zoo

September!

| cristina

September is here already, and after 4 months of break I’m starting classes today. I cannot believe how fast the summer has flown by; and it sure feels like fall here now: it was 48 degrees this morning when DH and I went running. It’s way too cold for me to be out in a t-shirt and shorts! We’ll have to try to run in the evenings I guess.

I can now post the second zoo page I did yesterday. I did this for the Inspiration Point challenge at ScrapMatters:

Credits:
One Fine Day and alpha from The Key to Happiness by Happy Scrap Girl
Swirl shape from The Ballad of the Night by Anna BV Designs

The lions were really gorgeous. I took some more lovely pics of them that I’ll have to scrap.

Zoo!

| cristina

We went to the zoo this weekend and I took a gazillion pictures! Seriously, I only brought 1 memory card because I didn’t want to take too many pictures, but I still filled it up and came home with 402 pics!! How am I ever going to scrap them all?!? 😉 Anyway, we had lots of fun and were super lucky with the weather too: it was cloudy, so we enjoyed the cool air and only very few people were there!
I already did 2 pages but I can show only this one for now:

Credits:
Kicking up the Leaves kit and little seeds kit by Gina Marie Huff
Fonts: JH Cristina and JH Cristina Doodly by Jeni Hopewell Designs

(the order in which I’m scrapping these is completely random so bear with me! 😉 Hopefully some day I’ll have filled in all the gaps!)

New Challenge System at SM!

| cristina

There’s a new challenge system at Scrap Matters. It sounds quite complicated at first, but the basic idea is that you get 1 point for every challenge completed, and 1 additional point if you use a product released in the previous 7 days. Then, who wins the challenge gets 1 more point.

There are lots of challenges, and several new ones are posted every week, but the point system is organized by month, so you have the whole month for scrapping LOs for the challenges.
Anwyay, I started scrapping a Tuesday Template challenge, and I used some adorable stuff from Britt’s grab bag that was released last week – so this should earn me 2 point.
Oooooh… wait.. are you wondering what the points are worth? 🙂
OK, here’s the deal. There are 2 options: discount (and in this case each month you start with 0 points), or gift certificate (and you can cumulate points in more than one month).
Here’s the points-discount conversions:
21+ = 40% off
16-20 = 35% off
11-15 = 25% off
6-10 = 15% off
1-5 = 10% off
and if instead you want to get a GC, you can get a $5.5 GC with 60 points.
I believe I’ll be using mostly the 2nd option. (ugh 60 points does seem like a lot… who knows how many months it’ll take me to get there! 🙂 )
Enough talking now! Here’s my LO. 🙂

Credits:

Template by Ldrag Designs
String Theory, Bead-aholic Alpha (recolored) and My Bead Jar by Britt-ish Designs (from SM 1st Birthday grab bag)
Peridot Paradise by Erica Zane 

Font: My Own Topher
This mini kit by Erica was the partecipation prize for the other night’s speed scrap. 🙂
Hey, you did notice, didn’t you? 🙂 This is another zoo LO!  🙂 I believe I have only one more to do, and then I’ll have scrapped all the zoo pictures!!

Speed Scrap

| cristina

I’m coming from tonight’s Speed Scrap at ScrapMatters. And of course, I couldn’t refrain from doing another zoo LO! 🙂

Here are the instructions:
  1. Choose at least 3 photos and arrange them as follows: One is substantially larger than the others and the smaller ones are lined up together along a side of the larger photo.
  2. Use at least 4 papers. Be creative, use as BG, mats, shapes, etc.
  3. Use ONE frame to frame all the photos together.
  4. I want to see a really good layered element cluster, I LOVE clusters!
  5. Use something from nature on your layout.
  6. One word title, use an alpha.
  7. Journal at least three sentences, DATE, and post!

Credits:

Chilled Wine collab kit by Sugarplum Paperie and mgl Scraps

Feather (recolored) from wm squared’s Sep. 08 Grab Bag

White Vellum Alpha – Designs by Tater

Paper Shapers by Britt-ish Designs

Font: My Own Topher

I do feel there’s something missing somewhere.. Maybe some elements on the bottom? Hmmm… I’m way too tired to do anything about it now. 🙂
But let me say one thing: I’m proud of that feather!!!! When I read the instruction about putting in an element from nature, somehow I thought about putting in a feather, found one in my scrappin’ stash, and recolored it to taste: and there we go! 🙂

Speed Scrap at SM (Zoo LO)

| cristina

I speed scrapped last night and had a blast!!

