Farewell to Inspiration Elevator!

After some thought and consideration, the time has come to retire Inspiration Elevator. But before we go, we need to hold a big retirement party, so we've invited everyone who's been involved with Inspiration Elevator back for one last reveal, and to our delight most were able to accept! We are so delighted to have so many IE alumni along this month! Thank you to each of you for helping us end our elevator ride with so much fun and creative energy!

This month's challenge is posed by one of IE's co-creators and team admin, Ann.

This month's challenge is simple, but I hope, challenging as well. 
Here's the challenge: Inspiration Elevator launched on May 15, 2012 and at that time, we explained our purpose as, "Welcome to Inspiration Elevator! What a thrilling day! Today is the launch of Inspiration Elevator (IE), a challenge blog created by my dear friend Christa Uttley and me. We chose the name Inspiration Elevator because it is our intent to raise our creativity to heights through challenges issued every month. We want to raise our designs from the ordinary to the extraordinary. We hope you'll join us on our journey!

IE is a group of like minded scrappy friends who want to raise the bar in their own creative process through unique challenges that we issue to each other once a month. These won't be run of the mill challenges and we hope you'll join us each month and be inspired by the creative designs we've created." 

That vision has remained unchanged over the last (almost) 3 years. The challenge this month is to just create - no holds barred. Take some time, or challenge yourself to do it in 1/2 hour if time is tight, but think about what you'd like to create if there were no agenda, no design team requirement. In other words, create for you, and enjoy the process!

We hope you'll take the time to hop through and visit each of our participant's blogs, beginning with our guests, then our current team, and finishing off with our co-founders. Feel free to leave comments and lavish each one with appreciation for all that they each brought to the Inspiration Elevator challenge over the last 3 years!

Audrey Yeager

Christy Riopel

Denise Morrison

Jodi Wilton

Laura Whitaker

Laurel Seabrook

Shelby Dwyer

Jayne Morgan

Joanne Burton

Katherine Sutton

Lisa Moen

Lisa Spiegel

Michelle Hernandez

Wendi Robinson

Christa Uttley

Ann Jobes

I have been struggling to find time to scrap since I took over the My Scraps & More store.  But last weekend I went to a 2 day crop with the intention of scrapping WHAT I WANTED!

One of my favorite things to do  are challenges from manufacturers blogs or sketch challenge blogs.  And t just so happened that I recently got the October Afternoon Saturday Morning collection in the store.  On the OA blog, there was a challenge to use "12 squares", and I was inspired to do just that!

Instead of doing 12 squares that were all the same size, I did 12 squares of difference sizes.  I went through my stash and found some other OA papers from the Apple Cider collection, and some of the Tidbits, too, and added those in the mix.  I decorated some of the squares with little bits, punches, and flair.

Inspiration Elevator was always a treat to do every month when I was on the team!  It was always amazing to see the many different ways the incredible designers interpreted the challenges!

I'm so glad I got to be a part of it!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Inspiration Elevator- First Year COMPLETE! *giveaway*

From the IE Group:

Welcome to another Inspiration Elevator reveal! We are thrilled to celebrate the end of our first year of Inspiration Elevator challenges and are anticipating that the second year will see that creative growth continue to go UP! To celebrate our first anniversary and our fabulous designers, Christa and Ann decided to challenge our designers to take an in-depth look at a fellow designer's artistic portfolio via her blog, choose elements from that designers creations,and incorporate them into her own work. In other words, we are encouraging a scrapLIFT! Rather than a mere copy of someone else’s work, this is a stylistic scraplift that should inspire each designer to grow creatively as she is inspired, yet remain true to her own style.

As the second year of this creative journey begins, and as the popularity of Inspiration Elevator increases, we have created a new blog for our Inspiration Elevator Challenges. So, if you want to play along you can find the challenges and links to the inspiration all in one place! To celebrate our first year, our hopping will incorporate RAKs along the way – how exciting! Now, before you go hopping along, we want to let you know of a few personnel changes.

While, we are so excited to welcome back most of our original design team members for year two, we are saddened to be saying goodbye to Audrey Yeager. Audrey has creatively embraced every challenge over the past year, and has been a super part of our design team over the past 12 months. We hope your will continue to stop by her blog and see her gorgeous creations. Thank you Audrey for sharing our journey – we are grateful for you!

