chamba!

there have been so many things i want to blog about this past 2 weeks but just so hard to find the time to blog about life when one is so busy living it...haaay...

one of the perks i had the previous week was my birthday and my completed BG LOs. if you have been reading up my posts on the yahoo groups i am on, you would know i am pretty much afraid to cut up and use my BG papers. they are just too darn pretty to use! i had to build up the courage to finally use them because i recently realized that my paper stash is building up which is NOT putting them to good use. so i really had to force myself to finally cut them up. here are the results:

click to enlarge and read journaling

the above page is a hybrid of a Valerie Salmon sketch used for the recently concluded 'sketch and scrap' challenge and the February BG sketch. a scrapper friend, Jeannie, incidentally showed me the Valerie Salmon sketch a day before the deadline. i loved how it looked so even if i knew i won't be joining the challenge i went ahead and worked with it. reading the BG newsletter at the same time probably influenced me as well in doing this LO because it also looks like the sketch on their Feb issue.

deconstruction:
Basic Grey Oh Baby Boy papers; cut in strips; red mini brads; one side was hand-stitched with the aid of the Simply Scrappy Deckler and Stitching guide for easy hole alignment; photo and circle cut with Simply Scrappy big circle swivelknife templates and Coluzzle knife; photos edge distressed with white stamp pad ink; buttons and lace added; Sizzix Vowelplay diecut letters; Prima flowers, metal embellishments; Karen Fosted Biggie Brads; journaling written on transparency (i couldn't summon the courage to write directly on the paper!)

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since i had more photos of this day and still had some scraps, i decided to make it a spread. here is the second page using the same line of papers:

click to enlarge

had major fun doing the many diecut letters here largely because by the time i got to doing this one, my new Cuttlebug had arrived!

story behind LO: this one is a bit funny. we were having fun watching Raj enjoying blowing out his candles nga when his mischievous sister Gabey played a prank on him by nudging his head to the cake after he blows the candles out and putting icing on his face. siempre pa, nagalit ang birthday boy at umiyak. then they have this silly shouting banter that always happens after such kulitan.

deconstruction:
i used a sketch from BG's September newsletter; Basic Grey Oh Baby Boy papers; cut in strips; used scraps cut up from previous page and each piece edge distressed with Distress Ink pad in Marigold and Colorbox inkpad in blue; lots of diecutting for the looong title; letters glued down with Sakura Quickie Glue then doodled around it with black gel pen; stitching same as previous LO but this time in zigzag; prima flowers, metal embellishments and buttons added last

after i completed the LOs, i then thought i should at least try posting it on the BG gallery. baka sakali lang maka-chamba. i posted both thinking there would at least be twice the chance that they would pick one. so i was pleasantly surprised when they picked both. thanks Nina for the tips you gave regarding using their sketches. mukhang it works nga! now, i have bragging rights that i, at least once, landed on the BG roster (shortlived though this may be). kewl!...hurray for the simple perks of a scrapper's life...

items available at Simply Scrappy ScrapArts store used in this project are:
Big circle swivel knife templates, Deckler and Stitching Guide, Distress Ink pads by Ranger, mini brads