Swimming *Mini*

I'm gonna let the pictures do most of the talking in this post :) It's a mini I created of a day at the pool with my nephew. The majority of the products are American Crafts, with a few digital elements from Ali Edwards and one sheet of border stickers from Doodlebug Designs.

The actual album is a 6x6 mini cardboard one from American Crafts. I got it for $1.99 at Archivers :) You can't beat that! I jazzed it up with some Thickers, that gorgeous ribbon (that I sprayed with yellow Maya Mist to make it darker), and glitter buttons.

I'm honestly surprised at how much journaling I was able to eek out of this literally 30 minute event. What can I say, he inspires me!

I love my little summer mini. Here's wishing you all a happy summer as well!

xxbesos

j.leija

Classic, Amurrica!!

As promised, here are a few layouts I created for Week 1 & Week 2 Challenges over atCh{all}enge Masters.

We're from Amurrica!!

"Amurrica" is said in a way that only Monica has mastered! It sounds something like a deep country hillbilly and it was a running joke with the group of us out in London. It's funny people's perceptions of Americans, you never knew what people were going to say when they found out you were American. For the most part, no one judged. They were just interested in talking to someone from somewhere different.

My British co-workers were very interested to know what the big hoopla about the 4th of July was about. And even more tickled to find out that all of the Americans were going to be touring the river Thames, in celebration of our country's freedom...from the British. Oi!

I pretty much threw everything and the kitchen sink onto this layout. The shiny-er, the glittery-er, the jewely-er the better!! It also plays into three of the challenges over at CM; Blade Master, Go Green, and Technique! I used the Martha Stewart Loops edger punch for the Blade Master challenge and created a pinwheel for the Technique challenge. But my favorite part is what I did for the Go Green challenge. Did you notice the Coca-Cola label at the bottom? Yeah, I cut into a Coke can and using my scallop punches, punched out tin cut outs. You can't get any more American than Coke!

I love this page! It's just so symbolic of America for me. How we're such a melting pot of nations. Poland, Ireland, Germany, China, Thailand, India, Mexico, Africa make up our heritages, but we're still all Americans!

Classic

I decided I needed to add a bit to my feeble little All About Me album (I think there's only maybe 4 pages in there...) so I took on this week's Book of Me challenge and also incorporated my Hybrid challenge. And to boot, I used Sketch 208 from Scrapbook Challenges as the basis for my layout.

This month's Book of Me challenge is to create a layout about you favorites right now. Don't know why or how I came to it, (actually I mis-read the Daily Grind prompt so I do know how...) but I decided to create a page about my favorite jewelry and make-up. The stuff I wear everyday!

I wrote about my ring, my favorite earrings, the necklaces my mama gave me and my favorite nail polish. And I printed it out on a transparency to satisfy the Hybrid challenge. The flowers were cut using my handy dandy Slice, crumpled them up to give them some texture and finished off with a Prima sequined center and a Making Memories Pearl brad.

See, our challenges aren't so bad. And you can combine a few to create some really interesting pages! I hope you'll stop by and maybe participate in a challenge or two :) Happy Scrapping!

xxbesos

j.leija

Summer Lovin'

This summer Ch{all}enge Masters is hosting a Summer Lovin' contest for a fun prize! A $25 gift certificate to the online store of your choice. Totally fabulous! Hate to say that the sign up for this event is closed but do be sure to check out all of the Weekly Challenges. Someone who participates in one of the challenges will win this month's equally awesome prize, a $30 gift certificate to your favorite online store! And the opportunity to be the July Monthly Master! I think that's pretty good incentive to participate in a challenge or two :) Check back tomorrow to see how I approached some of the challenges.

Best Day

This weeks challenge was to be brave and to cut up a photo in rectangles or squares. I remembered this sketch I'd found at Page Maps and thought it'd be perfect for a layout that needed a photo cut into squares! Figured this photo of Mama and I in Italy would cut up nicely, without chopping into our faces! I was very inspired by the colors of the photo, the yellow in my sweater, the blue in mama's shirt and that so bright green in the plant behind us.

As part of the prompt for this week, you'd get a bonus 40 points for using a mask on your layout. I have these favorite masks that I use over and over again, but the thing is, they aren't actually masks. Prima makes these great felt stems, that are beautiful in their own right, but just screamed mask to me the moment I saw them. I arranged them on my background paper and hit them with green, yellow and blue Maya Mist and outlined a few of the edges to give them dimension.

The title of this layout is actually from a song lyric of Taylor Swift's. I just got her album a few weeks ago and LOVE it! I think I know all the words now, I've listened to it so much. But this one in particular, for some reason, has been on repeat in my head. I'd already decided to use that photo of me and Mama when I realized that this song would be a great way to journal about us, this day and our propensity for giggling.

Journaling reads: "We were in Rome, touring the Papal Residence, soaking up the gorgeous Italian sun, and were just taking a break from all the walking we'd been doing. I have no idea why we were laughing. Who knows with the two of us! We're always giggling about something or other, which is why this is my favorite photo of the two of us. What a wonderful day to remember and what equally wonderful memories of so many seemingly small moments with my Mama."

"I love you for giving me your [Asian] eyes. For staying back and watching me shine. I didn't know if you knew. So I'm taking this chance to say...that I had the best day, with you, today."

Lifeline

Last week's prompt was to scrap about a tool you can't live without. I'm not the greatest with just scrapping random things, so I wanted to use something that was relatable to other areas of my life as well. My Mac laptop is definitely something I use for my scrapping, but was also a big part of my life while I was aboard. I call it and this page, my lifeline.

Journaling reads: "My roomate took this photo of me on my Mac, back in our very first flat in London. I'll say I was doing homework but Sarah and I both know that rarely happened in our room and only ever at the last minute. While I was abroad, that computer became a lifeline to home and the outside world. I emailed, chatted, Skyped, searched, planned, browsed, Facebooked and occasionally homeworked from that glorious machine. My baby? A (now vintage) 13 inch Macbook that I purchased myself when I was a senior undergrad. My first BIG purchase. It just wouldn't be right to create a scrapbook about life in London and not include something about my Mac!

Fun note: 3 of my 5 flatmates also owned a white 13 in. Macbook. They were always laying around the flat and you'd have to open all of them to find your own!

What can I say? I'm sentimental! But what scrapbooker isn't?! It's by far and away my most used tool for all things, scrappy and otherwise.

That Mac accent is about the most cutting edge as it gets in my scrapbooking. Can you guess how I did it? I painted it! Well, first I printed out the Mac logo and cut it out of a scrap sheet of paper and used it as a template. Then, I painted horizontal stripes in the colors of the rainbow. After, I inked the entire thing with Versamark and embossed over it with clear embossing powder. It gives it this great sheen. My one of a kind accent, that I'm so very proud of!

Disclaimer: please don't sue me Apple! I swear I haven't received any monetary compensation for this layout. But I am always looking for sponsors ;)

xxbesos

j.leija