All About Me Challenge

Hidden Journaling

2012-01-20T02:51:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a few of the reasons I use hidden journaling.

1. On my current layout I have used hidden journaling on a tab that pulls out, as I felt this Confetti collection by American Crafts was much too busy to write on. Sometimes the paper is just far too busy and your words may get lost on the page.
2. Sometimes it's nice to have some hidden journaling. I know my daughters love it when there is a pull out tag as they know that usually it is a message just for them to read, and it's another way for me to convey to them just how much I love them!
3. Another reason for the hidden journaling is to fit all you want to say within a page, sometimes you just don't want lots of journaling on the main page.

I would love to know if any of you have specific reasons for hidden journaling, and if you do it would be great if you wanted to share
Tracee x

It's Your Time

2012-01-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Howdy Everyone!

I have so many people in my life that I love...my husband, my dad and my extended family. It is hard to choose one person of course, but I wanted to focus this month's challenge on my mother.

She has always been there for me, whenever I was feeling sad, frustrated and discouraged...she always had wonderful advice and always willing to talk it over and look at things from a different perspective. I talk to her just about everyday on the phone as we live in different provinces, and although I miss her so much, I know she will be there for me when I call.

But lately my mom has needed to talk to me for support. I give her the same encouraging words that she gives me...be positive, be yourself, be kind to yourself and be the best you can be. I know everything will be fine mom, and I love you so much!

I used Pink Paislee's Daily Junque line for my layout, some Tattered Angels mist, washi tape and my sewing machine! Here is a tip that I learned from a wonderful friend of mine which is to use clear nylon thread in the bobbin case, so you don't have to keep changing your thread and the bobbin every time you want to change the colour of thread.

So jump into those challenges! Who do you love?

~ Diana xo

Layering it all up.

2012-01-13T10:03:00.001-08:00

Hello!

This month's challenge really was a challenge to me. :) There's soooo many people that I love in my life, I had trouble just picking one. So I scrapped about my 4 kids. Yes, I know that this means that I didn't pick just one...

When you someone, you can't just love just one thing about them, all of that love goes in layers, right?

That's why I added so many layers to my layout. Saw the connection between the title of this post and what I was going to say, right? :D

All throughout my layout you see layers. The layered paper, the misting and using a template to mist over, all underneath and peeking out from underneath my photo. And so forth....

Layering to me adds soo much more visually. I love to look at a layered project just to take in all of the elements! Kinda how I look at my kids, I just don't see what they do, but who they are, what they say, and so forth.

Why don't you try layering it all up if you don't already do so? Your eyes will thank you. (And you use up more stash that way, too! See, a win/win situation!).

Til next time!!!

Arlene

{AAM January Challenge} It's My Party!

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

This is my birthday month and while this is definitely a place where we are challenging you to scrap about YOU, we can also take that idea and still include those we love in the mix. Who is your rock? Your go to? The one you love. Is it your significant other? If you are single, do you have a best friend that is always there for you or perhaps it's a relative like your mama or grandma. Whoever it is, it's time to dedicate a page to them.

The twist to keeping it about YOU is all in your journaling. Think about how this person influences YOU. How do they make YOU feel? Do they define a turning point in YOUR life? Have they been a constant for YOU? See where I'm going here?

Check out the layouts from the Creative Team and then come back through out the month as the gals share a bit more detail about how they approached this topic.

Do you have more than one person in your life? Is it hard to choose? Consider a multi-photo layout showcasing your "village". Or organize them into groups - friends, life event, etc. and do one layout for each. Too much? Narrow it down to that one! You can do it. And when it comes to it, it's YOUR layout so you do it the way you want to.

There is no sponsor this month. Instead, we'll be showcasing YOU and your layouts at the end of the month. I never want this site to be about the prizes, although they are GREAT incentive and motivation. This place is here as free inspiration and to get you digging deep in a fun and therapeutic way. :)

So... if you share your layouts below, we'll be featuring you right here... on the AAM blog at the end of the month. Can't wait to see who you share with us!

December Winner!

2012-01-04T00:17:00.000-08:00

Thank you so much to everyone who played along with us in December. I know it was kind of a weird month to begin our little blog back up what with the holidays and all. But I am thankful for those of you who created your "brand"!

So without further ado I'd like to give a big old CONGRATS to LYNN aka scrappyhappymom! If you would like to see her beautiful layout, click here!

Hey Lynn... please email me at melissa [at] theprofoundbrunette [dot] com with your shipping info and we'll make sure to get the lovely December Uncertainty kit from Scrapbooking from the Inside Out to you!

Thank you so much to SFTIO for being a generous sponsor and kindred spirit for our lil challenge blog here.

Come back tomorrow as we dive in for another challenge for January! Another fun one if I may say so. :)

~ Melissa

Melissa's Brand

2011-12-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Well here is our post to finish up our challenge for December: Your Brand! How did you do? Was it fun? Challenging? Did you learn something new about yourself? I sure hope so, on all accounts. Yes, I even hope it challenged you. :) I'm going to share with you a bit about my layout and how I approached the topic.

When I first came up with this challenge, the whole thought process I went through was to kick off the new season at AAM with something that was 100% you. A layout that would utilize everything you loved and would be something you would be proud to hang on your wall. I wanted it to be a project that you would constantly look at for inspiration. And so that is how I approached my own layout. I used everything that I love and challenged myself to do some things I don't normally do - like misting. It seems silly but I hate misting. It never looks good on my layouts. I envy those who make it look amazing and beautiful but I rarely get it right. I either get too close to the paper, or two far away, or don't angle the nozzle correctly and spray somewhere else. It can get pretty scary. But I did it anyway on this layout and I'm actually quite surprised at how much I like it. Yay!

Brand: Melissa
Slogan: coffee lover, jesus follower, and being the friend i desire to be
Symbolism: Coffee cup, camera, pink, bling, flowers, hearts and some mist

All the things I love and using some of my new favorite product to boot!

I see this layout as being timeless so I'm going to frame it and hang it on my wall. It makes me happy and inspires me when I look at it.

You still have until midnight tonight to submit your Brand Layouts! We have LOVED seeing the layouts submitted so far. I am excited to feature some of them this week. Yep... we're featuring your work so get those layouts uploaded!

We will announce the prize winner on the 4th, which is the day before our next challenge.

From all of us at AAM to you, hope you have a wonderful New Year weekend. 2012 is going to be a great one. I can feel it. :)

hugs,
Melissa

Happy Holidays!!!

2011-12-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

First off, may I speak for each of us here at the All About Me challenge blog and design team, and wish all of you, our faithful blogees, a very safe and Happy Holiday season, filled with all the things that make for peace, joy and wonderful memories to scrap about!!

Today I'm going to tell you a little about what went into the creation of my layout for this month's challenge! When I first sat down and tried to put down some ideas about how I could concisely represent myself on a layout in the form of a brand....I realized my scrap room was messy. So I cleaned it up. Sorted drawers, tossed things in a box to donate and generally tidied up. Then I sat down again to the task at hand and soon realized I don't have enough paper or embellishments to pull this off. So I went shopping. Don't they say, the next best thing to scrapping is shopping for more supplies to hoard?

You laugh, but the fact is that none of us has enough paper to create all the layouts it would take to fully represent who and what we are. We women are complex creatures. Ask the man who knows you best. He'll agree. And, well, a BRAND is more concise than that.

So once I realized how it was, I was happy to settle on a FEW aspects of myself to bring to this layout. It's a partial representation of me. It was me on that day. Slightly different from the me of the day before or the me I am today!

Anyone who knows me very well will you that one of my overriding philosophies in life is that anything worth doing at all, is worth overdoing. Pretty sure Martha Stewart holds to this philosophy as well. If I'm going to haul out the mixer and ingredients to make a batch of cookies, I might as well make 6 batches! Of a few varieties! And decorate them! And give some away to friends! But wait, if I'm going to do that, I need to make cute boxes to package them in! And decorate those!

See what I mean?

So I really focused on the photography/artist side of me for this layout. My love for cameras new and old, for using them, for the photos they produce, and also included a photo of some of my favorite books, and one of my favorite sport - snowboarding. It felt a bit one-dimensional at this point, and I had to have a little talk with myself about how I wanted to be concise and I only had 144 square inches to work on! I went a little crazy with the rub-ons and stamps for a photo mat, added a bit of polka dot paper, (because polka dots are never inappropriate) and some Canadian stamps (cuz I'm Canadian).

So there you have it. Me in a very small nutshell. And very glad to be part of this design team so I'll have other opportunities to show the other sides of me in future challenges!!

~ Norine

Thinking Positive

2011-12-19T23:12:00.000-08:00

Hi there. . .

We generally think negatively about ourselves far more than we should but this challenge was to focus on the positive,to brand ourselves and to sell ourselves in a good light. I asked various people to describe me in a few words & the phrase "makes me laugh" came up a few times so I brainstormed and eventually came up with the "brand" The Joker as I love to make people laugh. So I had my title.
Next I wanted to find a phrase or a quote that gave across that message after trawling the internet I found just what I wanted,with these ideas in mind I started to look for pictures & I found these daft ones of me laid in a wheelbarrow in the garden dressed in some funky pineapple glasses! Perfect for what I needed.
.My favourite colour is blue and as I wanted to use the smiley face emocion as my "logo" I added the yellow and then the green to match my pictures. This colour combo lends itself to a bright fresh look & I wanted to keep the focus on the title and the pics, so went for a layout with small clusters and accents that didn't overpower so your eye is still drawn to the main elements of the page.
.

All in all this layout was created totally backwards to my normal process where my title is quite often the last thing I think of! All About Me is here to help us document ourselves & focus on all aspects of our lives, I know that whilst I mainly love to scrapbook about my family maybe they might want to remember what made me "tick" too! So don't be afraid to make this all about you!

Tracee

My Brand...a nickname just for me!

2011-12-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

So glad you stopped by the All About Me Challenge Blog! Has anyone else found that a slogan or a nickname was given by someone else and it just stuck? I seemed to have run into a word time and again that many people have called me since I was a kid into adulthood.

The word that had become one of my nicknames is Sunshine!

