Mt Hood

My last Guest DT layout for Child's Play.  It was a fun month and look forward to playing along again next month.  This month was the game, Risk.

I was inspired by first, the name Risk and taking risks in life and second, the world map.  So I went on a hunt for photos that had to deal with risks and travel.  I came across these photos of the hubby and his friend climbing Mt Hood.  Talk about a risk!  In fact, a snowboarder died this day, after they were done with their climb.  They had never been up this mountain and didn't have a ton of time to put into planning either.  Talk about the view and they have some fabulous stories to share. And they are smart people and don't take unnecessary risks either.

Remember

My first thought was, "This is going to be really hard to be so monochromatic" for this CSI  case.  Turns out it was quite easy once I had the subject.  One of the journal prompts was to journal something sad.  It's been just over a year since our family lost someone way to soon and too young.  Simple really was the best.  This fountain is right next to his grave site and I like to think that it brings comfort and peace to him.

Evidence used: paint, distressing, wood, tie something, and tearing.

Testimony is something sad and is on the little tag, peeking out of the right side of the photo.

The case file

Cool Cat

Such a fun and funny inspiration photo this week at CSI!  Totally made me laugh!  We had my son's cat living with us for about 6 months, he is hilarious.  I found him lying in front of of my mirrored closet looking as cool as can be.  I thought it was the perfect photo for this case.

Evidence used: book pages, stacked elements, black background, something crinkled.

Testimony: is from the cat's perspective on the tag, just peeking out from behind the photo matte.

The case file

I {Heart} Fall

It's the first ever ScrapStuffz Inspired By blog hop, Hooray For Fall!  You should have come here via Shirley's blog.  If you get lost along the way, be sure to go to ScrapStuffz to find the full hop list.

We were given this inspiration photo

And this sketch

This is what I came up with

Seriously, Fall is my favorite time of the year.  I think the new year should start September 1st, not January 1st.  I love the crispness in the air, the color in the trees.  I love football and school starting just seems like a new beginning.  We have these concrete sculpture things at a park in town that have shape cutouts in them.  I lined up my shot, through the heart shape, to include the pretty leaves in the background.  

To make my background, I die cut some leave and applied some gel medium through the negative.  Then I pulled out my new gellatos and scribbled color in various places, wet, and spread around.  I set it aside to dry and when I pulled it out, I almost chucked it to the side because it was really bright and not quite the look I was going for.  Instead, I pulled out my distress ink and stamps and went to work grunging it up.  I like it a lot better!  It gives that rustic feel that comes with Fall.  The leaves not only turn colors, but start browning and have a cool distressed look about them.   I added some burlap and paper, a fun embellishment, cute title letters and a bit of journaling.  

I hope you have enjoyed your stop here.  Be sure to play along by leaving comments, making your inspired by layout and joining ScrapStuffz.  Your next stop on the hop is Devra!  Be sure to find our what creative genius she has for you! 

Flower Girl

I am guest designing this month at Child's Play.  Our first challenge this month was Barbie.  Hello, the first thing I thought of was these photos from our recent wedding.  DIL is so pretty and blonde and her flower girl is as well.  And the colors of the wedding included Barbie pink!  It was the perfect choice for this challenge.

Come on over and find your inner child!

FTLOP!

I am enjoying my month of guest designing for Child's Play!  I have just recently checked them out and I'm so glad I did!  I always thought it was just for moms with young kids because toys are the inspiration.  I soon found out that the toy photos were just a tool to bring out the kid in me!  And take me back to childhood.  I have actually had fun thinking outside the box doing something unexpected.  Enter Pete's Dragon.  This is so a movie from my childhood and loved watching it, but what do I pull for inspiration???  Lately I have been saying, "For the love of Pete!", a lot and that would just make the perfect topic for my layout.

I have been group texting with a bunch of iPhone users, but I have an Android phone.  I have an app that makes it pretty easy, but it can be totally frustrating too.  It's slow, I am frozen when messages are downloading, and every now and then my messages split out to go to each individual.  I would get a bunch of messages back telling me that only they received it...duh... Enter FTLOP!  They know that a split message followed by these letters means I know exactly what happened and that it has totally frustrated me.  I just took a screenshot of one such instance, printed it off and created a layout about it.

Come join us and find some inspiration and find YOUR inner child!

Dream

After last's weeks difficult color palette at CSI, pastel, I found this week's to be so fun and refreshing!  Just makes me think of some island adventure with a citrus drink.  The journal prompts had me going in a different direction though and I used one from the daring site; write a letter to your future you.

The subject of self worth and dreams has come up a lot lately, so I decided to use this topic for my letter.  I decided to use this photo I took of a really cool building, with a water feature in front of it, for my photo.  It looks really dreamy and not quite solid.  Sometimes our dreams can feel this way and I thought it lent itself to the message quite well.  I used spray ink and a water bottle to create my blue sky.  The clouds are done the same and then die cut out.  The yellow strip is a mix of gel medium, a stencil, gellatos, and water.  It originally it was part of a whole piece of paper, but I seriously did not like the rest of the page so I just cut out the strip and mounted it on my sky paper.  It worked out pretty good too, because I really like the raised look of it.

Evidence used: airplanes, string, stripes, mixed media

Testimony is a letter to my future self.

The case file

Scandia Festival

Plugging right along in my month of guest designing for Child's Play.  This week is stringing beads.  
The letter beads and stringing gave me the idea to hang my title, or at least part of it, although, you could have strung up a variety of shapes.  The letters even look like little beads.

These photos are from a recent trip to a local festival.  The town was settled by a large group of Scandinavian peoples, so they hold a festival each year.  Every day is in honor of a different Scandinavian country.  There are booths with food and art and trinkets, as well as singing and dancing in native costume.  I have always enjoyed the meat pies, so we went out one day and had a little treat and looked around.  One of our friends was working there and was in full costume.  She is hilarious and totally gets into character and is a great actress.

I hope to see you come over and find your inner child!