2012 MMDT February Challenge #1

THE INSIDE STORY

HOW IT CAME TOGETHER:

I began with an idea to use the 2.125" square pattern for the staying indoors theme, a white Mosaic Moments grid paper and black and red cardstock. I wasn't sure how many photos I had that I could use when I began, or how many I'd actually need. A page can be filled with 25 of the required squares. That would mean 13 photo squares for what I had in mind. Trying to figure out how to incorporate my title had me begin another line of thinking. I chased down an alphabet from LetteringDelights.com that was perfect. Looking over some of my other alphabets gave me another idea for journaling boxes and now the assignment needed two pages to accomplish what I set out to do. I was pondering a way to add a bit more journaling or at least tags and tried another addition. I hope it has all paid off!

In this challenge I have printed six 2" square photos on 4"x6"" photo paper, cut and rounded the photo corners, to expose more of the red mat. I then ran the black squares (Core'dinations Black Magic paper-with a red core) through my Spellbinders Wizard with two different embossing folders (Spots and Dots-Cuttlebug/Provo Craft and Circle by Darice) then lightly sanded to show the red and the design. I used Print Shop 23 to set up a grid to size my letters and punched them with my 1" Whale of a Punch by EK Success.

I also used Print Shop to format the game card text boxes. I used bold primary colors from Best Occasions Deluxe cardstock (WalMart) for the strip of color  to make the Monopoly-like cards for a journal for each of us featured in the layout. And finally, I cut circles and embossed the edges with the Spellbinder to create checkers for journaling adhered with foam mounting tape for dimension and the appearance of real game pieces.

I have used 45-- 2.125" squares, 20 with photos, 5 with specific journal notes, and several other random tags throughout. I've incorporated three game board themes, the original checker/chess board, the scrabble board for the title and the Monopoly game cards for Journaling as the third.

and now...

THE INSIDE STORY:

I've featured the things that three of my children and I enjoy in the winter. Every December 31st for the last several years we've hosted a Hogmany celebration...Old Year's Night as we usually say. Hannah who usually uses her talents in her business turns out a magnificent spread of a multi-course feast for a group of our friends. Amongst the evenings events we all play games together, Apples to Apples being a favorite, but we often find the teens and twenties playing a fast paced game of Dutch Blitz.

Playing games, doing puzzles and more recently playing games on the Wii is some of the things we try to do together. However we all have things we like to do individually, for Andrew it might be Lego, me, family tree research,  Hannah can be found reading, and Libby loves sculpting. Winter gives us more time to accomplish things indoors and then comes the spring and so many more things to do, usually garden chores! Being inside to us "homebodies" can be very productive! And that is THE INSIDE STORY.