Now I didn't always like this nickname, because as a kid, it just didn't sound "cool". But it kept coming back to me over the years with my teachers, family members, co-workers, and sometimes just complete strangers (!) have called me Sunshine or a Ray of Sunshine and then one day my husband to be at the time called me Sunshine (then I really knew I was marrying the right man!)

Well "Sunshine" kind of grew on me and today I love it when people call me by my nickname as it simply became symbolic of my personality - it is who I am.

My slogan is: Always Smiling, Joyful and Strives to See the Positive in All Things.

Colours: I selected warm and bright yellow and orange colours that represent my 'sunny' disposition.

Symbolism: Of course I had to use a sun in my layout, and used misting, doodling and masking to give a playful appearance to my layout.

Journaling: I guess that is why this nickname has stuck with me!

Were you given a nickname that has simply became representational of your personality? Of who you are? What kind of slogan would you give yourself as a result of your nickname?

Have fun!!

December Sponsor

2011-12-13T20:32:00.000-08:00

:::To enter your project for this month's challenge, click the nav bar above:::

I am so excited to announce who our sponsor is for the December challenge! It really does go perfectly with the type of challenge we have here.

Scrapbooking from the Inside Out is "an inspirational source, kit club, and online community for scrapbookers who want to explore their inner lives and deepest thoughts and dreams."

Each month, the kits focus on an emotion and explores what the motion means to you. The kits are packed full of the latest and greatest and contain symbolism and color to compliment the emotion. Rachel from SFTIO is generously providing a December kit - Uncertainty - for one lucky AAM participant.

"Our December kit, UNCERTAINTY, will give you the special opportunity to explore what you don’t know…yet. Life is full of mystery…some of it is unknown, and some is unknowable. How do you handle the ambiguity, confusion and unpredictability that is a natural part of the complicated lives we lead.

The symbolism in this kit is unique to you…go on and make it yours!" Read More Here.

In order to be eligible to win this beautiful kit, just participate and share the link to your project using the December Challenge! Remember, you have all month. :)

What Happens if I get stuck?

2011-12-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

Hello and Good Morning!

I don't know about you, but sometimes scrapping about myself can be one of the hardest things to cover on a layout. I have so many things to scrap about, like my kids and hubby, life in general... but my kids alone hog my scrappy attention with the cute things they say and do, so they tend to be in my scrappy focus a lot of times.

This is why I appreciate this blog! It makes me try to reach out just a bit further and it requires some thinking! I have to admit, when I had to keep things positive ( I am my worse critic) it made me draw a blank. It caused a panic....so this leads me to the question: what happens if i get stuck?

How do I get to a finished layout from a blank?

Smile: You are Fabulous

color: I picked paper full of bright color, because my life's a colorful one!!!

symbolism: shoes, flowers, crown, pearls, mist, the word Cherish to symbolize that I don't take a moment for granted, and some distressing to show how frazzled I can be!

slogan: the words are accented in pink on the PP. I also listed them, ie, shoe fiend, daughter of the King, I love pretty and old things...and flowers. LOL (that's obvious, but sometimes it's great to go with what's obvious, or else you risk making it feel wrong!)

It starts with this one little notebook.

I take it everywhere I go. It's small enough to carry in my purse...so as the day goes on if an idea "hits me" while I'm driving, or at work, etc., I stop and get that purse out to jot it down before I forget! <--- yes, you can laugh at that, I can't tell you how many great ideas I've had for a layout to then promptly forget it as I sit at my scrap table.

As you can see, I wanted to add more, but the papers I chose didn't allow for everything. That's the point of brainstorming, putting down those ideas that swirl around to kind of make sense of it all. If everything doesn't make it to the page, it's OK. At first I was a bit disappointed because I thought I was going to load it with a lot more. But a few days later I took another look and fell in love. I even expressed my uncertainty and Melissa said that it looked like something I would make. And it does....it looks true to me. :D

Here's an example of another layout I made just for fun using a beautiful color combo, with the notes I brain stormed...

These are the notes I jotted down just randomly one day:

you can certainly see that I didn't go with the tree theme....and this layout turned out to be one of my faves.
I hope that you can draw some inspiration from brainstorming when the idea quite doesn't hit you! You shouldn't shy away from a challenge because you draw a blank. You never know what you can end up with if you just push through!!!

{AAM December Challenge}: Your Brand

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the first official challenge for the new All About Me scrapbook challenge blog. We have a fun one this month that is all about creating your own brand. What does this mean? Creating your brand is all about finding the things that represent you. Understandably, this challenge might seem a bit confusing and challenging. When I first was introduced to creating this type of layout, I thought it was impossible. My brand? What do you mean my brand? Like my favorite shoe company? Mmmm... not quite.

Hopefully if you are at this blog, you know our focus is on the inside. We're using scrapbooking as a way to creatively journal our lives. So when I talk about Your Brand, I mean finding color, symbolism, imagery and journaling to create a layout that is YOU. Self portrait, a slogan, something that represents YOU is what we are looking for here. Use your favorite colors and products. This should be a layout that you can hang on your wall, look at everyday and say, "Yep... that's me and I'm pretty awesome!" In a way, we are labeling ourselves but in a positive light.

Would you like some more inspiration for this challenge? Take a look at how each Creative Team member took symbolism, color and even a personal slogan to make their layout special and unique to who THEY are.

Arlene Camacho

Diana Kennedy

Melissa Elsner

Norine Borys

Tracee Provis

So how would you label yourself? What slogan would you use that would describe who you are? What is your identity, your favorites and/or piece of your personality that stands out?

How the challenges will work with the new structure here at AAM is quite simple. You have the entire month to work on your layout. Through out the month, each Creative Team member will do an individual blog post going into a bit more detail on how they processed their layout. Hopefully this will give you more ideas and inspiration as you dig into your soul.

There is also a WONDERFUL prize for this month. Check back in a couple of days for the special feature of who our December Sponsor is.

To submit your layouts for this challenge, please include a direct link to your gallery image or blog post below. Please do not use this to share your blog. Those links will be deleted. This is solely for submitting to the challenge and to be eligible for the December prize. Thank you so much!

November Flash Back Challenge Winner!

2011-12-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Congrats goes to...

JENNY EVANS!

Congrats Jenny! Please email me at melissa[at]theprofoundbrunette[dot]com so I can grab your email address. Will send your Two Peas gift certificate in a jiffer.

Two more days until the challenge! Who is excited?

Welcome to AAM!

2011-12-01T05:00:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the official re-launch of the All About Me Challenge blog!

I am so excited to see so many still hanging around and all the new faces. Thank you to those who played along with the Flashback Challenges. I hope that they got your AAM creating muscles moving.

Here is what you can expect with the NEW fabulous AAM blog.

Our Creative Team has been working so hard together, getting to know one another and completing their first layouts. I've gotten a glimpse at a couple of them and am absolutely floored. It's going to be an awesome time here once again.

Our challenges will be posted on the FIFTH of each month. You will have the entire month to work on it. Yep. We're scaling back to one challenge a month. My hope is to alleviate the stress for the CT and also for YOU. Sometimes these AAM layouts can be pretty intense so I don't want you to ever feel like you have to rush.

If there is a ever prize for the month, the due date will be given to you on the challenge post.

Through out the month, the Creative Team will be posting to chat a bit about their own layouts. What we hope to provide through these posts is more insight into how each of us approached the challenge. Since we all have different styles and family backgrounds, I am hoping that you will be able to relate to one of us.

And did you know we have a Facebook page? You can "like" us by simply clicking on the badge on the right side bar there. You never know, we might feature you on our page! Also, this will be the way we'll make additional announcements and reminders so come on over and join us!

Are you ready??? Let's start the official 5 day countdown...

FIVE......

Last Day and Facebook

2011-11-30T19:02:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow is December and guess what the means? Tonight at midnight (PST) is the last day to share your Flashback Challenge layouts. There is a $10 Two Peas gift certificate for one lucky scrapper out there. Can't wait to give it away. Tomorrow also means that it's the OFFICIAL launch of the new All About Me! Yay!!!

I am so excited to share with you our first challenge and what the Creative Team has done with it. You will truly be inspired and I hope that it will be the beginning of many more AAM layouts for you to complete. Also, I can not wait to share with you who our first sponsor is! There is a fabulous prize to win. I hope that it will be enough incentive for you to join with us.

One other thing of note is we have a Facebook Page. I will try to update it as often as possible when new posts go up on the blog. Come on over, tell your friends and chat with us!

Flashback Challenge: #32 My Five

2011-11-01T13:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I hope you had fun reading more about the Creative Team. I'm sure you can see why I'm definitely looking forward to finally getting our new challenges going with the inspiration from these talented women. We have only ONE MORE MONTH until the new site launches. Are you as excited as me?

I'm still finalizing some details and little changes will be taking place on the blog. Then, December it will be full steam ahead and fabulous sponsor. You won't want to miss it!

Let's continue to warm up our AAM layout making muscles. How about taking another flash back into time with me? This time we'll go back to Challenge #32, which appeared on the blog in December 2010. It's a fun one. Here's the original text:

Inspired by the cell phone marketing scheme to make unlimited phone calls to your favorite 5 people, I challenge you to create a layout about YOUR 5. It could be your top friends, places to vacation, or memories from the past year. Wherever you choose to go, as long as you show us YOUR 5!!!

Do you remember that? Do the mobile phone providers still have the Top 5 feature or did it go kapoot? Well, I still LOVE the approach to a good AAM layout. Did you create a layout way back when that you'd like to share? Or perhaps, you need to dig into your stash and create one NOW.

Here's past DT Member Rachel's layout from the original post for some inspiration..

We also had the lovely Jen Martakis guest designing with us and here is her layout...

If you choose to create something, which you totally should, share with us in the link area below and YOU could be eligible to win a $10 gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket. You just never know when a prize will appear. :)

Hope your November is off to a lovely start!

Melissa

Meet Melissa Elsner

2011-10-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

Meet Melissa Elsner

Melissa's Blog

Hi everyone!