Audrey here.  I just wanted to say that I LOVE where IE has taken me this last year!  It was such a pleasure to work with everyone in this group and to grow and support each other as "artists".  I have loved watching everyone evolve over the year and had so much fun tackling these challenges!

We are very pleased to announce a new member to our design team. Join us as we welcome Jodi Wilton. Jodi's design style is happy and whimsical and we are looking forward to sharing this new year of growth with her and seeing how her creative muse is tickled by our challenges.

We mentioned RAKs or giveaways at each designer’s blog this month,since we’re celebrating our first year. Please read each designer’s instructions regarding the giveaway as they will vary. We will post a final list of winners on April 24^th on the Inspiration Elevator blog, so be sure to pop back, and if you create something based on this month’s challenge, please link it up on the blog!

I got to lift: Lisa Spiegel

I have known Lisa for quite some time in the scrappy world, but I can honestly say I don't remember where or when we "met"!  I'm sure it was a long time ago on some club team or message board!

I loved looking through Lisa's blog at her recent work.  Actually, I scrolled through her blog all the way back to just a little over a year ago.  One thing I noticed is that her scrapping has become some much more detailed and she has added a lot more layers to her pages!  Just going through the first couple of recent pages on her blog, I found these layouts that caught my eye:

Do you notice a pattern?  :)  What caught my eye was the doilies on each page.  With 3 girls, I am sure she loves "girly" things!  Also, the basic design of these pages is a large, single photo with layers of papers and embellies, and then a smaller cluster off to the side somewhere on the edge of the page.  Three out of four of these pages have butterflies and they all have flowers.

So instead of lifting a particular layout of Lisa's, I lifted her style and came up with this:

I started by pulling out a doily and then fussy cutting the bright pink flowers.I dug through some old Scrapbook Circle kits and pulled out some aqua, beige, and pink elements to work with.

I just started layering papers and embellishment with my photo, working with the flowers and doilies, too.  I stuck with one main cluster of layering around my photo, like Lisa does, and then added an "off the page" element on the lower left corner.

To add some "me" to this page, I used a stencil with some Art Anthology paint and also splattered some white paint as well.  I noticed that Lisa also outlines her layouts a lot, or frames them with another piece of paper, so I stitched a black frame around the outside with my machine.

Then I needed to find a butterfly for my page and this one from the Crate Paper Maggie Holmes die cuts was perfect!  The black in it really drew out the black in my photo.  Then the black title creates a visual triangle.  Voila!

I really really loved this challenge!  I can't tell you how quickly this page came together, and I loved getting in touch with my girly side and using doilies and butterflies!  Thank you LISA for the inspiration!

*GIVEAWAY*

Now, for my blog hop PRIZE, I will choose one random FOLLOWER who comments on this post.  In addition, you must also follow the new Inspiration Elevator blog and leave a comment there, too.  Up for grabs is this hod podge of duplicate scrappy stuff that I have!  It kinda makes a nice kit!

Winner will be announced April 22 here and on the IE blog.

Stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Jodi Wilton

Inspiration Elevator

Photo Alterations...Inspriation Elevator

You may recall that the purpose of the Inspiration Elevator challenge group is to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. You can view all of the challenges on my blog by clicking HERE.

CHALLENGE:
This month, our challenge comes from the very sweet and very talented Joanne Burton. Joanne resides in Waterloo and co-owns a scrapbook store there with her bff. Her scrapbooking style is classicly elegant and always showcases wonderful photos. It's no wonder that her challenge to is centered around the photo - here is the challenge, in Joanne's own words:

Inspiration Elevator has been such a tremendous experience for me! We have explored our style, stretched our single pages into two, documented our fears and regrets, scrapbooked our beliefs, worked with less than perfect photos and have even gone vintage! Hopefully we have each grown as a result of being a part of this group – I know I have! 

One of the fun things about scrapbooking is working with our photos. We get to pick and choose our favorite photos and have fun recording the memories behind them. So this month, I thought we could stretch our creativity by having some fun with our photos!

