Prima teen contest?

As the fact that examinations have just ended up dawned upon me, I couldn't feel any happier!
Because, after exams are over, I can look forward to the following:

- More time for scrapping, of course
- Relaxation.
- Holidays (well, vacations were planned, but now these ideas have to be shelved thanks to the recent outrage of swine flu, talk about bummer!)
- More time to just stay at home
- Shopping!
- Sleeping - oh god, you have no idea how hard it is for me to crawl out of bed at the crack of each dawn before I get to school.

As usual, being the geek I ever am, I was bloghopping, message board-ing, pea-ing, and basically just adding an -ing to whatever scrapbooking is related to on the web. Checked out the new Studio Calico's reveal, and I FINALLY caved in and bought one kit. Ain't I proud of myself or what? I'm sooooo looking forward to receive it in my mail box. :D

In the midst of bloghopping, I happened to see this teen contest from Prima. I am like "BOOYAAAAAAA!" when I saw the notice. I mean, seriously, its so hard to have competitions catered towards teens to come by these days, since the main target group of scrappers are generally about the age whereby females take on the responsibility of motherhood, if you get what I mean, and now that it's restricted to scrappers between the age of 13-19 to focus on giving more chances towards the slightly younger group of scrappers (I am 15 going on 16 - I am perfectly in the midrange), WHO CAN GIVE THE CHANCE UP? :)

Oh lord, I am so excited now. Prima is so generous, just look at the prizes. I mean, while I am relatively sure I won't be able to win anything, I guess earning a feature on their blog (mind you, they get hundreds or even thousands of hits daily) would be sufficient to keep me grinning all day!

But of course, as every scrapper would dream, scrappy goodies for free if you do win the competition, for me, the chances are pretty low, considering there's still a huge bunch of talented young scrappers on there, let alone some 'diamonds in the rough'.

Do you see what I see? The 1st for this competition gets to earn a hefty prize of $200 (retail value) of Prima products (J'adore those flowers and papers!!), $100 barnes and nobles voucher (Prima sure knows how to encourage reading amongst us, huh!) and last but not least, guest designer spot on their design team, woots, sounds way too excitinggg, and even the runner-up gets to receive $150 retail value worth of prima products. That's enough to keep me hyperventilating all day long. :D

And the projects to be submitted are relatively simple, either a mini-book, layout or wall decor, and the theme is 'All about me'. A great chance for us, scrappers, as well, to get away from being the photographer and allow ourselves to shine through the camera lenses. It sounds like an awesome keepsake page for future memories as well. Maybe, 30 years later, when I chance upon the layout again, it will bring back those good ol' memories I had, and the crazy me when I was still an adolescent. Ah... :)

Even those layouts that are not selected for these yummy prizes get to be featured on Prima blog too, which is not a bad thing either, I mean, its PRIMA. Oh no, I almost sound like I am idolizing Prima now, which, in reality, actually, I am! The deadline is so loooong, and since I have a month full of vacation now, be sure that I will sink my heart and soul into creating something absolutely beautiful for the contest. And maybe, for the first time ever, my face would be seen, lol!

Home is where the heart is.

A simple and minimalistic layout with no photos. Also tried on a different sizing other than 12" x 12", breaking down into 8.5" x 11". I guess I really broke out of my comfort zone this time. This is created for TwoPeas+Hamblys contest and I just submitted this in, with only about 20 minutes to the deadline, I guess I was lucky that my scanner didn't act up!

"Home is where the heart is" - don't you just believe so much in that quote? Your family is the only place you belongs to, even if you're at age 80 or something. many of us takes our family for granted, including me as well, and I hope by making this layout, it can serve as a form of reminder as well as therapy.