I am Melissa, the founder and coordinator of this challenge blog. The idea of this place stems from my philosophy on scrapbooking. While I love to document events and family, I also use this as a creative way to journal about me. I use it to process life in all it's gloriously messy moments and victories.

It's my hope that as we restart this blog, that you join us in learning more about yourself and finding joy in using our favorite hobby as a way to do some self-exploration.

When I am not scrapbooking, you can usually find me taking care of some of the cutest toddlers ever at my day job. I also love spending time with my friends and family, singing on my church worship team, traveling the globe and trying new foods. I'm also a wine connoisseur and am always on the hunt for something new to try.

When it comes to the paper crafting world, you can find me at Two Peas in a Bucket chatting and posting to the gallery, I also am the Design Team Coordinator for Scrapbooking from the Inside Out, writer for ScrapStreet magazine and am finishing up my term with Allison Davis on her Sketch Support team. I have been published in Paper Crafts Magazine, ScrapStreet and featured on several manufacturer blogs. I'm not sure when the desire to be published and such happened. It's a crazy world to be a part of but it certainly motivates me to keep creating and I love that. It also challenges me to keep cultivating my style and approach to scrapbooking.

I hope that you continue to join us on this fun journey! It should be fun. :)

We've got lots of exciting things coming up and I can't wait to share about it all with you.

Meet Diana Kennedy

2011-10-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Meet Diana Kennedy

Diana's Blog

Hi! I am Diana Kennedy from Edmonton, Alberta Canada. I have always been artistic in some way throughout my life. I have tried my hand at drawing, painting, sewing, crocheting, clay sculpture, jewellery making and all kinds of dancing ranging from ballroom to belly dance. More recently, I am teaching myself how to create art journals and mixed media art. One day I would like to try to learn how to do mixed media fibre art. I was introduced to scrapbooking in 2007 when I went on a retreat with one of my best friends. I was scrapbooking my wedding and was instantly hooked!

I am married to a wonderful man whom I am madly in love with and he supports me in every way…even enabling me with purchasing scrapbook supplies! I am educated with a Master of Science Degree in Clothing and Textiles, and work as an Art Gallery Manager located within an acute care hospital. My other interests include clean eating, baking/cooking, organic gardening, hiking, running, being a Zumba® instructor and shopping!

I have been published in Canadian Scrapbooker magazine and Scrapstreet.com. I am inspired daily by all the many talented people who tell their life stories through the art of scrapbooking.

Meet Arlene Camacho

2011-10-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am so incredibly happy to introduce you to the new All About Me Creative Team. Over the next few days, we'll be getting to know each team member a little bit more intimately.

Meet Arlene Camacho

Arlene's Blog

My name's Arlene, and I am sooo very honored to be a part of AAM's Creative Team.

What makes me scrap? I'm constantly thinking of color schemes, design, photos, and stories to share!

I started out as a young child writing stories, daydreaming, and doodling on just about anything that had blank space (much to my mom's chagrin). I loved watching my grandma sew dresses, curtains, & bedding for us. Hand crafted things always catch my fancy! Now that I am happily married with 4 beautiful teenyterrors, it's natural to want to document and want to create projects about/for them. They inspire me!

Meet Tracee Provis

2011-10-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

I am so incredibly happy to introduce you to the new All About Me Creative Team. Over the next few days, we'll be getting to know each team member a little bit more intimately.

Meet Tracee Provis

Tracee's Blog

I am someone who is very excited first off so this may come out all of a jumble!

I live in the UK with my ever tolerant Hubby and my 2 youngest children who are not so young at 19 & 21, 2 crazy doodle doggies, 2 older cats and a few goldfish. . On a regular basis my house is often full, with my eldest daughter and granddaughter all of these along with a whole bunch of friends are my main subjects for scrapping. I just love how you can turn a memory, that might otherwise be forgotten in time, into something very special indeed.

I have always crafted in some form or another from wonky eyed teddies to cross stitch to card making and others in between, but in 2004 I was introduced to scrapbooking and have never looked back!!!

My favourite music is Country and Western with some heavy rock thrown in I love to stick Spotify on in my craft room and sing my heart out while scrapping and to make it even better the neighbours haven’t called the "not singing in tune police" on me yet!!

I am a real chatterbox and often waffle on and on . . . . . . . and on for hours!

I love the colour blue and it's many tones I tend to use it quite a lot when scrapping.

I have recently discovered the joys of Skype and am often found late into the night scrapping with my friends in all corners of the globe, in fact with news such as this I feel a skype party coming on, the last one we had was for the Royal wedding and we all dressed up and made ourselves crowns!!

Oh did I mention I chat a lot LOL

I love chocolate and all things sweet, I don’t drink alcohol but my poison is lots of hot sweet tea!

Really I'm quite a sensitive soul with a small amount of crazy thrown in, right now I am loving my scrappy journey and all the fun friendship and memories it brings everyday. With an ever changing world scrapping remains my Safe Haven & most days you will find me at some point in my craft room.

If you want to know more just ask cos I sure can chat!!

Meet Norine Borys

2011-10-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am so incredibly happy to introduce you to the new All About Me Creative Team. Over the next few days, we'll be getting to know each team member a little bit more intimately.

Meet Norine Borys

Norine's Blog

Hello, my name is Norine. I'm a not-quite-50 yr old, mother of 4+ a daughter-in-law, married to Paul for 30 years, misplaced Canadian living in Arizona. I've been "scrapping" since my teens, but made it my official hobby in 2003. Before that it was cross stitch, folk art painting, pretty much anything "crafty".

All my life I have loved photos. Even ones of people I don't know. And I've loved the stories that each photo tells. But eventually the story-tellers are gone and (if we’re lucky) the photo albums remain and while it's fun to imagine the story behind each picture, it's much more satisfying to know the real story. That is what motivates me to put pictures and pen to paper. Well, that and the patterned paper. Oh, and the mists and rub-ons and ribbon and chipboard.

Four kids, one endlessly supportive husband and many varied interests (cooking, reading, snowboarding, travel, photography, cottaging) provide me with more photos than I will ever get scrap booked, but in the meantime, I'm having a great time messing around with fun and artistic techniques and products. And when I need to sound more credible, I refer to myself as the "Guardian of my Family's History". I'm thrilled to be part of the All About Me DT and I'm looking forward to new creative directions!!

Introducing the new Creative Team!

2011-10-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to share with you the FAB FOUR ladies who will be creating along with me at All About Me this season. Each bring their own unique style and approach to what our challenges are all about. For this post, I'd like to reveal to you names and layouts so you can see their style. :) Maybe you have a fave to look forward to when our challenges officially begin.

So without further ado... here is the All About Me Creative Team...

Diana Kennedy

Tracee Provis

Arlene Camacho

Norine Borys

and I will be playing along too. :)

Melissa Elsner

Please join me in welcoming this fabulously talented group of ladies. Over the next several days you'll get to know these ladies a bit more intimately (and see their faces). ;) Beginning Monday we'll begin individual posts with bio's, photos and links to blogs!

hugs,

Melissa

Creative Team Update

2011-10-17T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I was so overwhelmed by the incredible talent filling my inbox the past couple of weeks. Thank you so much to all who put yourself out there and applied for the team. I wanted to let you all know that emails went out to our new team members.

If you did not get an email I want to speak to you for a moment - let me tell you I know first hand how it feels to not get "the email". It's an awful feeling but I also know that you need to know you rock and are the best at what you do! It's my loss, right? LOL But seriously... there were so many of you who deserve to be on this team. Alas, I can't pick everyone. A team of over 30? Hmmm... now that would be a load of inspiration for sure. ;) So a huge thank you to you and I encourage you to stick around and participate. We'll do another call a few months from now so don't go anywhere.

New team members will be introduced to you, hopefully, next week!

Thanks again!

- Melissa

AAM Flashback: Challenge #5

2011-10-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

As we wait for the Creative Team call to come to an end, get those ladies in place, announce and prepare for December, we are going to be doing some "flashback" challenges. Let's go back in time to some of our previous challenges here at AAM.

Feel free to participate or, if you created a layout way back when, share it with us!

Get in our time machine and let's zoom on back to November 2009 when this challenge was given!

Challenge #5: I just Can't Live Without (Click to go to original post.)

This month, our challenge prompt is to use the phrase "I just can't live without ... ". Right after reading that, I know most of you immediately filled in that blank! Whether it's a travel item, caffeine, your Faith or a significant other - it's something, that when you think about not having it, you begin to get that nervous-bottomless-pit-in-your-gut feeling.

Iris Uy was our Guest Designer that month and so I thought I would share her layout from the original post for some gorgeous inspiration:

This post is also going to serve as a test to make sure Inlinkz works how I want it to. Thanks for helping me in this lovely adventure.

TOMORROW is the last day to send in your applications for the CT! I'll accept emails until midnight PST. That's 3 a.m. Eastern time. I'm trying to reply to all of them so you know I got them so if you didn't receive a reply, please email me again.

Thanks everyone!

Melissa

Changes and Inspiration

2011-10-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

As we wait for this blog to officially kick off, I thought I would share with you some of the fun changes that will take place with All About Me. The overall mission of this blog will not change. My goal is still to provide a venue for scrapbookers to gain ideas and inspiration to create layouts about themselves. This is the way I scrap.

In fact, I got to share this tonight at my church with a lady who was too afraid to attend one of our craft nights. She told me she was too anxious because she didn't have enough photos of events or her family to scrap. She also had photos that she didn't WANT to scrap. I admit to feeling a bit giddy to share with her that I use scrapbooking as my creative journaling process. I combine my love of scrapbooking with my NEED to journal. Most of my photos are me or showcase something symbolic. And, when the opportunities arise, I do scrap about events and others in my life. I could see the light flickering in her eyes.

So that's my goal with this blog. Always has been. The reason I ended it back in February was I felt really burned out. The fire in me was gone and I felt like I was trying to take the blog in a direction that wasn't inspiring to me. I feel that as the coordinator of this blog, I should be inspired in order to inspire. So here is a little list of how it was and what it will be.

All About Me was here to inspire you to dig into your soul while you create. It still is. But maybe not quite as deep.

We had two challenges each month. Now we will have one.

