2nd chance

i couldn't believe my lucky stars! here i thought it was the end of the line for me at the Top Designer class/challenge over at BG. Then I got a PM from Tracie telling me this:

You have been selected as the Wild Card Player for Class 6.

I was given a username : **WiLdCaRdEiGhT** so I could play along anonymously. How fun was that!? :D

All I had to do was follow a set of rules, all in the name of anonymity, and of course, to create a LO (no family/identifying photos allowed) for Class 6 for me to be back in the running.

Challenge was to break a few scrapbooking rules here and there with the end in view of making our pages eventually come together by putting in our personal flair.

A final note from Tracie:

Please note that there are no guarantees that you will make it through to the final assignment.....but I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you as I love your style.

I tried to come up with a LO at the last minute as I found it tough just to find photos that couldn't be associated with me. I worked on my page on Sunday morning. 1st attempt looked kinda messy coz of my paint job, but I managed to salvage my orange lace cardstock, paint stains and all, and use it on a fresh sheet of cardstock. This time around, I was hesitant to stamp with paint for fear of messing up yet another paper, but i wanted the page to look grunged up a bit, so I did it anyway. I like the results, even if i do say so myself. lol.

Here's a few rules I broke, I think:
BALANCE: right-heavy page. photos, embellishments and papers were all placed on the right side

COLORS: page colors not coordinated with those in the photos.

VISUAL TRIANGLE: none used

UNITY: photo sizes used were not the same

GALLON QUART PINT: none followed

How I added my style
1. used a short title
2. clustered photos
3. clustered embellishments
4. strip journaling
5. simple embellishments/minimal hand-cutting
6. didn't fill every space on the page :)



i didn't make it to the final round, but I'm glad to have made it this far in the contest, and more importantly, to have been given another opportunity to play again :)

Good luck to the Top 10 (11) girls who are in it for the final round. You are all very talented, can't wait to see who comes out to be the 2nd Top Designer! :D

it ends tonight

i excitedly conceptualized and created my page for this week's class/challenge COLOR PSYCHOLOGY.

Not long after I posted it into the gallery, I found out from a couple of Bad Girls that I wasn't supposed to use a B&W photo. I didn't believe it at first, as there was nothing specific indicated when the class was posted, but apparently, buried somewhere among the member posts, was a follow up instruction that we were only to use colored photos! ACK!! It was too late. I had no other immediate ideas to work with, so I left my LO alone. My only consolation is that I am happy with the way this page turned out - it's almost just as I envisioned it when I was still sketching it out a few days ago.


The honor roll list was posted a few hours ago and just as I predicted, my name was no longer in it :( at least, there's always next year to look forward to. I'm glad I made it to the 5th round this year, 1 round more than how I fared last year =)

moving on

to round 5!! how friggin' awesome is that? never in my wildest dreams did i imagine i'd be moving past class 4 especially because even after 6 days of mulling over the class' design principles (accessorizing + unity, harmony, balance and texture concepts to boot!), i still had no idea what to work on and add to to that the fact that i only managed to find/print out photos well under 2 hours before the submission deadline! talk about pressure! :o whew!

To put these principles into better perspective, Bethany shared these concepts:

UNITY is defined as the visual linking of the elements in the piece. Accessories can unify by providing flow from various areas in a layout.

I tried to achieve it by linking my photos together to show the flow of the action shots better. i also tried to help the movement flow by placing arrows here and there and then i added a small piece of map paper to further reinforce the theme of my LO.

HARMONY is the visually pleasing effect of combining similar elements. This can be achieved through various mediums including color and shape.

For this I used similar photo sizes and colors found in the photos

BALANCE is pleasing proportion. i decided to go for the symmetrical principle.

TEXTURE is the tactile surface of a work of art. In layman’s terms, it is the feel of various elements. It is the smooth wood, or the bumpy lace, the ripple in the ribbon, etc. Some of the easiest ways to add texture are via distressing and sewing.

So I layered, distressed (crumpled, torn, painted, inked) papers, used grunge board, lots of staple wire, distressed chipboard, punchinella, tape label, and metal embellishment.

Treasure Hunters


still can't figure out how i got through this one! haha! but i am glad, of course! ;)

actually, i was even more surprised that i moved on from class 3 (less is more principle) last week - I can still remember how i was booted out of the white space class last year! haha!

What Matters Most


i'm happy about how this one turned out! ;) thanks to the principles shared by Sri Sams.

Achieving BALANCE is the most important principle in creating a simple layout. Balance refers to the weight of a design based on the elements and objects of the design. Balance can either be symmetrical or asymmetrical.

I decided to go for the asymmetrical balance by putting more weight on the right side, where the photos are

To achieve balance, you have to take control of space. White space is always an active element in a good design. White space is also known as negative space. It doesn't mean it has to be white because it can be any color whether it is black, brown or white. It’s also up to the designer to make it an important element of design because if not used properly it can be misunderstood for wasted space. When used properly, it allows a breathing space and provides the simplest way to unite elements of the layout.

I decided to leave out some space above and below the photos then I grouped the embellishments to the left of the photos

Unity is achieved when elements in a given space have a direct, cohesive relationship to one another. Unify elements by grouping elements that are close together so that they look like they belong together:
- Lining up or grouping photos together.
- Use the same color palette throughout.
- Repeat a color, shape or texture in different areas throughout.
- Choose elements that share a similar color, theme or shape.