I sure had a great night, because I finished this in little over an hour, and I love it! 😉
The speed scrap (at ScrapMatters of course) was hosted by haynay and these were the instructions:

  1. one solid, dark paper, used as the background. One patterned paper used in any way on the page (other than background). No more, no less.
  2. 3 photos: 2 must be the same size. The other one must be smaller than the 2.
  3. One frame only, but that frame needs to have a cluster on or behind it. (I want to encourage you to use drop shadows—especially with the clusters)
  4. Use a hanger anywhere on the page.
  5. Must use something shiny on the page: can be metal, glitter, bling. I don’t care; I just want some shine!
  6. Title: Use 2 alphas please.
  7. Date your page. And, you can journal…BUT, you cannot journal any more than 2 sentences. It will work if you have no journaling at all!

I used the beautiful kit I was RAKed with last week, Chilled Wine!
Here’s my LO, Fancy Birds:

Credits: Chilled Wine collab kit by Sugarplum Paperie and mgl Scraps
Dymo – It – Big Alpha by Anita Stergiou
Paper shapers by Britt-ish Designs
I used the beautiful kit I was RAKed with last week, Chilled Wine!
I just recolored the alpha & frame slightly to match the pictures, and that was it! I love how I was “forced” by the instructions to pick a dark paper – I might not have thought about it otherwise, and I think it looks great with these pics! I usually choose pictures first, and papers next, but this time, following the instructions, I picked the kit first, then stumbled upon these zoo pictures (yaaaay! Another LO done! 🙂 ) and tried them out: perfect! 🙂
OK, enough rambling.. But I’m seriously in love with this LO! 🙂

Lunch Time (zoo 2 pager)

| cristina

Between yesterday and today evening, I completed another zoo 2 pager.

I worked a lot on the pictures and the shadows and I’m really happy about it because I learnt a lot during the process.

Credits:

Downunder minikit by ksharonk

Natural Alpha by Vicki Stegall Designs
I loved this mini kit by ksharonk!!

Yet Another Zoo LO

| cristina

Busy weekend (lots of social events :)) but it was quite fun.

I scrapped another zoo LO yesterday.
(in case you were wondering.. No, the zoo LOs aren’t finished yet! 😛 I plan to do another 2-3 since I have some more cute pictures.)
Credits: I’m A Dreamer by Britt-ish Designs
Not your typical zoo colors, but then, why not? 🙂

Zoo Reflections

| cristina
I did another LO from the pics from our visit to the zoo in late August.

I’m very happy with this LO because we took a lot of pictures at the zoo, but I decided to put these 2 together and do a page on reflections.

Credits:
Paper and flower (some recoloring) from Crackleberry freebie by kskd designs

See Clearly Alpha by Misty Cato

Cloud from The Sky Is Falling by Krystal Hartley

Zoo 2 Pager

| cristina

I’m working on my (noisy) mac and here’s another Zoo LO. I love these pictures!! The frogs were actually in a glass case. At first, we really had a hard time spotting them, since they were camouflaged so well!

Credits:

everything from Posh by Rachel Martin Designs

except

leaf paper: Tree of Life by Julie Marie

Alpha Angel of Love 1 (recolored) by digiscrap.ch

Another Zoo LO

| cristina

I did another zoo LO.

This is about a super fun show we watched there called Tales of Tails. The pictures we took were really bad, but I wanted to scrap about this because it’s such a nice memory.
So I tweaked them a little bit and here we go:

Credits:
Building Blocks Template by Heather Lee
Happy 2B {stuck with you} collab kit by Krystal Hartley and Marcie Reckinger 

Tamed Alpha by Creashens (used for ‘tails’)
I just love this kit (it’s the same I used for The Rhinos, another zoo LO I did previously, and I wanted to reuse it).
I did this LO for the Tuesday Template challenge at ScrapMatters.