The Design Team was a contributing team that shared their challenge. Now it is called the Creative Team. They will have a time once a month to share a little bit more about their layout right here. Think "one stop shopping."

There were monthly prizes. This time around there will still be some cool prizes but maybe not every month. I hope that even on the month's there are no prize, that you will join us!

We had a forum. We won't have a forum this time around. First, it takes a lot of time. And if you are looking for community with like minded scrappers, I know of a fabulous one and I'll share that with you in just a bit.

If you are thinking about applying for the Creative Team there is still time. You have until the 15th! To those who have already emailed me your applications, you are making this very difficult, I hope you know!

In the meantime, are you looking for some more inspiration and/or community? I suggest checking out the lovely Open Road article in ScrapStreet magazine. ScrapStreet is a quarterly online magazine and this article is written by my good friend Stacey Michaud. Her focus is always on journaling and coming up with some wonderful approaches.

Also, Scrapbooking from the Inside Out is a kit club like no other. Besides the kits being packed full of the latest and greatest, SFTIO is for scrapbookers who want to explore their inner world - their deepest dreams and thoughts. You don't have to be a subscriber to experience the community though. There is an awesome forum so come check it out sometime if you want. :)

Thanks again to all our faithful followers and the new ones arriving. I am very excited for this new term will bring at All About Me!

hugs,
Melissa

Meaningful Journaling at WCS

2011-09-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

It warms my heart to see so many who are looking forward to the relaunch of this blog. Got to admit - I'm pretty ding dang darn excited myself. While we are in this waiting period during the Creative Team Call and such, I thought I would direct your attention to a wonderful article over at Write. Click. Scrapbook. The lovely Christa Paustenbaugh is hosting this week and has written some awesome posts with tips for your journaling.

Since journaling is such an important piece of our AAM layouts, I strongly encourage you to head on over!

Here are links to the posts she has up so far and I think there is one more day (tomorrow). Not quite sure. But you'll want to bookmark these for sure. ;)

Meaningful Journaling - Tell Me a Story

Meaningful Journaling - How We Tell The Story

Meaningful Journaling - Designing Your Story

Enjoy!

Melissa

Creative Team Call

2011-09-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

All About Me Creative Team Call

The All About Me challenge blog is coming back after almost a year of taking a break. It's returning with new vision and purpose within the scrapbooking industry. This new adventure is a very exciting time and we are looking for a few talented scrapbookers to join us!

Our mission at AAM is to provide an avenue for scrapbookers, who are looking for inspiration, to creatively journal their heart and soul through this fantastic art we call scrapbooking.

As a creative team member, you will receive our monthly challenge in advance and create a layout that showcases your own style and approach to the challenge.

Also, as a creative team member, you will share tips and tricks on how you approached creating your layout with an individual blog post on our AAM blog.

You will have the opportunity to showcase your strengths and talent with hundreds, if not thousands, of others who view the AAM blog. We also require that CT members have their own blogs as social media is the way this world is moving. And how could you not want to share your heart and love of scrapbooking anyway?

CT Member terms will be a minimum of three months and then you are welcome to stay on the team as long as you like.

To apply is simple - please email melissa@theprofoundbrunette.com with the following:

- 1 layout about yourself. Pull all the bells and whistles. Use your favorite scrapbook technique and showcase journaling. Journaling is paramount with a challenge blog like this!

- Link to your blog and gallery so we can get a little taste of who you are and how you might best fit at AAM.

That's it! I told you it was simple. :)

Compensation as a Creative Team member will vary month to month. Sometimes you'll get product. Sometimes you'll receive a special offer. Sometimes you'll just get to enjoy supporting this awesome site. It all depends on resources and how generous our sponsors are. If you are a digital or hybrid scrapbooker, you will receive FREE digital kits from Profound Brunette Designs.

Applications will be accepted through October 15th.
New CT Members will be emailed by October 18th with a little bit more detail about their role at AAM.
New CT Members will be announced on the blog on November 1 with bio's and photos.

International Applicants are welcome to apply!

Peekabo

2011-09-25T18:15:00.000-07:00

Anyone still out there?

After a seven month break from new challenges, the dust is being stirred up around here. Cobwebs are being knocked down and a new vision is being put into place. December 2011 is looking to be a mighty fine month indeed. :) Merry Christmas!

That is all for now.

Thank you!

2011-02-23T23:46:00.000-08:00

Thank you everyone for making this place what it was. Thank you for all the kind words sent to me. It means the world that this little place brought such great inspiration.

No new posts will be coming but above you'll see tabs leading you to a list of the AAM challenges and also the Tutorials given by the DT. And to the left is a list of all DT Gals that have graced AAM. A couple are missing from the list - Kim Tupponce and April Yap - but that is because they do not have a blog.

See you around!

Melissa

JANIS' FAVORITES

2011-02-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna hog the blog - - as I think I'm the last one to make the post. I'm not gonna limit my favorite to just one, as I have five AAM favorite challenges/layouts!!! Before I share my Top 5, let me just say that AAM is really special to me as I consider it one of my lucky charms. I am part of the team since it started - - and it has seen me got on the design teams of the following: Bella Blvd, Bo Bunny, Fancy Pants, Nikki Sivils, Upsy Daisy, Stamp Enjoy, Scrap That! Kits, and Color Combos Galore. AAM has witnessed my growth and discovery not just as a scrapbooker but also as a person.

I AM THE RELUCTANT SCRAPPER... but AAM helped me open up and bare and share more of myself. It has helped me give up my reluctance so I can be free...

AAM#12: The Year I was Born

Journaling: I was too nervous, but I yearned to be free. No more standing there beside the walls, I have got myself together, I'm havin a ball!

... and not just celebrate...

AAM#29: Royalty, I am a Snob

Journaling: Jackie O. would have traded the hoops for pearls, but I love that the shades and big earrings combo brings out the snobbish chic and channels my inner diva!

... but also embrace me.

AAM#15: Self-Improvement, Your Biggest Flaw

Journaling (hidden inside the kraft envelope): I always have this concept of what beautiful is - - and have forced myself to measure up to it that most of the time, I end up having short-cuts that are otherwise unhealthy and short-lived. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have to remind myself that it is in the imperfections that real beauty shines through. Got to embrace the not so perfect me. February 2010.

I consider AAM a major milestone in my passion that I call scrapbooking...

AAM#4: Turning Point in Your Life

Journaling: Life never was the same when I started scrapping in April 2008. I'm a number person - - I have Economics and Accounting as my backgrounds - - so I myself was kinda surprised by my artistic/creative side. Scrapbooking allowed me to celebrate memories I hold most dear and document and share life's lessons. It is a turning point for me and now definitely an all-consuming passion.

... as it helped me know and discover ME.

AAM#1: If I Live to be a 100

Journaling reads: I hope it doesn't take 100 years to know the 100% me. They say it takes a lifetime to know one's self... and how long is a lifetime? 50, 80, 100 years? I do not wish to wait, the time to explore and discover me is now.

Thank you Melissa and all the DT gals for believing in me - - I do not believe in goodbyes for I am sure that our paths will cross again. I am just HERE should you need me.

Good luck and take care.

janis

Sarah's Favorite

2011-02-21T05:05:00.000-08:00

Well it's my turn I guess....booo!!! AAM is so close to my heart...from the moment I first saw the challenges I felt an affinity. I can remember being ridiculously excited when I heard I had a Guest DT position, and about jumped out of my skin when I then got on the actual DT!!

At the end of 2010 when I looked through my scrapbooking pages, so many of my favorites were ones that I created for AAM! The prompts always seemed to bring out the best in my work...and I loved how the DT girls often went off on different tangents, but all managed to inspire.

My favorite AAM layout (and it was a hard choice!) was from the prompt "Your proudest moment". It's a pretty simple page...but I included some hidden journalling that was so cathartic to write and it really recorded some big decisions in my life all those years ago :)

Thanks so much for all your visits and support since i've been a part of AAM. Be sure to keep in touch, you can find my blog here.

Azura's Favourite

2011-02-20T01:21:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody;

This is very hard for me to write. sob sob :'(
AAM is one of the first design teams that believed in me and my love-passion for scrapbooking. When Melissa said that this was going to be a stepping stone for most of us, I truly believed her on this.
From the start, I have been blessed by working with some of the most talented, creative and wonderful pool of artists.
What I love most about AAM is that they always make scrappers like myself feel so at home with their kindness and their talents.
Not only that, I also love how the prompts push me to think more about myself and my life.
It goes beyond just scrapping about the good things..its also scrapping about the bad things in life, the demons and the person you know best-You!!
I hope with the site left on, you will still be inspired to create layouts about yourself and tackle your creativity on your soul searching. :))

It has been a wonderful journey and of course it will never be without your support.
Thanks for playing with us and inspiring us every single time.

Here is my favourite AAM LO
It is from the prompt "One little Word"

You can see more of our layout on One Little Word here.

::And do visit my blog::
{[The Hyberbolic GallivanteR]}

Goodbye!
Take care and keep on scrapping! :)))

Mo's Favorite...

2011-02-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

Hello AAM!

So sad to say goodbye to such a big influence in my creative growth.

All About Me has been such a great outlet for me and has helped me create and heal old wounds.

Why is it that some of our most dark and moody creations seem to be our personal favorites?

At least they are for me....

It's the honesty, the trust, and the freeing nature of such a creation that

leaves me speechless.

This is my "demons" layout, inspired by a song in which I used the lyrics as the journaling.

Thank you AAM for all the sisterly support, inspiration, and love!

Goodbye yall! Be sure to stop by and visit me:

The Adventures of Mighty Mo

Hugs,

Wendy's Favorite

2011-02-18T01:45:00.000-08:00

Oh my, just can't believe this is my last post here on AAM.
When I first came across AAM it was like January 2010. I instantly loved the blog and it's challenges. I like challenges, especially when it comes to get creative. In a short time I made all the previous challenges and couldn't wait when the new ones were posted.

The challenges were a kind of therapy for me. I don't like to dig into my soul and inner thoughts. But now I had to think deeply about things. I decided to make an album, so all the challenges will be like a journal for me.