I assume we all work with digital photos, so this month’s challenge will work for each of you. I want you to pick a photo and then alter it in some way using your favorite photo editing program. I would like to see something more than just making your photo black & white. Maybe use a special effect, add a frame, play with text, etc. There is so much you can do!

Play with your photo until it conveys a particular look or feel that will help you to express your memories associated with that picture. Then add it to your page! When you post your finished project, please share how you altered your photo, and why you chose the effects you did. (Maybe you could even post a before and after of your photo!)

My Take:

I came across this free photo overlay for Photoshop when someone posted it on Facebook.  I have never worked with overlays before, but followed the directions (and watched a few YouTube videos) and I enjoyed playing with it a bit.  You can find the heart overlay HERE (its free!) from Somewhat Simple.  I had just chosen a recent photo, and wasn't intending on using it, but after playing with it a bit, I like the way it turned out and decided to use it!

Charlotte sometimes gets my point and shoot out and starts taking photos of everything.  We got this great little shot of the three of us.  But as SOON as I get behind the camera, they disappear and won't look at it!  :)

I just got a huge stash of Fancy Pants papers from My Scraps & More.  This is the "Trendsetter" collection.  I love this color combo of navy aqua and pink that has been showing up everywhere (Crate Maggie Holmes, AC Dear Lizzy, Glitz Uncharted Waters) I cut apart all the tags from one of the patterned papers and layered them to create a mat for my photo.  On a few of them I added some Navy twine. Directly behind my photo, I used some light blue vellum (which I found in a clearance bin at AC Moore for like 10 cents!)

On my background, I heat embossed some doily stamps in white and splattered some navy and pink ink.
Another little cluster of some tags, a badge, chipboard, and a button near my title area.

Thank you for stopping by today!

I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper 

Lisa Spiegel

Stay Scrappy My Friends!

February Inspiration Elevator...OLW-START

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow.  

This month, our challenger was the super talented Lisa Spiegel. Lisa lives in California with her family and this month she asks us to think about our growth in 2013. This is what she wrote:

"Create a layout about your One Little Word. You know, the word that we scrappers choose in January upon which to reflect for the year. This word should have special meaning to you and be selected for it's potential to help you reach and grow...the only hard part..you must use a photo of yourself and add journalling to the layout explaining the significance of the word..."

I hope you will join the rest of our Inspiration Elevator team to see what word best reflects their plans for change and growth in 2013.

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper
 Sue Sykes

So I thought a lot about my OLW for this year, and it was a bit hard to choose because I have so much going on in my life right now (which makes me wonder how much what we are experiencing NOW influences the word we choose).

The word I chose is START. We just moved back to central NY, and although the sites are the same, our lives are much different.  We are going to have to start a lot of new things: start new jobs, start new school for Charlotte, and I wanted to REstart doing things I used to do, like working out and getting together with friends.  Also, I have a tendancy to procrastinate A LOT, when it comes to projects, even scrapbooking, but I know that if I just START, even with no particular goal in mind, I will get something accomplished!

OK, about my page.  I used the February kit from My Scraps & More, which included some MME.  I wanted to add a bit more color, so I used some light green mist on the background, and went over some areas with some modeling paste.  I then machine stitched over it with some teal thread.

I fussy cut some of the black doilies from the MME papers, and used some letter "A" stickers (for me name!  :)  ) around the page.  Instead of journaling, I decided to take a whole bunch of synonyms for the word "START", write them on bits of paper, and scatter them on the page.  I really like some of the other words, but START just seemed easier!

I have usually been adding an Art Journaling component to my IE posts, but I just didn't get to it yet this month!  But it WILL get done this weekend!

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by!

Stay Scrappy my friends!

Inspiration Elevator...Top Ten and Art Journaling Intentions

A few weeks ago, I posted my Top 12 layouts of 2012.  I love going through everything I have done over the year to see how I have changed and grown, and to reflect on all those special moments!

Today for Inspiration Elevator, we are also celebrating our favorites of 2012.  I have a lot more "favorites" other than layouts, so today I am going to focus on some of my favorite things I created that were NOT layouts!

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. 

So here are some of my favorite "other" projects over the past year, in no particular order:

Cards:

Mini Albums:

(Two albums that I want to share are going to be published in Create: Mini Albums in March 2013, so I can't share them at this time!)

