Challenges #9 & #10

Here I am back again with Challenges #9 & #10 from the Amazing Digi Scrap Race. They were both challenging for me because they required things I normally don't do!

Challenge #9 was an altered art challenge. We could scrap whatever we wanted as long as it included altered art. Now, mind you, I've never done altered art before. Had no clue how to even begin! I've always admired the altered art items I've seen, really admired them, but have never tried any on my own. I really like Alice In Wonderland and I imagined this awesome page of ALice from Through The Looking Glass with the Red Queen, the talking flowers, a rockinghorse fly, and verses from the Jabberwocky poem. OK...so the actual page turned out nowhere near the way I imagined (!), but it sure was fun. I think I'll try my hand at it again sometime. Take a look:

Challenge #10 was another tough one. It required the use of 50 DIFFERENT elements from at least 10 DIFFERENT designers! I'm just not used to that. I use 2 or 3 designers per page and always have trouble including lots of elements. Messy is just not my style forte, although I love how a lot of other people's "messy" layouts turn out. I saw tons of great designs for this challenge (several of which I saved in my "Favorites" so I could lift them later!). Here's my attempt:The journaling reads: Where is my life headed? What does the future hold in store for me? It’s something I often wonder about. Wonder and worry. My life seems so chaotic most of the time...with things that need to be taken care of and things that constantly need attention. I feel overwhelmed most of the time as I try to fulfill all the roles that I’m expected to play...mother, wife, daughter, friend, designer, secretary, creative team member, financial organizer...and those are just some of my duties, not any of my hobbies! Sometimes I feel as if my life is out of control...something I have a lot of trouble with because I’m a bit of a control freak! There are days when the chaos seems to overrun everything and I just can’t seem to catch-up. Then there arethe rare days when it all seems to go my way. I know I worry too much. I know that my future, which hopefully includes another child and a larger home, will turn out just the way it’s supposed to whether I choose to obsess about it or not. I know that whatever the future holds for me, I’ll be able to handle it. And I’ll set it to order...one day at a time.

I can't believe there are only 2 more challenges to go!

Challenges #7 & #8

Where have I been? It seems like forever since I've posted last. I'm definitely falling behind on that, but I have an excuse...Emerson and I flew up to Wisconsin to spend Easter with my parents and sister.

I'll make this a short post. I really just wanted to come on and show you my LOs for Challenges #7 & #8 for the ADSR. I had to do them on my sister's computer, which is slower than I'm used to, so it took a long time.

Challenge #7 was a tough one. Each member of the team had to scrap in a different style. Mine was to a messy style, no journaling (just a title) and everything had to be from the same designer. We had numbers as guidelines (1 paper, 2 ribbons, 3 buttons, 4 bling pieces, 5 frames, 6 pics, 7 different alphas, 8 flowers or cardboard pieces, 9 staples, 10 misc. elements). Whew! Here's mine:
Challenge #8 was MUCH easier. We had to scrap a meaning ful trip (or fantasy vacation), use black & white photos, and include at least a few lines from a song. Here's mine:
Obviously, mine is a fantasy vacation because I've never been to Italy. I had to use stock photos, which is a shame because my sister is going at the beginning of May and I could have used some of her pics!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I hope you're all wearing your green today! I wish I could go to a local pub for a pint of green beer, but there isn't anyplace around here that would really fit the bill!

I have a cute little freebie for you today!

7 (my lucky number!) St. Patty Day charms! Download them here.

Now, charms need a charm bracelette to hang off of, don't they? Never fear! I have just the thing!! Head on over to Designs In Digital and pick up my Simply Charming Easter charms and you'll get 2 charm bracelettes and 4 chains to hang your charms from!

I think these Easter charms are so precious! And they're all oversized so you can size them to whatever size you need for your page. You get your choice of bracelettes--straight or wavy--and there are even 4 different charm chain lengths so you can have full control over how far they hang down from your bracelettes. Oh yeah...the bracelettes are 17" in length to give you tons of options for page placement!

I'm also coming out with a silver pack, so keep your eyes open for that if you're not a gold lover (I prefer silver myself!) Hopefully, I'll get it finished before Emerson and I head up to Wisconsin to spend Easter weekend with my folks. (We leave on Wednesday, so that gives me a little while at least!)

Enjoy the freebie, and show you support me and want me to continue these freebies by heading to one of my stores to pick up an item or two! Hey...a girl's gotta make a living! LOL

Challenge #6

Well, here's the scoop on Challenge #6 for the Amazing Digi Scrap Race....

Only one partner in the team had to complete it. Whoever was chosen had to choose a layout from their partner's gallery and flip it--90 degrees, 180 degrees, to the left or the right, whatever--and ten scrap the OPPOSITE of what the original page was theme-wise. FOr example, if the page was about summer, the person completing the challenge would have to scrap about winter. Kind of fun, huh?