When I go through my album and the challenges, I think the one that stands out for me right now, is the: giving up...? challenge.
I always think that when I give up on things, that I am failing. But this challenge helped me to think differently about my point of view. I have to think that I am not weak and failing, but that I am strong enough to let go.
Still this is difficult for me, but every time I think I'm failing by giving things up, I just have to take my page and remind myself that I am strong enough to let go.

I want to thank Melissa for having faith in me in my work as a DT. This was my very first DT job and it always will be very special one to me. So Melissa: THANK YOU BIG TIME!
And also to the other DT-girls; thank you for this wonderful experience. I hope to see your work in the future on you blogs or on other DT-jobs.

A favorite, and a fond farewell! (From Rani)

2011-02-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

As this is our last post here at All About Me Challenge, I have to say it had been one of the best journeys into myself I have ever explored! Not only that, but I am blessed to be among wonderful, creative souls! Melissa, you created a special place here and I will never ever forget it! The greatest thing about this place is self discovery and I believe all that come here have been touched in some way!
I wanted to also share one of my favorite past AAM creations:

I love it because it showcased a bit about me and my effort to practice peace. Thanks AAM!

PuraVida to you and to all the AAM designers and participants! I look forward to hearing about your continued adventures in the future!!!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!!!!

Rachel's Favorite

2011-02-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

Pride. Some say it is a bad thing. I think like a lot of other things it is good- in moderation of course!

Self-esteem and taking pride in myself, my work, and my creative endeavors have not always come easy to me.

This layout expresses just a few of the things I'm proud of:

I'm very proud to have been a part of such an inspirational team. Thank you Melissa, fellow, DT, and followers for making this a wonderful experience.

Farewell!

Arlene's Fave

2011-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

No matter how many times I hear it, I can't believe we're saying goodbye! It's been such an honor working alongside so many talented women. Seeing how many different characters a prompt can take on.

I have been so inspired. By everyone.

so what's my fave challenge/prompt?

I can't live without

This layout featured wonderful guest designers, and wonderful layouts that went really deep when they could've been taken to that shallow place (hey! nothing wrong with that!). The layout I created for it got a LOT of beautiful response! It was amazing how many encouraging messages I got.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for another fave!

Lots of love,

Arlene

Fabi's Favorite

2011-02-13T13:56:00.001-08:00

Dear girls,

This is not an easy post to do. At least for me, is always hard to say goodbye to something I like.

All About Me was my first DT to scrap about myself and nothing else more. It opened me to a different and much more deep way to scrapbook.

My favorite challenge is one that happened before I have joined the DT.

It was called IM WORTHY.

I think this is a gorgeous message that we should say out loud to ourselves everyday.

IM WORTHY.

Say it in front of a mirror. Be proud of who you are, what you achieved and even what you didnt achieved yet - but for not giving up and keep trying.

This was a wonderful team to be.

Hope you all keep scrappin' about yourselves.

Cheers for all we are and for the fun we have had here!

Love,

Melissa's Favorite

2011-02-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Ah this post is a lot more difficult to write up than I thought. I think the reality of ending this site is sinking in. As much as I know it is time, it doesn't make it any easier!

Anyway. I am sharing my favorite challenge from this past year. It was one of our first one's called What Color Am I?, hosted by DT Alumni Kim Tupponce. I loved the Dr. Suess quote she referenced and, even more, loved the DT creations and all the layouts shared by others. What a fun challenge! Here is the layout I had created. I'm thinking about doing another one soon but with the color yellow. It's a new favorite. :)

You know, the funnest part for me as I went through all the archived challenges, was seeing how everyone's style has evolved! I love that!

Come back tomorrow to see another DT Gal share with you their favorite challenge. We'd love to hear what yours was too!

Hugs,

Melissa

An AAM Update

2011-02-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Dearest AAM Followers:

I began this blog August 2009 because I felt there was a need in the scrapbooking community for prompts and ways to challenge us all in our personal scrapbooking. Documenting memories and events is wonderful but I also use this hobby as a way to creatively journal. I knew there were kindred souls out there and you do, indeed, exist! Thank you for supporting this adventure the past year and a half.

As with all things, they serve a purpose and then it is time to move on. And such is the case for AAM. It has been a true joy to provide inspiration and to help guide your thoughts in creating all about me type layouts and projects. I hope that the 30+ prompts from the past months have been a foundation for you as you put together your AAM pages.

My goal at AAM was that I didn't just want to provide simple, light hearted prompts. I wanted to take a step further and really get into the guts of our lives. What makes us angry? What area of our life scares the crap out of us to dig into? When you look in the mirror, what part of you do you really have to challenge yourself to like? Appreciate? Change? I think we have been successful with that. Even when people didn't share their layouts, I know that it made wheels turn and I respect that choice to not share if you did indeed create.

February 2011 will mark the last month of challenges here at AAM. It is a bittersweet time. The team is in a little bit of denial but the time is right. The blog will remain "on". You'll notice some things shift around but the challenges will stay so people can continue to come back for inspiration. I'll even leave the Design Team creations up because I know we all have a favorite style to look at.

Over the next few days here is what you can expect:

Tomorrow I am going to be kicking off a special sequence of posts by the current Design Team. We will be sharing our favorite AAM challenge and a layout we created way back when or, perhaps, a new one. I do hope you join us over the next week or so and share your favorites as well!

Again, thank you so much for all your support! It's been a great ride!

Let's go out with a bang!!!

Hugs,
Melissa and the AAM Team

{AAM CHALLENGE #35} What's In Your Purse?

2011-02-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hello there!!! This is Janis, invading AAM's blog!!! It's been a while since I last hosted a challenge here so I'm giving you a quick and fun one today - - What's in your purse? They say every girl has a purse/bag where she keeps what's important to her and that the contents also reflect her personality.

I'm not sure what the contents of my purse tell about me - - I just make sure that I have my wallet, coin purse, car keys, cellular phone, a pen (hey, it's a Uni-ball Signo - - good for journaling!!!! LOL!!!!), and my trusty Kiehl's tinted lip balm inside my purse all the time. Maybe it says I'm a basic, no-fuss person with a hint of girlyness - - or maybe I'm just someone who doesn't want to be caught dead without money or car or celphone or cracked lips. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's my take on this challenge:

Hope you can share with us what's in your purse and play along with us!

Here are some of the DT's layouts too...

Azura

Nic

Rani

Wendy

~ Janis and the AAM Gals

P.S. We're not going to use Inlinkz anymore. Just give us the link in the comments! Can't wait to see!

A painty tutorial

2011-01-26T02:04:00.000-08:00

Lately I really love to use paint or glimmer mist on my layout. I challenged myself to make a layout with a lot of paint. So here is a tutorial of how I did that.

Used materials:
- White paper 12x12 inch
- Acrylic paint in blue, green, white and kind of silver
- Brushes
- Toilet paper roll
- Glimmermist
- Pages of an old book
- Some scraps of (design)paper
- Butterfly punch
- Inkpad
- Letter stickers
- Staples

So lets get started:
1) First I put some paint in two colors on my white paper.

2) Then I smeared them out. You can use a brush, a pallet knife or an old credit card or just your fingers.

3) To make a structure in the paint, I used the inside of a cookie package. But you can use all kinds of things. Get creative with that.

4) Make sure you do this when the paint is still wet.

5) Next I mixed up some white acrylic paint with water. I took a brush and soaked it in the liquid paint. Then I made some splatters with it by tapping the paintbrush onto another brush.

6) After that, I smeared some silver paint on a piece of scrap paper. Took the toilet paper roll and made sure all the edges were full with paint.

7) Then I stamped it on the paper.

8) Next I tore up some paper from an old book and sprayed some glimmer mist on it.

9) I added that to my dried 12x12 paper and then put some more papers to it and my photo.

10) I punched out some butterflies and inked the edges.

11) From sticker letters I made the title, and put them on black cardstock.

12) I cut out the letters with a little black edge of paper left.

13) Next I finished my layout with the title and wrote some more on it with a black permanent marker. Put on the butterflies and some more black paper.

14) And stapled on the black paper too.

So that’s how I made this layout with lots of paint. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

{AAM Challenge #34} On the Agenda

2011-01-18T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hi all! It's me, Mo, bringing you the next challenge!

Now that you've had a chance to settle down from the hustle and bustle of the Holidays, it's time to tackle the task of goal setting! If you haven't already, consider what you want for your 2011. Come up with resolutions, goals, or a to-do list of some sort...or share your word for the year!

I am constantly making lists. I may not look at them again, but it keeps a creative and wandering mind like mine focused! If I don't write my thoughts and ideas down I just forget them! And I've got GREAT ideas and goals...I just lack the planning and organization to follow through.

On the last AAM challenge, I shared my word for 2011 which was "faith". This layout served as a reminder of how the word FAITH will influence many of my goals for the year. I chose to dedicate this challenge to helping me plan out what I'd like to do for this year.

Though I didn't journal my plans on my layout, I was able to focus my goal setting and planning on three broad areas: mind, body, and soul. From here I've formulated my plans on reaching these goals.

So get started! Choose at least one goal or resolution to scrap and share. You may choose to journal how you plan on reaching that goal. As always, this is a page for YOU so interpret this challenge any way you want...I am just sharing with you how I interpreted this challenge. If you've already done a similar page, share a week in your life, any vacation plans you have this year, your school schedule, what you'd like to learn...the possibilities are endless.

Now think....

What's on YOUR agenda?

For more inspiration, check out what the fabulous DT has created!

Nancy Doren, Guest Designer

Janis

Wendy

Nic

Arlene

Sarah

Azura

Fabi

If you play along with us this month remember to use inlinkz below to send us to your project. We'd love to come see it and leave you some love!

{AAM Class} A cloudy tutorial

2011-01-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! It's Sarah here and I have a little bit of a "how to" for you on a cute addition to layouts - textured clouds!

All you will need is a cuttlebug (or any other embossing machine), an embossing folder and some scrap paper or cardstock. My favorite folders for this are "Textile Texture" and "Divine Swirls".

It is SUPER simple - all you need to do is run your paper/cardstock through the embossing machine. Then it's just a matter of cutting out the cloud shapes - if you're not confident with this, you can always draw the outline on the flipside and use that as a guideline.

