blue and yellow along with distressed papers to complement it and the summery theme.

And see that little yellow fabric covered frame? That has to be one of my favourite embellies ever, and the best thing is - it was made by Tessa! Yes, I was filled with dread as I put ink and glue within a 20 foot radius of it lol! I had fun making a little collage inside it out of stickers, rub-ons and paper.

Anna

There's nothing better than lazy summer days, is there?! Just to soak up the sun and relax.

I love the summery colours of these October Afternoon papers and thought they went perfectly with the photo.

Lisa

Nic

This theme was the perfect topic for me to scrap these photos I took on holiday last year.

I used several shades of glimmer mist and some stickles to create the background paper and drew some freehand swirls. I also used some sand to create the circle shape behind the main photo / star.

Rebekah


I find summer photos pretty easy to scrap. They're always bright, focused and fun so they lend themselves to scrapbook pages really easily. So I didn't have any photos for this challenge. Instead, I decided to print out some photos from google images that depict ways in which I will spend my summer this year. I also printed a title and the Buzz lightyear on to safmat and stuck them directly on to the page, and a post it note with a pin stuck in too. Some great bright papers from Cosmo criket, BG rub ons and bright summer stickers and some bunting stamped using banana frog stamps finish off the LO.

Tessa

My favorite part of summer is the extra family time during the week. All the daylight after dinner time means we can get outside and play as a family. During the winter and school year, it's just not possible to spend time with Daddy after dinner and before bed. But summer time - that's a different story!

Don't forget that to be in with a chance of winning this month's prize from Tessa's shop you'll need to link any of the projects you've created as a result of The Studio challenges by this Wednesday using the 'Add a link' icon here.

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Saturday 26 June 2010

The Studio June Challenges Link


It's been brought to our attention that you lovely people out there have been playing along each week but have been having trouble linking their work using the Inlinkz link at the end of each challenge :( Now that so many of you have found our new blog we want to make sure that you're able to share your LOs with us so whilst we look in to this I've created a link for all the Sunday challenges in June. Please do use it to share what you've been up to this month because we really would like to see what you've been up to :) (If you've already linked to the post on 6th June then you don't need to link again)

June Challenges recap:
6th June: Have you ever scrapped a page about someone you've never met? Now's your chance! It could be your idol, or just someone who has touched your life in some way, but you've never had the pleasure of meeting them.

13th June: I want to see your pages about the number 13! It could be that you're a firm believer in it being an unlucky number, or maybe it's been lucky for you. Perhaps you just want to list 13 things you love about your hubby. It's up to you, but 13 must be there somewhere

20th June: Grrr! What gets right on your nerves? Tell us all about it with a spot of creative therapy! Get it off your chest... you'll feel much better for it

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for the final Sunday challenge of the month. It's a good one :)

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Wednesday World Cup Extra - 23rd June

Well the World Cup is well and truly underway now and I hope the team for your particular country are making you feel proud and providing some golden moments of football magic, but if they haven't had you sitting right on the edge of your seat just yet, we have a brand new, shiny challenge for you this week which is inspired by some of those nail biting moments - the golden goals and perilous penalities!

This week, as some matches have to be decided by the golden goal and /or penalties we are challenging you to:

Use gold on your LO and to include 5 of something to represent the number of penalties each country gets to kick.

This week we are joined by yet more fabulous guest designers and we'd like to extend a warm welcome to firstly:
Janis Medina-Maghinay.
Here is Janis's take on our challenge:


Janis has used 5 gold pearls on her LO. You can see more of Janis's work over on her blog.

and secondly to Claire Wheatley. Here is Claire's take on our challenge:


Claire has used gold on her LO and 5 circles.You can see more of Claire's work here on her blog.

And welcome back to our Guest Designer for the duration of our World Cup Challenges - Sandie Dunne. Here is Sandie's LO for this challenge:

This layout is of my little one when she was only 8mths old. It used to be so hard to get her to smile for the camera, I must have caught her off guard! I used 5 different papers and 5 embellishments, which include 5 pearls, on my layout. The background has been splattered with acrylic paint using a toothbrush and the circle around the butterfly is done by just dipping the lid off of a small jar into the paint and quickly 'stamping' it on the paper.

