Monochromatic Birthday

My birthday was last Friday! Oh my birthday...that whole day went by in a blur. I planned a fun party for my friends and asked if everyone could wear wigs! I thought it'd be fun to celebrate the last birthday of my 20's with something fun and crazy.

We took some great group photos of us in our crazy fun colored wigs. Obviously, I really wanted them to stand out. So I took on Jennifer's left-brained Color Challenge from Art + Science and only worked with neutrals. 

It was soooo hard! All I wanted to do was add in neon pink! But I refrained. And I think, the page came out the better for it. Instead, I used a lot of black and white elements plus gold and a touch of gray.

Us in those wigs definitely became the focal point!

Lately, I'm absolutely loving digital elements. And Two Peas is giving us some completely fabulous options! And of course, since black and white has become such a big part of my scrapbooking, I'm loving all of the October releases!

For this page, I incorporated some fabi printables and a freebie die cut from a few months back. (Snag it now!! They're available again for just a short while)

My Cameo cut the freebie die cut perfectly and I used it as a mask with some Heidi Swapp Gold Lame Color Shine (my favorite!). It didn't mask very well in certain parts, so I drew around the shapes using my black pen--on the white parts--and my white pen for the darker parts at the bottom.

I also finally got to use my new Pebbles Alphabet Stamp.

Oh, and about the background paper, I created this background of black and white photo strips in PSE and printed it out on white orange peel cardstock. All the photos were edited using Rad Lab. Heck all of my photos are edited using Rad Lab!

I had fun making this page. I had fun this night! Be prepared to see this photo and others like it over and over again. It was just so fun =)

cheers & besos,

Training in Toronto

I told you I loved the hanging off the page of another page look. Here it is again! And yes, if you're keeping track that would be 3 pages in a row =) I think I've found my staple/go to design.

Last May work sent me to Toronto for a day to do some training. It was a super short trip but we completely made the most of it.

Journaling Reads:

"One of the most amazing perks of my job is that they let me travel! Since working at the Consulate I’ve been to DC (twice), San Francisco, Denver, Louisiana, England, Scotland and now Canada! I’ve always wanted to visit. Haileigh and I flew up for a day of training (and touring). We got in late, grabbed a quick dinner and headed to bed. But we made sure to get a jump in the morning. We had maple syrup to eat and H&M to visit! We made it through our training (which was actually very useful) and then headed out with Captain Canada and his team. They showed us an awesome time, drinks in the shadow of the Trump Tower, beers at the local pub. Then released into the wild for some late night Thai foraging on our own. No Haileigh you cannot eat lasagna at a Thai restaurant! All in all, a jam-packed day but truly one of the most wonderful parts of my job."

I used my Roller Rink kit and the Crack the Whip add-on, pulling out a tan/gray/red/blue color combo.

I loved all the great reds in the kit, especially in the Echo Park alpha stickers. I also used a lot of speech bubbles on this page, including the super random "holla", "nerd" and "lol". What are people using these for?! But I made them work for this page simply by flipping them over and using the backs.

This paper from Teresa Collins ended up being a great cut apart sheet. I trimmed it into strips and cut out words to anchor and fill in that bit of trapped space between the speech bubbles and my journaling.

And then I journaled directly on the fab washi tape, using my slick writer. Does anyone else find it takes a bit for those pens to "warm" up for lack of a better word? It's really thin when you start writing and then it gets to the right consistency after a sentence or two.

Well, that's it for me today. I'm off to study some note cards. Joy! ;)

cheers & besos,

Big Al's Gals

I had fun scrapping this long weekend, finished all of my Japan photos and even got in a challenge or two. 

Sandra aka nachtschwinge suggested a Lift the Person Above you Challenge, over on the Studio Calico board. And I got to lift her!

I choose this layout from her gallery as inspiration for the photos taken from last year's work Christmas party.

Moustaches were the hit of the party and us girls had fun getting in on the Movember movement. And, I had fun including them on this page.

I picked what looks like the most random smattering of papers and tape, but all of the colors are actually in the photos. And I lucked out finding this wood grain that looks like the boards of a bowling alley floor.

Thanks Sandra for challenging us this weekend!

cheers & besos,