Here's two examples of how i've used these on my layouts...

It's as easy as that, but a nice addition to any page :) I hope i've given you a little bit of inspiration!

{AAM Challenge #33} Brand new Ending

2011-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hello All! Arlene here to wish you all a Happy New Year, and to bring you the first Prompt! Are you ready?

From time to time I find a quote that totally expresses how it is I'm feeling at the moment, and use it to scrap it. Ringing in the New Year, it's usually a time for looking back on the old, making lists of how we can make the new one better, etc. When I saw this quote I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, Anyone can start now and make a brand new ending."

Isn't this a fabulous quote? The best thing about it? It doesn't have to be used for just ringing in a new year, as you can see how I've used it:

Need some more inspiration? Here are more layouts from the design team:

Azura

Nic

Sarah

Fabi

(close up of Fabi's journaling)

Wendy

Rani

Rachel

We are beyond thrilled to introduce you to our January Guest Designer! She is a kindred spirit and a perfect fit for some All About Me layouts. Please help us welcome the beautiful and talented...

Nancy Doren

I really hope you've been inspired by the quote (and the layouts!). I can't wait to see your interpretation.

Use Inlinkz below to link us up to your creations. As a little incentive for participation this month we've the wonderful Project Team Ewan class package (Note: Package will not include the digital kits.) to give away to one winner! To learn more about Project Team Ewan and the classes visit here. It's a wonderful opportunity to help families in need.

~ Arlene and the AAM Gals

Altered Frame Tutorial

2010-12-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone;

Azura here with a tutorial for an altered frame project.

This is a simple project for your home decor and everyone can join in the fun to do this.

The result of this is the frame below.

Stay tune! :)

::Things you need::

Big Frame(I bought this from Ikea and painted it white,it measured 55cm by 45cm)
4 colored cardstock(you can choose patterned papers or use pictures instead)
Bazzill Basics-Shades of Pink
Square Punch-EK Success
Adhesives-Tombo

::Methods::

1) Start by punching squares
mine measured 4.4cm by 4.4cm
I need 40 squares to complete my heart!

2) Since I have 4 colored cardstock, I will punch 10 square each

4) I will start with positioning 6 squares at the middle, where the center of the frame is.
**-Do not glue it down yet-**
Once everything is in place, you can start gluing your squares.
**Look at the complete framed heart, you will get an idea of how to complete the rest of the arrangement!**

5) Once you have glued everything down, Voila!! You will get this below!
Frame it up and place it anywhere in your house! :))

It only took me less than 1/2 hour to do this beautiful project for my room! :)
Hope everyone enjoyed this tutorial and looking forward to everyone take on this project!
Happy Holidays!!! :))

Misting Tutorial

2010-12-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

Hello! It's Rachel again! I want to share with you a great idea for the title of your next project. I have recently gotten into misting on my projects and LOVE getting messy! Here are the supplies you will need for this project:

Cardstock, Mist/Alcohol Ink and Mini Mister, letter stickers, Journaling pen, embellishments, patterned paper, and your picture(s).

Next, place your title where you want it and mist away! Let the page and letters dry for a while (I’m really bad at this part-so impatient!)

Your title will look a bit like this:

Pull off the letter stickers and with your favorite journaling pen, trace around the edge of the letters like so:

Finish your layout with journaling, embellishments, and a photo if you so choose!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I look forward to seeing your layouts using letter stickers as a mask!

{AAM Challenge #32} My 5

2010-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Rachel here, bringing a fabulous, versatile challenge your way!

Inspired by the cell phone marketing scheme to make unlimited phone calls to your favorite 5 people, I challenge you to create a layout about YOUR 5. It could be your top friends, places to vacation, or memories from the past year. Wherever you choose to go, as long as you show us YOUR 5!!! The Design Team created a variety of projects and there is tons of inspiration below!!!

Rachel

Azura

Rani

Nic

Sarah

Fabi

Wendy

Jen Martakis

December Guest Designer

Thank you so much for joining us this month Jen! It was a real honor to have you join our little family. To see more of Jen's work, make sure you visit her blog!

For participating in our challenges this month don't forget about our fabulous prizes:

Sassy Studio is our December Sponsor and one lucky winner will receive 4 FREE images! You can see the images we got to play with on Nic and Azura's layouts. Super cute and versatile for all your projects.

We will also have one lucky winner receive a digital kit from Jen Martakis! Thank you so much Jen!

Now what are you waiting for? Start working on that All About YOU page featuring your top 5. We can't wait to see them! Remember to use inlinkz to show us where we can find your project.

{AAM challenge #31} My Style

2010-11-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, it's Nic here bringing you our first challenge for December and a very 'stylish' one it is too!

Style is present all around us - evident in fashion, in design and in culture. Style is about individuality - we all have our own, unique style blueprint - even if you've never really given your style much thought - it exists and it's there. Our style manifests itself in the way we look, talk, walk, the people we admire, the places we visit, the books we read and art we enjoy. It's even there in our scrapbook page design choices!

Style is a word that is often closely associated with image, particularly fashion images, as our clothing choices often mirror the life we lead and define who we are and the way we want to be perceived. However, to my mind, style is not just about an outfit, it's also seen in the way in which we conduct ourselves, how we respond to certain situations and tackle the challenges we encounter in our lives.

So what would you want to say about your personal style? Is it about how you dress - a particular trend that suits you (or even 'a what was I thinking moment!'), a particular style 'era' that appeals, or even a page connected to a style 'icon' that you admire. Or will it be the style in which you've decorated your home, a particular literary or architectural period or core beliefs about how you should approach life? Whatever you choose, we'd love to see your pages and learn all about your style. You can show us by using the Inlinkz tool at the end of this blog post to link us up to your LO.

Here is the stylish inspiration from the Design Team:

Nic

Rachel

Wendy

Azura

This month we're incredibly pleased to have Jen Martakis joining us as Guest Designer.

I am married to my best friend Nick. We celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this past August. We have 5 boys, ages - 18, 15, 12, 9 and 3. I tend to stay pretty busy. ;) I have been scrapbooking for 12 years now. Within the last 1 1/2 years, I started learning digital scrapbooking and designing. I have been selling my own designs for a little over a year now. I am on various Design Teams and keep very busy working from home doing what I love....creating! :)

Here is Jen's take on our current challenge:

Jen is also offering up one of her digital kits to one lucky AAM participant this month. How fun, right?

We also have a prize from our December Sponsor, Sassy Studio Designs.

A big thank you to Sassy Studio for sponsoring the team this month - each AAM girl got to play with some of their fabulous digi images, you will see the images pop up on the layouts this month. We loved the fun and "sassy" images from Sassy Studio! They were super cute and the perfect embellishment for an AAM layout.

Sassy Studio is providing 4 free images to one of our AAM participants this month! Wonderful, right?

So to be eligible for either the free kit from Jen Martakis OR the 4 free images from Sassy Studio, participate in either of our challenges this month (our next one will go live December 15th) and link us up to your projects. Can't wait to see what you create!

November Sponsor Prize Winner

The lucky AAM participant from November to win a $10 gift certificate to Digidoodle is

Meital

Congrats Meital! Please email us at allaboutmechallenge@gmail.com with your contact information as soon as possible to receive your prize!

{AAM #30} When I Grow Up Challenge!

2010-11-16T19:47:00.000-08:00

Namaste from Rani to all our fellow All About Me creatives!

This time around we bring you a challenge called, When I Grow Up... Now this challenge is, as always, totally open to interpretation! You could think about the dreams and goals you currently have and aspire to, or interpret from your own inner child...go back to when you were little and what you wanted to be!

When I was recently cleaning out my shed, I came across my old journals from my highschool years! After promptly bringing them all safe inside, I started reading and came by an entry done my freshman year. So I decided to use some of that entry to answer this challenge! It's so cool to see where I once was, where I am now, and where I would like to go! That's another reason scrapbooking is so important, it preserves not only memories, but thoughts, dreams and ideas! Have fun with this one! Can't wait to see what you all create!!

For this particular layout, I used a digital brush stamp set from Digi Doodle Shop called Doodle Flowers Set #2. I used them to accent the layout simply without taking away from the photo and journaling!

Please check out more below, the wonderful inspiration from the lovely artists at All About Me!!!!! Can't wait to hear about what you wanna be or do when YOU grow up!

Carmen Pauls Orthner
November Guest Designer

And if you participate this month, you will be in the running for a great prize from our November Sponsor:

Link us up to your layouts using inlinkz below and Digidoodle has offered up a $10 gift certificate to their shop to one lucky AAM participant! Take a look at the DT layouts above to see how to incorporate their super CUTE digi stamps into your layouts. Each AAM Gal got to play with some stamps this month. Thank you Digidoodle!!!

You have until November 30th!

{AAM #29} A Snobby DT Blog Hop!!!!!

2010-11-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I am always a sucker for a good blog hop and that is just what we are giving you this week at AAM! We are revealing our current challenge here on the main blog and then you will get to hop to all the DT's personal blogs to view their take on the prompt! Fun, right?? AND... as with all hops, there will be some fun opportunities to win some prizes! While we hope you come here simply for the inspiration, we are fully aware that scrappy prizes are always excellent incentives!

There is a catch though. While you hop along, leave some love for all the WONDERFUL DT gals. I am extremely grateful for each of these fab ladies and am always blown away by not only their talent but their willingness to be transparent and freely share life with the world! Alright... we've got a lot to accomplish in this post and then I'm going to shove you along your merry way to hop, hop, HOP!