And here are our Design Team's LO's:

Amanda

I made this page to remind me how much my other half and my son love each other, despite the fact that they fight like cat and dog at times! I used gold paint around my photo and 5 hearts which I hand cut from black cardstock.

Anna

When I saw this challenge about gold this photo came to mind, the famous golden gateway at Hampton Court. I cut of 5 leave shapes and ink them with gold, put gold embossing power on them and wiped some of the powder off so I was only left with patches of it on them. I really like to effect so I also did the same with the plain chipboard letters. I also curls some wire to put with the leaves.

Lisa

5 clouds, 3 of which are gold. Does that count ? : )

Rebekah
My LO is 'buttercup baby'. I used five papers/scraps for my five things including two prima packaging and the gold cardstock for the gold. I don't use a lot of yellow but my buttercup photo worked well in this case.

It's always great to see your take on our challenges, so don't forget to link us up to your pages using the link tool below. We also love giving away prizes so will be choosing one lucky participant at random at the end of our World Cup Extra feature to receive a pizza box full of scrapping goodies from our Design Team :-)

Tuesday 22 June 2010

Design Team Search!

I have some news for you this evening - we are searching for a new member for our design team!

It will be a contest taking place over the next few weeks. It's super easy to apply, all we need is for you to submit your absolute favourite (recent) layout that showcases your skills and style.

The DT will then select their favourite few layouts from those submitted, and those designers will be asked to create another page based on specific criteria. Those layouts will then be posted on our blog, where our visitors will vote for their favourite! The winner will join our DT for a term lasting until Jan 2011.

What is required from our DT members:

1. Maintain a regular presence on our blog
2. Commenting on followers' blogs and encouraging those who enter our challenges
3. Creating 1 page a week for our regular Sunday challenges, plus occasional extra challenges
4. Setting occasional challenges and other ad-hoc requirements, such as posting to the blog

Our site does not run for profit, just fun, so there is no payment (money or stash!) for your work. Products may be supplied to the DT on occasion by sponsors. Of course, you also have another string to add to your scrapbooking resume!

So, to apply:

1. Just email your favourite layout to amanda@scrapbook-101.com with DT call in the subject field and include a link to your blog, before Tuesday 6th July.

Finalists will be notified before 9th July and will have 1 week to create their layout for round 2.

Good luck to all who apply!

Sunday 20 June 2010

20th June Sunday Challenge

Didn't this week go quickly? It did for me anyway :) I think that you're going to like Amanda's challenge this week. I know that I did!

Grrr! What gets right on your nerves? Tell us all about it with a spot of creative therapy! Get it off your chest... you'll feel much better for it

And judging from these LOs I'm not the only one with something to get off their chest:



Amanda

My layout is about one of my favourite hang outs from when I was a child (and later as a teenager) - The Marshmallow Tree, as we called it. A beautiful spot by the river with the best tree to climb, ever! Yes, I was a bit of a tomboy.

I took Lewis and Tony to show them this spot, and discovered that Tesco has now built a big store behind the river, and a new housing estate has gone up. A bridge was built right across the river on top of where the tree used to be, to enable walkers to get to the footpath. I was so angry! I'm all for developing the area, but this was so unnecessary as 50 yards along the road is a walkway through the trees that takes you to the same place on the path. Why the need for the nasty concrete bridge?! GRRRR!

Anna



Trolley abandonment get on my nerves! Why can't people put their trolleys away properly?! It's not as if there aren't any trolley parks to put them in and even if they do make it to the trolley park they barely make it in properly. Well that got it off my chest!!!

I took one of the photos when I will on holiday recently and the other I took in my local supermarket I did get some funny looks from people! Following on from Rebekah's post about getting images from Google, I did the same and printed the stop sign off on stuck it on my layout.