(Two-Gether for Birds of a Feather Kit Club.  See HERE)

(December Daily Album 2012. Still have to post :) )

Art Journal Pages:

(" I Believe" for IE Prompt.  See HERE) 

("I Regret" for IE Prompt.  See HERE.)

 Other Projects:

(Paper Christmas tree for GCD Studios.  See HERE)

(Countdown Calendar for Basically Bare and Bella Blvd.  See HERE)

(Winter Houses for Basically Bare. See HERE)

I hope you will take the time to see what my Inspiration Elevator team mates chose as they reflected on this challenge. 

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper

Now because we didn't have a specific "challenge" this month, I still wanted to keep on with my Art Journaling, and this post seems like an appropriate theme for my thoughts: My resolutions (Intentions) for 2013.

I wrote them down first in my notebook, and then got to work creating the spread.  I went with my favorite color: green, which also reminds me of energy, which I am going to need to do all these things on my intentions list!

I started by heat embossing an arrow pattern from a stencil, and then misted some green and yellow mists over the page and rubbed them in a bit.

Then I went over the the chunky chevron stencil and some "Evergreen" Sorbet (gel paint) from Art Anthology.

A few circle stamps, and some confetti of hearts and pink sequins for contrast.  And I dug out some OLD flowers from my stash, just because they happened to be near me and I am purging some stuff!

Thanks for stopping by for another month of IE!!!  Hope you have the happiest of times in 2013!!  

Inspiration Elevator: Regrets

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow.  

Please join me in welcoming Katherine Sutton.  She is a very talented designer and we are excited to be working with her!  You can see more of her work on her blog, Fruits of my Scraps. 

This month, our challenger was the super talented Cathy Harper. Here is her challenge, in her words:  

"I have been thinking about my challenge for months now. This is such an amazing team, I am thrilled and humbled to be a part of IE...each of you are amazing designers. I often wonder what I am doing here amongst you. I scrapbook for the joy of it, the creativity part of it, the love of paper part of it....I hardly ever bare any of my feelings in any of my work! I often tell my kids that they can make up there own stories to their pages..I am that terrible about journaling. I guess it is a bit superficial or a whole lot superficial. So here is my challenge. I want you to create a page about REGRET. “No regrets”…they say we should live our lives without regrets… if it were only that easy, right? Most of us hold onto 1 or 2 (or a mountain full) of things we feel regretful for in our lifetimes. A lost love, those words you WISH you had said, the weight you wish you had lost….you know them, right? I encourage you to confront them….take those suckers on and scrap about them… or just one. This can be something superficial to something serious and painful… it’s up to you how far you want to dig. I DO encourage you to use this as an opportunity to really stretch yourself. Journaling is very powerful and you might be surprised by how you feel afterward. This is going to be super tough for me (I may already regret it, lol )...as I am one who lives with a mountain of regrets and know in my head that I should move on, let it go. I am hoping this challenge will help me actually "let go" of some of these things. Maybe by putting in down in 12x12 form, creating it, seeing it and feeling it, that I can put some of it to rest! It's worth a shot! Pictures, no pictures...that is all up to you!"


Last month I was inspired by the prompt "I Believe" to start an art journal, and I continued with that this month with the " I Regret".

Honestly, there isn't much I regret doing, or not doing in life.  I mean, there I some things I wish I didn't do, but all in all, those events helped make me who I am today and have helped shape my life.  BUT there is one thing I regret NOT doing....I never finished my Ph. D.  I was only a dissertation away...all my classes were done, I had credits galore, and was ready to go.  But we moved to Houston, and then life really changed when we had kids, and my life focus changed.  That being said, I am still pretty young and there may be a time in the future when I will get the urge and drive again to finally finish it and be called "Doctor"!

I started with the color orange because it reminded me of regret (I have no idea why) and I choose to put it with purple and pink.  The orange is mist that I painted on with some water added.  While browsing through my papers, I found this Hambly print with the butterflies, and I liked the idea of my regrets "floating" away!  The title I just cut out of black cardstock by hand.

