Scrap Your Story :: adventure is out there

It's FRIDAY!  There is a new challenge up at Scrap Your Story! Our theme this week is "A Journey". Here is my take on the theme:

Journaling reads: You have become so obsessed with Batman! Daddy bought you this fabulous t-shirt with an attached cape! I found the tutu and you added the boots.

My "journey" is really more about the adventure of raising an imaginative three-year-old! This is the ultimate journey; navigating parenting with my Soul Mate. What a lovely adventure! I used the quote (from the movie UP) "Adventure is out there" for my title, and aren't super heroes adventurous?! 

If you follow me on instagram, you may have seen that I purchased gelatos (not the food, the awesomeness from Faber-Castell). I have had so much fun playing.  I love getting a new toy -- it always makes me want to create and gives me a boost of inspiration.

I used a mix of gelatos and Tim Holtz Distress Paint  to make circles in a grid on white card stock. I blended the gelatos with a round, foam brush. Then I used a dropper and dropped some of the blue paint right onto the page in big blobs (that took forever to dry).

 I added some stamping (Ali Edwards) some wood veneer and some sequins for fun!

I also mixed the gelatos with water to make these orange splotches. I am in love with this product. I just know you will find gelatos showing up on my layouts more and more.

I am actually on a bit of a journey right now. I'm in St. Charles, MO for a PLC conference for work, but I brought a few scrapping supplies along with me, and I created my layout for this week's challenge in the hotel (first time doing that for me). This is the longest I have been away from My One True Love since 2007, and the longest away from my daughter EVER. I'm certainly glad that I had some scrappy supplies to keep me company (and more importantly, try to keep my mind off missing them)!

I hope to see your 'journey' layouts pop up on the Scrap Your Story challenge blog soon!

I scraplifted the basic design of this page. I saw this layout by qingmei on the Studio Calico blog and I knew I had to make my own version! 

Scrap Your Story --

It's FRIDAY!  Woot! Time for another challenge at Scrap Your Story! This week we are mixin' it up -- an alpha mix up, that is!

I used three different alphas for this challenge.  "toothpicks" and "hicks" are both cork, but different fonts, sizes, and manufacturers.  And then, of course, the "for two" is different entirely. This was a fun challenge!  I hope you play along!!!

(after today, only 4.5 days left of school for the kids)

(today is Bob Dylan's birthday)

(he's 72)

(tomorrow is my One True Love's birthday)

(he's significantly younger)

:: layout a day ::

In this post I mentioned that I was going to attempt LOAD513 (layout a day May 2013). Well, I'm two thirds of the way in, and I've only missed one layout. Sunday we had a bad storm, lost power, and even some siding off our house! I did not complete a layout that day. I started one, but didn't finish. However, in twenty one days, I have completed and uploaded at least 20 layouts (I think there was a day or two that I actually completed two)!

What I have learned so far:

I can stay awake.
My scraps are my friend.
Read the prompt before bed, think about it all day.
Follow the prompt, stretch the prompt, don't follow the prompt, just do it.
Making that list of stuff that I want to scrap before LOAD began has been helpful.

But the most important thing I've learned is that I can scrap a page in a day or less! Prior to LOAD, it was a challenge for me to create a page a week. With a full time job and a family that I love, it seemed nearly impossible especially at my slow pace. I shared on my blog over and over that I was pretty sure I would "fail" LOAD, especially in May! Mostly, or at least in part due to my inability to scrap quickly enough to actually do a layout a day. But guess what?? I have TOTALLY gotten faster at documenting our lives. Even if I quit LOAD tomorrow (not planning on it), it was totally worth it for just that one thing. Besides which, I have 20 LOs, and only one of them is...something that I'll probably redo. :-) To be clear, I haven't found a way to do this without feeling like I am neglecting my family...so I'm not sure I will do it again...but it's rather addictive, so we'll see. ;-)

Here are a few of my favorites that I haven't shared on the blog until now:

All of my LOAD513 layouts (some with closeups or other details) can be found here.