Fabi I loved this challenge and tried to really scrap but also add a bit of fun in a theme that "shakes" us. So I took this picture from my husband, Francis, taken at a London pub. I think that his looks explain everything: He was tired of pictures and i was really GRRRRR because he never let me take a pic of him lol. And seriously, he is the person that can make me goes nuts and at the same time he is a very fun guy, so i tried to have both sides in this layout. The background I've done myself using a techinique learned Bianca from our team, with watercolor but altered it a bit and sprayed paint on it and let is slip through the page. I loved the effect!

Here some details.
LisaMy LO 'Love vs Hate'. I love my sister dearly. We are incredibly close and I miss her when I'm not with her, but I HATE smoking. Here she is at her wedding celebration. Now that all public places are non smoking in the UK, the minute you step outside, you step into a cloud of smoke. I hate it!!


Nic



One thing that always, without fail, makes me steam under the collar is spitting! I think it's a filthy, disgusting habit and it winds me up everytime I see someone do it. I decided to create a LO using a single chipboard blackboard page from a mini book I've never used, so I could create a chalk board 'writing lines' effect. I made a little mini easel to place it on from cardstock and had lots of fun creating ink splodges with black paint.

One of my pet hates is people spitting. I detest seeing people spit or the fresh remains of their filthy habit on the pavement. I think it's an uncouth and completely revolting thing to do. I mean, whats so wrong with using a tissue - no excuse, just plain bad manners!



Rebekah


I know that for a great number of people the planes being grounded during the volcanic erruption in Iceland was very irritating and expensive but for me it was great. I loved the clear blue skies without the scars left by planes. I loved the quiet despite living on a Heathrow flight path. I don't really notice them on a day to day basis but when they were allowed to fly again, I really noticed them and they really annoyed me. Gone was the tranquility and quiet. Gone were the clear blue, perfectly unaltered skies. And now that I've reminded myself of how quiet it was I'm noticing the noise again- Grrrr!


Tessa




One of the things that really makes me say "grrr" is when my kids or hubby don't listen! My husband will forget entire conversations, and too often my children are more like brick walls when I'm asking them to do something. It can be really frustrating, so I am working on my patience and trying to be as clear as can be. But, grrrr! It really bothers me!

Don't forget add your design using the link here to be in with a chance of winning that $20 to spend in Tessa's shop.




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Wednesday 16 June 2010

Wednesday Extra 16th June 2010

For the duration of the World Cup, our Wednesday extra feature will be replaced with additional challenges, all with a football (soccer) slant that we hope will inspire all - those who love the game, those who are not really that taken with the whole footie thing and those who fall somewhere inbetween! 

Each Wednesday we'll be sharing lots of inspiring takes on our World Cup challenges and the Design Team will be joined by a series of fabulous Guest Designers so without further ado, lets get going with this weeks challenge details!

This week we are challenging you to:

Scrap using only the colours on your country's flag (and black)

This week the DT are joined by three talented special guests, our first Guest Designer is Audrey Tan and here is her LO:

Audrey is from Singapore and lives in England. Both flags are white and red, so her LO represents both countries.  You can view more of her work over on her blog.

Our second Guest Designer is Lorraine Bilsby and here is her LO:
 
It was hard just using red & white! I didn't have many papers so had to improvise with paints, sharpie pens to alter the buttons and a bit of sewing on the felt.  To see more of Lorraine's work, visit her blog.

Our third Guest Designer who will be joining us for the all our World Cup Challenges is Sandie Dunne and here is her take on this challenge:
The colour of the Irish flag is Green/White/Orange.. and not 3 colours I thought I could do much with, but I decided to try tinting the photographs to represent the flag and then adding co-ordinating embellishments... I think it worked! My added black is the title and I love how this pops out against the background.

And here is what our Design Team created for this challenge:
 
Anna
Colours of the flag of course is red and white for England!
This layout is of my little nephew pulling many different faces for the camera! I used these photos as I thought my nephew's t-shirt went perfectly with the colour scheme. I stuck some old peel offs (I'm sure eveyone's got some!) on the background before I misted it to create the stars outlines, I'm really pleased with how it worked.

