Design Team Tryouts

Hello Again, I'm here, really!  
How is everyone doing on this 4th day of February?  Is it really already a month into the new year?.... Wow - someone once told that time flies even faster when you get older, damn, I must be ancient.  But I am doing good, kids are good, husband is working hard ( so that I can spend more money on scrap supplies - just kidding).  Actually I have not being 'work' working so much lately and I am really getting spoiled, as most of you know I went part-time @ my job last February and once again they have hit their 'slow' period and so when they don't need me - because I am a part-timer - I always get kicked out first over the full-time people who need to keep their 32 hour average in order to keep their benefits.  I'm okay with that because in all this extra time off I have been able to get lots done.  
The first being a re-vamp of my craft space; yes I got down to the nitty-gritty and redid the entire area surrounding my craft space (did the actual cabinet a few months back so I left it alone for the most part).  So far I am loving the new reorganization, things that I use all the time are now @ my finger tips and the supplies I have an excess of are all together in one spot. I have paints, glimmer mist, distress inks, distress stickles, etc all right there @ my desk now.  I have all my journaling spots and altered art pieces sitting within arms reach of my desk too.  I have also gotten a little bit better lighting finally, I scrap in our downstairs 'family room' (for lack of a better word) and so even in the middle of the day it can be quite dark so the "Ott Lite" lights have been a blessing - probably need to get one more but all in due time.
The second 'big' thing that I have gotten done are my projects for a design team - yeap you read correctly, there is a local scrapbook store that does team 'try-outs' every 4 months and so I decided to try it this time around.  They have a prepared kit with a few odds & ins for you to create with, which was challenging enough, but then to top it off - you could add any other embellishments you wanted so long as it was supplies they currently have in the store -   What? double whammy! Anyways, somehow I was able to make 6 projects to turn in, not sure what they will think of my attempt, but I have decided to be okay with it no matter what, I tried it, it was okay, I have learned from the experience, and that's all it needed to be, so good!  So just to give you all an idea of what I did, here are some photos of the projects.

This first one is a card that I made with some of the left over scraps I had, and I made it a generic type of card, so it absolutely could be a 'birthday' card or it could be a 'thinking of you' kind of card.
The inside message
A place to leave your own personal message
This is the very first project I tackled, I am not good with 12x12 layouts, well layouts at all really, so I figured if I could get past this one, then I could finish the rest fairly quickly, lucky for me all my ideas worked.
It even happens to be a double 12x12 layout, which is almost unheard of in my 12x12 albums.  If I'm going to torture myself, one layout is usually more than enough for me to get the story told.
Just a close up of the tag
 
Another close up of the journaling I did about our annual canoe trips (which unfortunately Bill & I have missed out on now for 2 years - boo hoo)

These cute little file folders give the location of where we were and the dates that we went.

This is the last official project I did, or so I thought @ the time.  These are coasters that I altered using several of my favorites by Tim Holtz here, when I realized that I could only use products that the store carries, I was thankful for our shared love of Tim because they have a lot of Tim Holtz and I have a LOT of Tim Holtz.
I also have a budding love for Graphic 45 here, their papers are awesome quality and their patterns are unique and compliment each other very well, I can see me using more of their papers in the very near future.
Once I came up with the direction I wanted to go with these, it didn't take very long to finish them.  They were actually fun, I have several coasters that I've picked up along the way thinking that I'll do something with, after playing with these guys I will definitely have to do that.
I didn't journal on any of them, but if I end up getting them back I think I will make them 'gratitude' tags, sounds like a good idea anyway.
The close up of the flowers that I made, yes made.  I watched a tutorial on 'YouTube' on how to make these which sent me in the right direction; and then about a week later I got an e-mail from somewhere that had an even easier tutorial, so I tried it and I really like the look of them; can't wait to try it with some different laces & ribbons, that will look really elegant especially on one of my wedding albums.
These are just close up shots of the other side
Another close up
Last one
For this project, I really had to think about what I needed to do.  Knowing that I could only use certain products kept me quite limited, but as a went through my stash I found a die that I had been wanting to play with, and it just so happened to be one that the store carried, lucky me.
So this is what I did, the actual 'book' is the die I used, and for those of you once again that don't scrap - a die is basically a cookie cutter except for paper, cuts out exactly what the shape is: a flower, a heart, in this case a  luggage tag - I believe that is what is it called.  So I got all my pages cut out and got the stickers on and then had to figure out how I was going to bind it.  I knew the binding was gonna have to be small, but I didn't really want to use ribbon because it wasn't going to be stable enough and that's when I found the mini binder clips (lucky for me they do carry those - pretty much a standard) 
So the pages look something like this
Second page
Third page
Fourth page
Last page
This is the last project I did and it was a last minute idea too so I'm hoping that this one doesn't hurt me as far as getting on the team.
What I came up with is a mini set of mini cards.  I still had a couple of the stickers left over along with some of the felt ribbon that came from our kits, added some more of the same cardstock and came up with 3 little 2x2 happy cards; they have no greeting inside so someone could personalize it.
I kept it super simple, for 2 reasons:  one - it's just easier that way and two - because I wanted to show them that I really can do it all, I have several different levels of work: simple to extravagant.
Speaking of Extravagant
This was my labor of love
And I now love it
In my design team kit there was this white, chipboard, heart-shaped album.  You open it up and it is a double heart-shape starring @ you......   : /........  I'm not really a 'heart-shape' kind of person so needless to say, I have been challenged yet again; oh and by the way, I had 2 weeks to create all of this, every project had to done within 2 weeks.
 I will have all of you know that I turned in all 6 of my projects today.
My pages are similar and somewhat simple to look at, but they are loaded with grunge work.
I have been a mad woman for the last few weeks: inking, distressing, sanding, rubbing, buffing, etc.  And I can't wait to get my hands dirty again, that was FUN!
Again with this project, once I got a vision in my mind I just went for it, no second-guessing, and if I ran into an issue - I just figured another way around it.  I really did like the mental game of it, the challenge.  At first I was 'stumped' on how to create without being able to use 85% of my own stash, then I had a headache for a couple of days thinking about it (this is my 1st time ever to try for something like this), but then finally the realization came to me that the worst that could happen is that they decide not to take me on as a designer.

I'm okay with that!

Because I had fun....

and because when it's all said and done.....

I have this super cute, altered, chipboard, heart-shaped album that opens up to a double heart-shape starring back @ me!  : )

Thanks for joining me today!
For all the sweethearts out there - this post is for you.  I know that without my wonderful husband I wouldn't have much of anything in this world, so let there be love - Happy (early) Valentine's Day!!!

Just B....loved 

Comments

OttLite said…
Thank you for mentioning us in your blog! You seem very artistic and your crafts look wonderful. Thanks again :D

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