I love have some shapes and textures below other layers, so I cut out these painted stars/flowers with my Cricut and layered them under papers, stamps, and some pen work.  Finally, I stamped with the "blah blah blah" stamp from Glitz.  I love that stamp!  :)

I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker

Audrey Yeager

Lisa Moen

Laurel Seabrook

Ann Jobes

Katherine Sutton, Guest Designer

We would love to see what you are inspired to create.   Add a comment below and we will be sure to drop by and say hello!

Art Journal Beginning...I Believe....IE Prompt

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. We love to have new faces join us on our journey and this month we welcome a new guest designer to join us.  Please join me in welcoming Denise Morrison. Denise's blog is aptly name "Life is Yummy" and so is her art!

This month our challenger was the very talented Ann Jobes. Her challenge to us is as follows:

This month's challenge is a journalling prompt. I realize some of us do not journal much on our pages, and if we're truthful, we mostly scrapbook for ourselves - it gives us joy, a creative outlet, etc. But we do hope that someone is going to page through these albums sometime in the future, right? For this month's challenge, I'd like you to think about some of those values or beliefs that are important to you.

There is no "right way" to do this. Spend some time thinking about this. It's your chance to share with future generations something that is important to you and makes you who you are. Take some time to collect some verses, quotes or sayings that speak to your soul. Choose one that you think is a "life verse" - something that really communicates the essence of you.

Use whatever photo(s) you think will suit your message. Enjoy putting a meaningful page together using your favourite techniques, style, papers - whatever makes it "you".

I know this is going to be difficult. I'm asking you to reverse your process and put the message first when we so often put our message/journalling last, as an afterthought, if at all.

I am not a good journalist...I always save it to the last minute and sometimes have a hard time articulating the feelings or thoughts that I want to convey.

Now I have to tell you that my post today was not only inspired by this month's prompt, but some of the upcoming prompts as well (which I obviously can't share yet).  But that is what lead me to doing something different: Art Journaling.

I have been wanted to do this for a long time, and have dabbled here and there, but I have never really committed to it.  It seemed like this format would allow me to explore and play with design and techniques as well as provide a place for me to document personal thoughts or feelings. I see this journal as being more of a creative exploration rather than a personal one...but who knows...it might develop into something totally different, and that is OK.

So here is my first art journal page.  I really have no idea what I am doing here....just playing around:

I played with paint, mists, stencils, stamps, punches, and pens.  If the word "Believe" were a color, I imagined it would be a mix of greens and blues and a bit of yellow. And also have some metallic accents.

I obviously didn't fill both pages, and that is OK, because I am sure  that I will think of things that I believe in and go back and add in some journaling.  This journaling is not something that I would normally share, but I wanted to share the whole spread with you.

I thought I would use the journal as a space to write about "I" things.  Some of the prompts I plan on using are:

I believe
I want
I need
I remember
I wish
I regret
I hope
I fear
I love
I see
I pretend
I was
I imagine
...and many more.


 I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Ann Jobes

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker 
 Audrey Yeager
 Lisa Moen
Laurel Seabrook
Guest Designer, Denise Morrison

We would love to see what you are inspired to create. Add your comment below with a link, I will be sure to drop by and say hello.

Inspiration Elevator- Vintage Findings

You may recall from lastmonth's challenge that the purpose of this challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. 

This month our challenger was the very talented Laurel Seabrook. Laurel loves flea markets and garage sales and would love to incorporate more of those items into her art. In fact, we have invited a valued guest designer to join us this month; her name is Christy Riopel. We welcome, Christy from her regular writing and creating job at Canadian Scrapbooker magazine.

Here's a bit of what Laurel had to say in her challenge this month.

"I love going to garage sales, flea markets and thrift shops to find fun items for me to upcycle into something else either for my own home or to give as a gift. I also love just to pick up some old things that appear to have some sort of story to them. I love the shabbiness of old, worn items and the warm comforting feeling they evoke.

My challenge for you is to scrap an old photo/photos. Not only that I want you to incorporate something that is not normally a scrapping item, upcycle/recycle something to include on your layout. Vintage is definitely not my style when it comes to paper crafting. I like clean and simple so this will be a challenge for me."

I'm not much of a vintage scrapper, so this was for sure a challenge for me.  But I was up for it!