I've just had a few bickers with my family (well, what can it be about again, my studies) and I really hate it whenever that happens. :(

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics (Kraft)
Embellishments: Jenni Bowlin, Prima , Lace (found from sewing kit, - to add an homely element, that's why)
Overlay/Transparency: Hambly Studios
Mist: Glimmer Mist (Watermeleon! :D)
Stickers: Hambly Studios
Rub-ons: Hambly Studios
Patterned Papers: Hambly Studios

I hope you guys will enjoy the weekend! Have a nice day ahead of you. :)

Some lovelies

I like to lurk around online sites a lot, particularly those that are slightly catered to the 'crafty' side of me, although many times, I was tempted to click the 'checkout' button but never did. Here's a wishlist that I've conjured up. :)

The items are all available on shopplasticland.com if anybody's interested. :)

Things that are incredibly cute:

1. woodlands animals notebook with a reminiscent victoria era's feather pen :D

2. incredibly cute victorian bird hang-up art wall panel. - i totally dig the colors. :)

3. Miso pretty vespa tray (melamine) - reminds me of the 1950s era in oriental culture! :D


4. ice-cream cone kitchen timer. can you spell adorable? :)

5. a must-have for any die-hard desserts fans... in other words, me! (boy, do i crave for those chocolate frosting cupcakes right now!)

6. lined paper with screen-printed bird on each page. eekkkk, they're so beautiful. :)

7. retro salt and pepper shakes - domestic goddesses... UNITE!


I also hope this pictures serve as an inpiration to you - many of these items seems like chicken soup for the crafty soul!

I apologize for the lousy quality - I had to photograph this instead of usually scanning it in because the scalloped edges were a b**** to scan in. :P One side gets cut-off no matter how I scan in the layout, because my layout is only 11" wide, sadly.

I've been creating quite frequently, lately, so here you go:

Supplies:
PPs: Crate Paper. American Crafts
Embellishments: Pink Paislee, Maya Rooad, Ki-Memories
Alphas: Pink Paislee
Bingo-card: Jenni Bowlin
Vintage ephemera: A page from an old storybook (got it from one of the craft kits in RedVelvetArt.com!)

Specially created this for a few of Studio Calico's NSD challenges, if you find this layout familiar, you probably have already found this layout in SC's member gallery sometime ago on NSD. Received a few positive comments, thank you so much ladies! :)

It's supposedly used for a few challenges:

Stephanie's "something old" challenge, that is, I must use at least one vintage 'something' in the layout, such has old stash, old photos, or just vintage ephemera or things that look old. :) Definitely a fun challenge to work with to explore your inner vintage side. :D

Tina's "white space" challenge, I'm normally a very 'layered' or 'clusters of hand-cut papers' person, and love to maximize every single space I have out of the 12" x 12" papers, so this white space enabled me to embrace the inner simple scrapper within me. :) Hopefully, I will be able to scrap more layouts that look much more uncluttered. (This layout is a vast improvement compared to my other layouts in terms of the 'white space' part, but there's definitely room for improvements).

Nicole's 3 PPs challenge, this is arguably one of the easiest challenge ever, and have the most number of scrappers submitting their work. I'm very much of a patterned paper person! (Seriously, look around this scrapblog and I bet you cannot find anything with cardstock as the base, Patterned papers just 'speak' to me the most! :)

I didn't win any of the challenges, but I am still happy that it actually manage to 'call' my mojo back!

That's all for now, hopefully I will be back soon with more layouts! Cheers and have a nice day!

xx
Shermin

NSD!

Woohoo! It's National Scrapbooking Day and I can't be more happy with some many online shops coming out with promotional gimmicks and giveaways for us, the customers!

Studio Calico is being incredibly generous! You can stand a chance to win a 6-MONTH-SUB if you refer a friend! Now, I am tempted. I think without even winning this 6-month-sub (which I think I stand a very minor chance to...), I might just jolly well pay for the 6-month sub out of my own pocket. What can you say, I am just way, way way too in love with this site. :) BESIDES that, (yes, honestly, they really have more prizes to give out, I am getting more and more amazed at their generosity) each design team member had set a challenge and you can stand to win an add-on kit just by taking part in them. I'm definitely going to take part!

If you guys could please do me this favor,
Please go over to this thread, sign up for a username and post on that thread, telling them Shermin referred you! Thank you so much!

Sounds way too awesome! :) Also, if you've noticed, I've added the SC widget at my sidebar because guess what? Apparently, if you add the SC widget on your sidebar, you can stand to win a $50 SC gift card. Gosh, I am flooded with excitement! :)

TwoPeas is also coming up with a few awesome challenges too! You can earn a few awesome prizes by just taking part in them, boy, am I tempted or what?! I initially wanted this post to be focused on what the scrapbook products I'm in love with lately but all this NSD frenzy is making me so distracted and dizzy, well, in a good way of course! :)

I will be back later to share some more cool links, hopefully!