Fabi

This a canvas I've made and Pedro gave as gift for my mother in law. It says : Grandma Neusa, I love you".
I used a texture that has blue glitter and sprayed over all the canvas a yellow glimmer and some bits of light green.  The blue was a metallic paint and i used the top lid as a stamp (circles). Then for the white from BR flag Ive used some details such as the roses and the fabric.  The only thing out of BR flags was the heart...but I needed to include this one, lol.  So all colours are there: blue, yellow, green and white.
Im in love with working with canvas now...its a great material to scrap with.

Lisa

White and Red for me...England.
I've scrapped us all watching the footy match Saturday night.  I don't like football and neither do the kids, but we all ended up with England shirts on, glued to the game. It was a fab evening : )

Nic

As a complete non-footie fan, I've opted to create a page using the colours of the Union Jack flag - red, white and blue.  I wanted to make a page that was about something I view as quintessentially British and so chose to make a LO about what is to me, a UK landmark - the old style red telephone boxes.  Now whilst this might seem like a bit of an odd subject to scrap about, the sight of one of these (unfortunately, much rarer these days) does make me smile as in my youth, our local phone box was often used as a meeting place where we would gather to meet friends / a beau at the beginning and say goodbye at the end of an evening.  So lot's of nostalgic memories attached to this landmark for me :-)


Rebekah
Red and white's not too bad a colour combo, although it did need the black to give it something! I decided to keep to the footie theme and scrapped my feelings about World cup fever this year. The journalling reads:

I love the run up to the World cup and the camaraderie that it brings. I love to see the flags on cars and hanging out of house windows. It fills me with pride to be English. So it's with sadness that I see so few cars with flags flying and I don't remember seeing any flags hanging in houses. Perhaps that's because the media told us that flying the St. George cross is seen as racist by some people or perhaps it's because Capello has clamped down on it but...What world cup fever?'
Here's hoping England do well and the World Cup fever grows :)

Tessa




Red, white and blue! Go USA!!!

We'd love to see you playing along and don't forget that we have a fantabulous random draw prize for one lucky participant of our Wednesday extra World Cup challenges - a pizza box full of scrapping goodies courtsey of our Design Team.  All you need to do to upload your entry is to enter your details using the link tool and we'll be able to see a thumbnail image of your project :-)

Sunday 13 June 2010

13th June Sunday Challenge

Hi, how's your week been? Good I hope. This week's challenge is based on today's date, which of course is unlucky for some. So without further ado here is Amanda's challenge for you today:

I want to see your pages about the number 13! It could be that you're a firm believer in it being an unlucky number, or maybe it's been lucky for you. Perhaps you just want to list 13 things you love about your hubby. It's up to you, but 13 must be there somewhere

And here is what the design team thought about the challenge:

Amanda

Lisa Several ideas went through my head for this one. I finally decided to scrap one of the best days of my life. March 13th 2007, the day before our wedding. My Dad had the kids, Ade and I had a whole day, just the 2 of us at Discovery Cove. Bliss. I also scrapped 13 photos for this challenge.
ps...I was so brave, I absolutely hate water!!

Nic

Number 13 is considered unlucky by some and this train of thought led me to thinking about many other superstitious beliefs. If you had asked me before this challenge whether I was superstitious, I would have answered no! However, when I thought about it, the realisation dawned that lots of the little traditions I follow or believe in are actually based upon superstition, I realised I might just have to reconsider.

My page records 13 superstitious beliefs I regularly do - such as saluting a solitary magpie, touching wood, not walking under ladders etc...

I used a variety of different stamps to create my background.

Rebekah

I hardly ever scrap photos of my when I was younger so this gave me the perfect excuse to do just that. This is me on my thirteenth bithday when I thought I was grown up with my melon balls for a starter and Sara Lee chocolate gateaux for dessert ;) I used some Sassafrass lass (Woodland Whimsy- Life is Beautiful) paper for this one and hand cut all the flowers out of it.