First, allow me to introduce you to our Blog Hop theme. Our theme is ROYALTY! Royalty! As a little girl I was very intrigued by castle's, princesses, ball gowns and tiaras. I loved reading and watching Cinderella as she was transformed into a beautiful princess that went to the ball and danced with her Prince. I wanted to feel beautiful like that! What do we equate with the word Royalty? Queens? Kings? Rulers? Sovereign? Dignified? Riches? Fancy jewels? While not all of us are drawn to some of that imagery, I can assure you that we all have a little royalty in us. We are all talented in something and possess talents that we can be proud of. When you look in the mirror, there is that feature you think is pretty amazing. Is it the hair? Your beautiful eyes? Perhaps that cute little freckle? As women, I truly think we are competitive and it's not completely our fault. The media has had a huge role in this by defining what they think a beautiful woman is! And it's WRONG. A beautiful woman has beautiful character. Not a size 2 waist and D sized boobs. (That would hurt!) And good character shouldn't hurt... a tiny waist and big boobs would! Royalty isn't just about the obvious things that come to mind. Royalty equates much more than that - beauty (from within), brave, courage, stepping out, boldness, seeking, becoming, learning, sprouting wings and flying!

Now this leads me into our first challenge prompt for November - I'M A SNOB. Allow me to explain.
Sometimes when we think of Royalty we also might think of snobbishness. You know, being too good for the common folk! Well let's transition this "snob" word into something fun! Can you think of that one thing you just have to have a certain way?? I bet you never thought to call yourself a "snob" in regards to it have you? Snob is such a crummy word but I wanted to have fun with it! Let's laugh at ourselves! I'm not afraid to admit I'm a snob when it comes to my coffee. I like it made a certain way. I know how to make it and I watch the barista's with an intense eye to make sure they pull my shots in the appropriate amount of time. I only like certain coffee beans too. I'm a barista's most annoying customer but we can still look at each other with knowing eyes. Because, deep down, they know where I'm coming from.

Alright. Ya got it? No? Need some help? Well let's get to hoppin' then! Leave some love on each DT's blog and then come back here and leave a comment. We've got a special Blog Hop prize which is a $10 gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket! Yay! You have until Friday, November 5th at midnight to do this. The winner, along with a wonderful write up of our fab November Sponsor and Guest Designer, will be announced the following Monday.

Begin your hopping with the very talented and very sweet Arlene!

In case you get lost or if something wonky happens along the way, here is a master list of the order of DT Gals:

Arlene
Sarah
Rachel
Nic
Melissa
Azura
Wendy
Mo
Fabi
Janis
Rani
Carmen (November Guest Designer)

Enjoy the Hop!!!!

{AAM Class} Vintage Tips for any Layout

2010-10-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hey girls! What's up with you all?

Im here today to share some tips on how we can use vintage techniques in any layout, even a free style one.

In this tutorial you'd have a finished page looking like this one here called "U R Amazing".

I hope you're all ready to play!!!!!

So let's start with the material list:

2 papers for base and photo background
1 decorated paper, from where you'd cut embellishments such as the balloons at mine page
gesso or other type of texture
painting in spray
clear emboss powder
chipboard doodle and other chipboard embellishments
alphabet/thickers
flowers (Prima or hand made ones)

And now...the fun starts! ;)

After choosing your papers, cut one of them aprox. 20x20 cm, this varies according to your picture size, this is the picture background.

Now using a scissor or other proper distressing tool, distress all around the picture bacground paper.

Now we will create a textured frame for the paper we just distressed. Using this paper as a basis, measure where you'd need your frame. You can simlpe make some X's in the paper with pencil.

Then apply the gesso or other type of texture. Dry it for 2 hours, or like me...with your heating tool :)

This is one of my favorite parts...when we use painting. Choose the color and then open the little can, take the tube and using your fingers just like in the picture, make some spills all over your gesso frame.

If you like more texture...then use emboss clear powder and spinkle it, let ir dry. It will add a bit of gloss effect to your frame plus more texture to it. its really a nice effect.

Its not only distress that's typical of vintage style...but also sanding. This also adds a bit of used/old effect. I like to sand not only papers, but also the picture. Like below....

Then, after sending around our picture, you can apply a bit of metallic rubon to create a cool and metallic texture, its hard to show in the picture, but the final effect is gorgeous!!!!

Now we start the embellishment part. Lets create a paper spiral flower. Instead of making the spiral with a scissor, just tear the paper, so it will have a more vintage look. Then just roll it from the outside to the inside...to create your flower.

You can add a bit of color either applying glimmer mist or paiting in spray as using a stamp pad as I did below.

Start adding the embellishments as the decorated paper form (balloon in my case), flowers, pearls, etc.

Sand the chipboard doodle to remove its color and use a nice emboss powder, like copper or other metalic color. Dry it.

Add an extra touch on your embellishments making paper swirls. Just cut a few fine strips and wrap it around a pencil or painting brush.

Now just add your alphabet and journaling and...VOILA.

You'd have a nice vintage touched layout, like the one from the beginning of this post!

I hope you all enjoy this class and have fun doing it :))))

Fabi

{AAM Challenge #28} Your proudest moment or accomplishment

2010-10-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Hi there scrapping girls!

How great it is to host my very first challenge here on AAM. I feel so honored!
You already got to know me a bit more in here. So I’ll leave that part behind ;)

When I say: “What is your proudest moment or accomplishment?”
What is the first thing that pops into your mind? Or are you maybe a bit like me, and did you have to dig deep into your mind to find something to be proud of? When you are someone who’s quickly proud of yourself, oh my, how I admire that! That’s something I really have to learn more.

When I got to think about what makes me proud, then I have to say it is when I got to face my problems. I was (and still am a bit of) a girl who always said to myself and others that I didn’t have any problems. How wrong was I ;) . I’ve learned that I am a person too, with feelings and emotions.

Years ago I got through a very stressful time in my former job. And because of so much stress and always keep going on, I got an accident with the subway train. I inherited panic attacks from the struggle with that huge piece of metal. So when I got a new job, and didn’t have to travel the public transportation, I thought nothing was wrong. But there was! Somewhere in July or August 2009 I realized that I got more and more isolated in my social life. My life was mostly about going to my job, getting home and sometimes go to my family or friends, but only when I didn’t have to go with public transportations. I was always afraid to faint (because that was what happened when I got my accident). So it was the fear of the fear I guess. But one day it hit me. And if I wanted to go on with my life, something had to happen. So I went in therapy. I learned to cope the panic attacks and challenged myself to do more things socially.

That’s a thing I can be proud of!

Take a look at what the Design Team did:

Melissa

Arlene

Rachel

Rani

Sarah

Nic

Wendy

Azura

Fabi

Now it’s your time to scrap about your proudest moment or accomplishment. Can’t wait to see what you girls come up with.

Don't forget about our wonderful Sponsor this month!

To be eligible to win the prize, participate in one of our challenges this month! For our first October challenge, the link to the post is in the top right column of the blog.

- Wendy and the AAM Gals

{AAM Class} What's on your list?

2010-10-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hello All! It's me Mo, sharing something fun for you!

Lists are always a great way to journal...to tell a story.

I struggle with journaling sometimes and tend to look to lists to complete a scrapbook page when I am stumped on the journaling.

I finally tackled my goal of writing down a bucket list...things I'd like to do in life.

It's inspiring, motivating, hopeful, and exciting.

Actually putting down your life goals might actually be what you need to get your butt in gear!

As always, I have MUCH to say, lots of ideas, and a scrapbook page simply wouldn't do the trick.

So, I created a mini book instead!

I created this mini this past summer and had so much fun.

So now, I'm sharing it with you all in hopes to give you any kind of ideas to help you on your journey of creation!

Look at all the goodies peeking out here! Don't you wanna reach out and touch it?

I love texture, especially when creating mini books.

I love tabs, the jumbling of smooth paper, furry felt, and textured chipboard!

I just love the combinations of color, girly and a little tough rock girl in there....just like ME!

It works well to use any kind of scrapbook kit, so that you don't have to spend too much time coordinating.

I happened to use a Pink Ninja Addict's Kit here.

I really love this mini canvas book by Maya Road....the texture...the pockets.

The canvas pockets were perfect for momentos like ticket stubs and other little pieces of evidence to show I completed an item on my bucket list.

(*add pockets to your mini with the use of envelopes or fold pockets from cardstock)

I used a hot glue gun to glue all these beautiful pieces to my pages. It really works well!

I used lots of my Etsy purchases in this book! This book is also a tribute to my love of Etsy!!!! Even the Pink Ninja Addicts Kit is from Etsy!

This mini was actually inspired by one of the classes featured at Scrap Freak (who just happens to be the sponsor this month at All About Me)! You have got to check out their forum, there's so much inspiration there! I love those gals!

(This cute little bunny is from an Etsy Shop called Random Shenanigans!)

Create your own embellishments, use your stash, or use this project as an excuse to buy fun scrappy stuff!

Here's a close up!

I LOVE how I layered strips of paper on this page! That pink piece has a velvety soft feel.....gosh I so love this book!

That lace impressed heart is also from Random Shenanigans.

And that beautifully decorated chipboard button is created by London Tierney from her Etsy Store called Such Sweet Tierney (a past AAM sponsor)!

I added lots of cute brads to the holes....makes me giggle!

If you can't read the print, click on the images and you'll get a close up of ALL my photos!

I know, some of these are really simple..."go fishing". I have as a child but it's been soooo long that I really need to go again!

I've also left some pages blank to be filled in later as I come up with MORE things to add to my bucket list!

I love that green tulle!

He he...isn't that cloud sooooo stinkin' cute?

Look at those cheeks! I love all the stitching around the edges!

More of those lovely paper strips...and another Random Shenanigans item...that froggy frog is soooo adorable!

giggling....

And a crochet flower from my Pink Ninja Addicts Kit to which I plopped on that cute bunny in the center and secured with some hot glue!

I love all the layers and how you can see items peeking out from behind other items!

I love that my list is finally put down somewhere and I it keeps my goals in the back of my mind.

This project was sooooo motivating and made me reflect on life and realize that I should keep my sights on some goals I have even though I tend to live life from moment to moment...to enrich it, I really need to remember to make my hopes, dreams and goals come true as well!

Have you worked on YOUR LIST? Do you have one? What's on it? AAM would LOVE to hear!

Hugs,

{AAM Challenge #27} The Artist in You

2010-10-06T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone...i'm Sarah (aka Byclops) and i'm excited to be bringing this blog post to you all the way from Western Australia!

A little about me…I am married, with no kids of the human variety – just a fur baby Bengal cat named Hunter. My husband Dean & I are obsessed with travelling, and have been lucky enough to have some amazing trips.