I did this challenge and picked this LO of Tanya's:

Her's is about laughing, using a sepia tone photo and softer colors. So I chose to do a layout about crying, using a color pic and bold colors! Here's my lift:

Poor, Emerson! It was a fun challenge as I hadn't done a lift in a long time. It was also fun trying to find one of Tanya's pages that Iwould fit photos I already had of an opposite theme!

Challenges #4 & #5

Goodness. Where have I been? I'm a little behind in my bloggingand tonight I have both challenges #4 and #5 to share with you.

Challenge #4 was a "Spill It" challenge. We could scrap anything as long as we were sharing something...good, bad, or ugly! We also had to use at least one blending technique, have a minimum of 1 large photo, and our journaling had to be 1/4 of the page. Here's what I came up with:
The journaling reads: CONFESSION I am an addict. A bookaholic. I don't "do" libraries. I feel the need to possess, to own. I have to BUY that book. Don't ask me if I want to borrow a book from you...I don't. If you say it's good, I'll go buy it. 2/3s of my books are in storage. I have about 300 that I own and have not read yet, but my "To Buy" list is still 250 books and growing! I can't stop...I have a serious problem!

I'm nearing the 1,300 mark with my books, I believe, but my purchasing has definitely wound down quite a bit. Actually, my problem now is with digi scrap products!

Challenge #5 was different. We had to interview an inanimate object! I chose to do a conversation with my bathroom scale and I did the journaling as if it was a play we were acting out. Here's the LO:

The journaling reads: CONVERSATION WITH A SCALE A Play In One Scene Scene: A bathroom. Nicole stands at the sink brushing her teeth with her back to the audience. The scale creeps up until it is directly behind her.

Nicole (turning around & tripping over scale): Aack! You scared me! Why are you creeping up on me like that?

Scale: I haven’t seen you for a while. I thought you might want to weigh yourself before you go.

Nicole (looking down with hands on hips): Well, I don’t, so will you please go back to your corner?

Scale: But I’m lonely! I need the company.

Nicole: Shall I get my pedometer to keep you company? Or maybe my heart monitor?

Scale: No! I want you! I really think you ought to weigh yourself right now just to see how much weight you’re putting on. I’ve been watching you, you know.

Nicole: Do you really think I’m going to step on you after a statement like that?!!

Scale: Just one quick little peak! I promise I won’t tell anyone. Besides, maybe it won’t be as bad as we both think it will be. C’mon.

Nicole (stepping over scale to leave bathroom): Absolutely not. I want to forget all about you. Now, will you please go back to lurking in the shadows? Or would you rather I throw you out?

Scale (shaking fist at Nicole’s retreating back): Just you wait! I’ll get you yet and you’ll rue the day you ever decided to ignore me! I’ll double your weight the next time you step on me. No, I’ll triple it! I’ll make you think you’re so heavy you’ll never want to leave the house....

(fade to black as the scale continues to issue hollow threats)

Oh that was too much fun. Challenge #6 is up, but you'll have to waita while for that one!

A Cathartic Challenge #3

Challenge #3 for ADSR was therapeutic for me and a cathartic experience. We had to do a page about ourselves. It could be anything, but half the page had to be journaling. Mine is a page that I've wanted to do for a very long time, so I took the plunge. It's not how I originally pictured it. I certainly never intended to make it so personal by using a picture of myself (and you would have fallen over laughing if had seen me trying to set up the camera, run in front of it and pose before the timer went off! I don't know how many pics I ended up taking, but it was a lot before I found one I was almost happy with!) I originally planned on using a model. Using my own photo definitely made it more personal, however. I'm also not real happy with the scars. They didn't turn out half as well as I would have liked!
When posting in my galleries I had to blur out the objectional words, but I'm posting it uncensored here. I apologize if the words offend you, but it IS an ugly subject and fit for ugly words! Here you go:


The journaling reads:

When I was a freshman in college, a 4 four year relationship with my high school boyfriend ended violently. He came home drunk one night, punched me about the thighs and stomach, ripped off my clothing, and choked me until I passed out. His roommates were home, listening, but hid in their rooms...pretending nothing was wrong. Luckily, he had too much to drink and had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Another of the roommates came home, heard the tail end of what was happening & half carried me out of the room and into her own. She hid me in the closet until he left the house to search for me, then transported me to her boyfriend's house. The weekend ended with a police report, photographs of the bruises, & a restraining order on the only boyfriend I had ever had. Looking back on it now, I see that the last two years of the relationship had been abusive...both emotionally & mentally. I was young enough when he & I started dating that I believed it when he told me that he would be the only man to ever love me. I believed all of the bad things he said about me. I believed them for many years. A month after this incident, I was raped by three men at a frat party. A friend & I always went together. We had gone to a few parties there before, but on this night-for whatever reason-my friend left me there. I happened to be friends with one of the people who lived there &, being too drunk to make it back to the dorms on my own, he told me I could crash on their couch. After everyone else had left, he along with two of his friends raped me. They held me down, violating me orally and vaginally. By the time I made it back to my dormroom, somehow finding my way through the tears & fear & shock, I was stumbling & only half-dressed. I fell into my room & my roommate was already awake. When I told her what had happened, she looked at me in disgust, telling me I let it happen. Her words scarred me even further. Because of them, I was afraid to tell anyone else. I was ashamed of myself, of what had happened, & the men got away with it. I believed all those things that were implied by my "letting" the rape happen...I was a slut, a tramp. I kept my silence for more than two years. I was so afraid of the men, whom I still saw around campus, that I dropped out & transferred to a different university. It was there that I couldn t keep my silence any longer. In a speech class, I described the rape. More than a few people cried, the professor had tears in his eyes when I finished. Several women came up to me at the end of class to tell me their similar experiences. It was an eye opener & it was as if the flood gates had been opened. After that, I told of my ordeal whenever it was appropriate, I wrote about it in my prose classes, I shared my thoughts & my feelings with whoever wanted to listen. I have had women tell me of their own rapes, & even inspired some of them to speak out themselves. I still have nightmares from time to time & still struggle occasionally with the feeling that all those things once said about me really are true afterall. But although both experiences were traumatic, now that I ve found a voice I have become a much stronger person. I am finally strong enough to let the scars heal at last.

One thing I noticed while doing this layout....my tattoo is pretty faded and shabby looking! Almost time to touch 'er up! LOL

**Note to the daughter whose mother left the comment about sending a link of this page to you: Please, please, if you want to talk to someone who has been through this and who also made some incredibly stupid mistakes afterwards (and still regrets them and is ashamed of them), PLEASE feel free to write to me at my e-mail: triplegoddess1@gmail.com And that goes for anyone else who wants someone to talk to and feels like they have no where else to go or is afraid to tell anyone else. I get lots of junk mail, so please put something in the subject line to catch my attention like "Abuse" "Rape" or something similar. Even if you just want to share your experience because it is so therapeutic, feel free to write to me! I am a survivor and I'm always here to support others**

And to all of you who have been leaving me comments here and in my galleries -- thank you thank you thank you...You have brought tears to my eyes with your words of support and encouragement. I love you all for the kindness you're showing and wish I had the same support while I went through all of this!

ADSR Challenge #2

Forgot to post this awesome LO for Challenge #2 with the Amazing Digi Scrap Race! Oops! So, here it is: We each had to do half a layout and then put them together. We could do top and bottom, left and right, diagonal...whatever. We, obviously, opted for diagonal. We wanted to do something crazy and fun, as well as something that kind of tied into our team name, Creative Chaos. We decided to do a fun page with random facts about ourselves. How fun!

Tanya did the top half and her fun facts are:
As a teenager I had rat tail that I kept braided, and almost died hot pink.
I have one itty-bitty tattoo.
My fantasy job is to be a long distance truck driver.
I contemplated exotic dancing as a means to earn extra money when I was younger, but didn't.
I am a terrible liar.

I did the bottom half and my fun facts are:
I had a pet rat named Samson who looked like my tattoo.
Every night I write a New York Times Best Seller, but I forget it by the time I wake up.
I want to be abducted by aliens and spend the rest of my life traveling the galaxy.
At one point in my life, not too long ago, I had my inner conch, tragus, nose, tongue, left nipple and bellybutton pierced.
I want to be a bellydancer at the local Greek & Lebanese restaurant.

Tanya also did the center part and stitched our halves together. The center quote reads:
Art itself, is an attempt to make order out of chaos. -Stephen Sondheim

I think we did a fabulous job!!

Bits 2 Kits March Mega Kit Freebie

Hey everyone! Want to get this for free?

It's an awesome add on kit to the Bits 2 Kits March Mega Kit! In this free addon, you get 10 patterned papers, 2 wrapped frames, 2 funky metal frames, 6 eyelet ribbon bows, 6 colored eyelets, 1 journaling block, 1 complete lowercase alpha and number set! How do you get this awesome freebie? Simple--go to Bits 2 Kits and buy the March Mega Kit. In my TOU (see the Nicolina folder), scroll to the bottom and you'll find a special code. E-mail me the code (my e-mail is in the TOU too!) and I'll e-mail you the links for this kit!

Hurry, though, because at the end of March this freebie will disappear. You won't see it again until I combine it with my share of the Mega Kit to sell in the store. Even then, not everything will be included! So get it now while you can still get the whole kit and kaboodle!