Tessa


My husband's grandmother gave us a bunch of vintage board games, including a Rummikub game. Many pieces were missing, which made playing impossible, so I took the remaining numbers and added them to my scrapbooking stash. There just happens to be 13 numbers in this game, so when this challenge came up, I knew I wanted to make a mini with the game pieces. This album details 13 of my hopes and dreams.

Don't forget that each month on the new look blog we'll be offering a prize to our followers. To be in the draw for this prize, all you need to do is use the link here to show us what you've created based on Amanda's challenges. This month is sponsored by our very own Tessa Buys who's offering a $20 gift voucher to use in her shop.

Friday 11 June 2010

World Cup Challenge One

Well, the World Cup celebrations began last night with concerts across South Africa and the host nation will kick off the first game tonight. What better excuse for some extra challenges? From next week the Wednesday extra will be replaced with a World Cup Challenge right up until the World Cup ends on 11th July. And don't worry if you're not a footie (soccer) fan. The challenges are inspired by the beautiful game, but they'll inspire even those of you who've never heard of Wayne Rooney ;) Joining our design team there's our guest design team member and a special guest for each challenge bringing you heaps of inspiration. As if that wasn't enough, add your image to the link below and you will be entered in to a random prize draw to win a pizza box full of goodies courtesy of the Design Team.

But enough chat, let's get on to our first challenge from Amanda:

Do you get excited about the World Cup? As a bonus challenge this weekend we'd like to see your World Cup inspired pages! If you are the kind of person who can't wait for the madness to be over then you could scrap about the country you live in or your kid's soccer team instead. Our guest design team member for the duration of the World Cup is Sandie Dunne. She said: 'My name is Sandie Dunne and I'm a happily married SAHM to 4 school going children. I have been papercrafting for about 4yrs. I started out scrapbooking and then fell in love with mini books. I also love to alter items.' Check out her blog to see all her gorgeous work! Here is her take on this challenge: Ireland aren't in the world cup, so I scrapped my own football/soccer star ;)

Please also welcome our special guest for today's challenge: Tracy-Lianne Lane

I've used the South African colours {gold,blue,black,red,green} and Euan kicking around his easter egg lol.

And finally here's what our design team did with the challenge:
Amanda


Lisa
There's No Place Like Home

Nic
I am so not into football - it's like an alien world to me, however, I do have a son who has always been football crazy and who from sheer frustration, stopped explaining the offside rule to me a long time ago lol! As he was so into football, it became a bit of a family tradition to buy him a footie shirt/strip from every different country family members visited, throughout the years he has built up his collection and so I decided this challenge was an ideal opportunity to scrap the story behind his kits.

I had a go at making my own paper flowers (who says you can't put flowers on a boy LO eh? :-) ) My aim was to try and make them mimic the yellow football in the picture :-)

Rebekah
My little boy has suddenly become interested in the St George Cross and why there are some cars with flags on so I've had to explain about the World Cup. He's also started using the word 'Why?' repeatedly in the last two weeks as they all do and eventually all those 'Why?'s lead us to the supermarket to buy some England gear ('Why does that car have flags?', 'Why does he want to support England?', 'What's the World Cup?', 'Can I have a flag on my car?', 'Why can't I have a flag on my car?', 'Why can't we go and buy me a England top now?') :) He looks like such a proper boy in his England top and cap. So cute!

Tessa

So...I am not a soccer fan. Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the sport, but I am really just not a huge sports fan in general. I'm being schooled by all of you World Cup fans (I wouldn't have known it was going on if not for these challenges!). Anyway, the challenge made me think about the one time soccer ever really crossed my path - freshman year of high school. The girls' soccer coach approached me after watching me play during a physical education class. He wanted to know if I would consider joining the team. I was already a serious dancer, studying multiple forms of dance extensively, so I knew I would have to choose between the two. As the title of my layout states, I chose dance.

***And please note, those are not my gorgeous feet! I have terribly flat feet - something I struggled with my whole career :(.

We'll be back with the usual Sunday Challenge and then again for an extra World Cup Challenge next Wednesday. We hope that you'll join us :) Have fun x