To start this challenge, I was going to go through some old photos to look for the perfect photo, but I happened to be going through a desk of my mother's that contained old sewing stuff, and I found an old doily.  I asked my mom who made it and she said my grandmother.  I knew this was the item I had to use!   I also found this old plastic heart that looks like it may have been a button or something, and some old brass brads that were a bit scruffed up.  All of these were in an old tin of sewing notions, and I think they are quite old.

So then to search for the perfect photo.  My mother has bins and bins of old photos, somewhat neatly kept.  I spent hours and hours pouring over them, looking at the details, trying to remember names and places.  It was such a great journey!  I chose a few photos, but I didn't feel like I had one that matched the doily and other tidbits I found.

One of the last small containers I looked in had some really really old photos of my parents when thy were born, and even of my grandparents before they had children.  And then I saw this photo.  I didn't care who it was, but the look in the eyes of the woman looking at her child was just so special to me.  I loved this photo.  And as I stared at it longer and longer, I realized that that little girl was my mother, and the woman my grandmother (who passed away in 1992).  My mother reminds me so much of my own daughter in this photo.

I used a wood frame from MME and added the brads to the ends. The heart is the plastic one I found in the sewing tin, already distressed!  :) I couldn't bring myself to put glue on the doily or cut it in anyway, so I tacked it down with some small stitches.

Even the background paper on this page has special meaning for me.  It is a light print of a cross stitch pattern, and my grandmother is the one who taught me how to cross stitch. So instead of machine stitching on my page, I actually did some small cross stitch patterns here and there. Thanks Grandma!   It is difficult to see in these photos, but the edges of my page are also covered with clear crackle finish.

I used some cream paint and a herringbone stencil, and splattered some gold mist to accent the gold brads.  There are some bits and some papers from Studio Calico Heyday collection as well.

My journaling is hidden behind the photo.  I wrote about how good mothers raise more good mothers, and a few memories of my grandma.

I have TRULY enjoyed this challenge, and have even dug out a few more old photos to scrap in the future.

I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Laurel Seabrook

athy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Ann Jobes

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker 
 Audrey Yeager
 Lisa Moen
Guest Designer, Christy Riopel 

 We would love to see what you are inspired to create. Add your comment below with a link, I will be sure to drop by and say hello.

Go ahead and use those blurry photos!! August IE

You may recall from last month's challenge that the purpose of this Inspiration Elevator challenge group was to take our scrapbooking to the next level, to stretch our creative process and to grow as artists by embracing challenges that make us think, work and grow. 

This month our challenger was the very talented Lisa Moen.  Lisa, like most of us, doesn't always take the "perfect" photos. In fact, sometimes, the imperfect is all you have to tell your story. This month Lisa challenged us to use those imperfect photos to tell an story. Here's what she had to say about her challenge:

"I was digging through some old 1980's photos the other day and realized how bad some of the pictures were. Cameras have come a LONG way since then!

I have lots of pictures I haven't scrapped because they were/are poor quality pictures and I am sure you have pictures like that too. So let's dig out those blurry, bad pictures and tell the story behind them!  So my challenge to you this month is to use a bad photo and journal about it."

 I hope you will stop by and see what the designers on this adventure have created:

Lisa Moen 

Laurel Seabrook

Cathy Harper

Sue Sykes

Lisa Spiegel

Joanne Burton

Ann Jobes

Christa Uttley

Laura Whitaker 
 Audrey Yeager  

  I took these photos just a few weeks ago on one of our strolls after dinner at the river.  I love going out at this time of night and the colors in the sky are just beautiful.  These photos I took while walking fast, trying to get ahead of the group, the the sun flare behind them, while it added to the effect of the photo, cause my photos to be a but blurry.  But I loved them and used them anyways!  

The colors of the sunset are what inspired the layers of colors on my page.  I arranged the strips in the order that you see colors in a sunset.  I also added a bit of paint in some sunset colors and splattered with grey ink, too. I used my July kit from Scrapbook Circle.

I was originally going to paint in some clouds, but I had some tiny could die cuts that I just traced with a black pen instead.  I like how this came out!

I invite you to play along with any of our challenges and add your comment below with a link, we would love to see what you have created..