So for unity
- I used similar photos
- I lined up photos together
- I also repeated/used the same color palette (papers and embellishment colors taken from the colored photo)
- I likewise repeated several round embellishments (flower, brad, clock)

TFL!

class 2

is all about mixing patterns bearing in mind 4 design principles:

principle 1 - drawing the color palette from the photo itself

principle 2 - gallon, quart and pint: may be used in terms of colors or as in the case of this class, large, medium and small patterns. the large being the 'signature' pattern, it has to be the one that grabs attention.

principle 3 - vary patterns. as a rule of thumb, similar patterns, even if they are of different scales, should be avoided as it will look too busy and cluttered.

Principle 4 - Play! As Emilie Ahern says, there's no right or wrong in scrapbooking. Experiement with mixing patterns and see what mix YOU like. Play with whimsical papers and designs that fit your theme. Play with colors in embellishments and trims. Sometimes you can break all of the rules and LOVE the result. Try a few different things until you get the feel for mixing patterns and you'll be hooked in no time!

Here is my take on this fun class:


TFL!

Top Designer

it's that time of the year again, when Bad Girls Kits hosts Top Designer - a 6-week series of awesome classes and challenges. Even though I didn't make it past week 4 last year, I made sure I 'enrolled' again this year :)

1st class/challenge is all about layering perspectives by Cari Fennell - ack! this is my major problem area! lol! despite the fact that Miss Cari's class was very informative, I found myself delaying my homework submission until the very last minute. A "my dog ate my homework" excuse is simply unacceptable (you don't want to get yourself into detention!) so I found myself working on a page earlier today.

Just as Miss Cari advised - enjoy the whole process - I did :) and things just fell into place (or so I hope!)



Truth be told, the major reason for my delay was the fact that I couldn't find just the right photos. Last night, after hastily editing several, I finally decided on some of Nikki's photos from a trip to a beach in Bacolod. Another reason was finding just the right quotation. I fell asleep in front of my computer just searching for one -- I think I may have stumbled on just the one by Judith Wright - can't go wrong with this, huh? :)

You are about to begin the hero’s journey.
Travel well on the quest.
A life of More is your birthright.
Know the vast resource that reside in you
and are provided for you in the world.





Materials: Bad Girls august kit - that which cost me much angst, just getting it picked up from the Pasay City PO! (heaven forbid i get another parcel routed over there!)

Good luck to those who submit their pages!

starting (october) off on the right foot

I hope! =) All weekend and all-day long today, I couldn't help but ponder on the latest class assignment (white space) for Bad Girls Academy. Well, I was more like itching to scrap haha, so the moment I got home, I sat and got to work on this page.


Supplies: CS: Bazzill; STAMP: Autumn Leaves; INK PADS: Versa, Stampin' Up, Colorbox; RUB-ONS: Autumn Leaves; EMBELLISHMENTS: Heidi Swapp flower, Making Memories bling brad, MLA metal flower; OTHERS: Dymo label, transparency sheet

Starting off right, huh? My foot! I should be checking my students' research papers but I ended up playing instead, haha!

class 3 at bad girls

glad to have made it to another class over at BG Academy, this week's topic being Design Elements. Hmm... which element to choose for the assignment was kinda tricky as I've realized each one somehow plays a different role in one's pages. No matter, I just went for direction with this:


Materials: CS: Bazzill; PPs: Basic Grey Periphery, MME Magnolia; Stamp: Fontwerks; Ink pads: Brilliance and Versa; Dymo; Others: CBX bling and Simply Scrappy metal embellishment

I anchored my photo to the vertical torn edge to help bring the eye towards it, and then added a horizontal strip underneath the photo to take the eye towards my page title and the journaling at right. I decided to be a bit ambitious and went for a French title as I felt the BG papers lend themselves well to a French-y feel ;)

bad girls class 2

I had the privilege of moving on to the next class (a.k.a. challenge round) at Bad Girls, which is all about adding texture and dimension to LOs and naturally, the 'assignment' for this week is to incorporate as much texture as possible into a page. ACK! This has got to be my Achilles' heel! Hmmm... Yesterday, I had the chance to see Teacher Iris, one of the talented DT members at Bad Girls who gave this week's class, and I made sure to tell her how tough this week's class assignment is, hahaha! (Homework I submitted for the first week of classes was my US page).

I checked out Iris' work and other galleries for ideas, and luckily, inspiration struck! I couldn't be happier! I set out to mix and match papers and photos into the wee hours of this morning and I will have to say, homework: check!


Supplies: PP: Basic Grey; FLOWERS: Prima; METALS: Making Memories (bookplate and brads), Creative Imaginations (spiral clip and brads); BLING: MME; STAMPS: Technique Tuesday and Autumn Leaves; INK: Colorbox, Stazon and Versa; OTHERS: paper-pieced dragonfly taken from a Brenda Walton envelope, transparency, lace and ricrac

Have a great week ahead!

US

Am not letting go of this inspiration thingy! I actually should be working on several piles of documents for the school, but I can't seem to shake off the mojo! HAHAHA!!!

Merely rotating a sketch by Sunny Walls, I worked on another page yesterday. I decided to use some of my photos this time, as I haven't scrapped a page for myself in a while.


Journaling: I’ve been wanting to have a more up-to-date photo of Tubbyboy and me for the longest time, but the perfect opportunity to have one taken never presented itself. Until now. I seized the chance, never mind that we both need to lose a few pounds and inches here and there, haha! Manila Polo Club – 08.17.07

Supplies: PP: Doodlebug and KI Memories; CS: Bazzill; CHIPBOARD: WRMK; STICKER: 7 Gypsies; ACRYLIC PAINT: Making Memories; INK: Colorbox