Scrapbooking has been a huge part of my life for many years now, and it helped me discover "The Artist in Me". And as luck would have it (hrmm?!) that is our current prompt!!

Here is what the DT members came up using the prompt "The Artist in You"....

Sarah

Janis

Rachel

Rani

Nic

Wendy

Azura

Fabi

We are so excited to have Katie Hunger join us for the month of October!
Katie says:
I started scrapbooking off and on in February of 2009 and got addicted in August of that same year while making my very first scrapbook: for my sister commemorating her wedding the previous December. It weighed over six pounds and had 44 pages, a great start to my career as a scrapbooker. I love to make cards, especially holiday and "just because" cards as well. I sell my art (especially paper flowers) on my Etsy site. I am on the design team for Challenge Masters specializing in altered art as well. I reside in Indianapolis, IN and am a student studying graphic design and Internet marketing.

Just like all women, I have mood swings. The artist in me does as well! I change my mind in the middle of a project, go from totally "feeling" a layout to hating it and vice versa...the list goes on! This layout is an expression of those swings, black and white for the change from one extreme to another, a blank expression waiting for an emotion, and a punch of red for passion and inspiration that suddenly hits.

Visit Katie at her blog and leave her lots of AAM love!

As usual, we also have a sketch to add one more inspiration to our challenge!
This month we have another lovely sketch by Michelle McClung (courtesy of ScrapStreet!). We'd love to see what you girls will create with it ;)

And this month we are lucky enough to have Scrap Freak sponsoring us. More details will be posted soon!

{AAM Challenge #26} One Little Word

2010-09-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody...

I am really honored to be here today sharing with you my first ever DT post for AAM. Im Azura from Singapore, 26 and I love to document everything in life. I've been a scrapbooker of sorts for as long as I could remember and this is all thanks to my late uncle. He is keeper of memories and that teaches me to preserve what is important and special in life which is memories. He photographed anything he finds beautiful, document everything he saw, felt and touched. I am lucky to gain this interest from him and I would not trade anything for this passion.

Anyways, I hope you are having a great day today because I am here to make it even better..

Let me ask you a question. Do you go thru everyday of your life with that one little word? It could be a word that inspires you, that leads you to believe, that keeps you moving, that defines your life, that describe your feelings, mood, emotions and your current situation. It could be anything but as long as it is significant and positive to you. This is important because that one little word could change your life and make you a better person, successful or anything that you wish it to be.

Now, Why one little word not two or three??

That's easy, because life is too short to focus on too many vocabs. Stick to one, and you'll see how it surprises you. ;)

Without further ado, let me introduce to you the fabulous DT girls and their take on "One Little Word". Let's begin with our Guest Designer this month:

Jana Patterson

Jana's Word - Tall

Jana it was wonderful to have you join us this month!

Now onto the rest of the Design Team:

Azura
Extraordinary

Donna
Balance

Janis
Paradise

Just a little shout out to our Janis who made the Design Team at Bo Bunny! Yay!

Mo
Playlist

Rachel
Waiting

Rani
Storyteller

Sarah
Quirky

Nic
Determined

Wendy
Enjoy

Don't forget about our fabulous prize this month! We'd love to see you participate with us and be eligible for a $20 Gift Certificate from Lucky Girl Crafts!

What's holding you back? Do join us and then use inlinkz below to hook us up to your layout. You are also welcome to use our Flickr Gallery. Who knows, you just might be featured on our blog!

Layouts are due by September 30th to be eligible for the prize!

- Azura and the AAM Gals

{AAM Challenge # 25} What's your morning ritual?

2010-08-31T21:45:00.000-07:00

Hey girls!

Wow...Im so happy to be here with you today! This is my first post hosting at AAM!!! I'm Fabi, 35 yo, Brazilian, mom, married and working with sales...traveling a lot for many countries (that's how I've met scrapbooking!). Just recently joined this amazing DT with so many talented girls - that's really a gift.

What I love most about our hobby is that we can really put our feelings and thoughts out to the world in a creative way. Its a kind of therapy, dont you think? Talking about therapy, for some people, a routine or even some rituals makes them fell better, secure, like they are not being themselves if not doing it. Does that makes any sense to you too?

I always thought I didn't had any special daily ritual, but this challenge made me realize that even not having a routine at all in my life, i could include a little new ritual in my days. My layout title shows what Im talking about.

So our current challenge talks about this: what's your morning ritual?

Think about what you do everyday when you wake up!!! For inspiration, here goes what our amazing DT come up with ;)

Fabi

Melissa

Rachel

Rani

Sarah

Nic

Wendy

Azura

As a new month starts today, we also have our Guest Designer! Please join me to welcome Jana Patterson and her great work.

Get to know Jana little bit more by visiting here.

As usual, we also have a sketch to add one more inspiration to our challenge!
This month we have a lovely sketch by Michelle McClung (courtesy of ScrapStreet!). We'd love to see what you girls will create with it ;)

Now that you all know what is our current challenge and have been inspired by the great layouts and sketch above, Im sure you're curious about the prize, aren't you?
So here it goes!!!!!

This month we are being sponsored by Lucky Girls Crafts (Kit Club)! Learn more about Lucky Girl by clicking here and we will also be doing a special feature of them on Monday! Our September Winner will receive a $20 gift certificate along with some fabulous goodies... now who will be the "lucky girl"??

Please remember that you'd need to link your work using inlinkz to be able to run for the prize. When using it, please avoid linking it to your blog - instead of it, you should include a direct link of your layout ok?

Now we are all here at AAM waiting to see what your mojo will creates!

- Fabi and the AAM Gals!

{AAM Challenge #24} Celebrate the Positive

2010-08-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
I'm Vicki and I'm so excited to bring you this challenge. Which is sadly my last with All About Me (boo hoo!). Even though my life has become too chaotic to continue with the DT, I will still be around playing along and maybe even doing a sketch or two!
So, with this challenge we are still celebrating a fabulous year at All About Me. This time we are celebrating the positive. To be precise, positive changes in our lives. So often we focus on the negative and forget to give ourselves a little well deserved pat on the back. It could be a big thing like overcoming a vice or a little thing like making healthier eating choices. For me, it was more personal. I've always had a lack of confidence...my whole life. Even my kindergarten report cards illustrated it. Lack of self-confidence has dogged me my whole life. This year, however, something changed. I'm not sure why but I was sick of it! I had enough. I guess maybe it's getting older, but I realize I have a lot to offer at work and in life. It's like a switch was flicked in my head. I'm so much happier now too.

So what's been the positive change in you life this year?

Now let's see what our "positively" awesome DT came up with:

Vicki

Melissa

Donna

Arlene

Janis

Rachel

Rani

Our special birthday guests - Design Team Alumni:

Miranda

Helen

And our August Guest Designer:

Ashley

As you can see, most of our current designers used the yummy stickers from SRM Stickers. We are so thankful for being provided the stickers to use on our layouts and hope you get over to the online store and snag up your own! Once you play, you won't be able to stop!

Our birthday festivities keep continuing through the month! Our crop is being extended through to Wednesday, August 25. So do make sure to come join us. We are having a blast!

**Hi everyone! Melissa here hijacking this post briefly. We are trying out a new link system for your AAM layouts. Mr. Linky was becoming somewhat of a hassle and unstable. With this new link system using inlinkz, it will be easier to post and then for me to draw a winner! Hopefully it will be as wonderful as it seems. There are a few extra steps for uploading your links but I hope you don't mind!**

{AAM Challenge #23} Memorable Birthdays

2010-08-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I’m Diana I can’t tell you how excited I am to bring you our first challenge of our 1st Birthday Celebration here at AAM. To do homage to our birthday we are challenging you to scrap one of your most Memorable Birthdays.

I have had so many memorable birthdays, as a child my mother celebrated every one of my birthdays, even the first birthday I had in the U.S.A. Later as an adult I make sure to celebrate each birthday. I don't see birthdays as getting older I see it as God's blessing to allow me to Celebrate with my Family another year. I never lie about my age, what for I rather get old than the alternative, kwim. Plus getting old just means you get to do more of what you want, the older you get the more you can do. My Abuela (grandma) Rosa always said, I'm not old I'm experienced.

I think my 21st birthday was one of the most memorable, not because I was legal to drink, I was legal at 18. Yep another advantage of being born in the 60's. But because it was a surprise party that my friends gave me, at the beach, we spent the week end in Miami Beach, party by the pool for 2 days drank and made fouls of ourselves I was a great birthday that I still remember the great time I had.

We are very excited about this month because SRM Stickers, one of our Sponsors, has given each of our DT Gals a generous amount of stickers to play with! You can use them on cards but we are showing you how to use them on your AAM layouts as well! Thank you SRM!!!

Would you like to see what the fabulous AAM Gals did?

Diana

Donna

Melissa

Janis

Vicki

Rachel

Arlene

July

And we have a special returning Design Team member Kim Tupponce! She came to join us for our birthday bash by creating a layout for our current prompt:

August Guest Designer:

Ashley Hamm

I recently turned 26 - perfect timing for the birthday bash here at All About Me! I am a registered nurse at a maximum security prison & that keeps me on my toes! I started scrapbooking when I was 16 & have been published in print & online over the years. I am currently on the creative team at Gone Scrapbooking. I have an amazing boyfriend who knows me better than anyone. Besides scrapbooking, I love to read & in the summer I can be found at the lake most every weekend. I've been a fan of All About Me for quite a while so I am thrilled for the opportunity to guest design this month! You can visit my blog here:
http://alwaysaboutashley.blogspot.com/

Here is Ashley's layout:

Up in the left hand corner of the blog is our Sketch of the Month brought to you by, the ever so talented, Helen Croft! We sure miss her around here but are thankful she lets us use her sketches! Use it if you want to!

Prizes this month will work a little differently with our birthday bash! Let's just say, each event you participate in will earn you a chance at winning ANY of the prizes available! So the more you party with us, the more likely you are to win some fab scrappy stuff!!! Click here to see all that you could win.

So here is your first chance! Once you finish your layout, use Mr. Linky to show us where it's at and we'll give you some love! Layouts for this challenge are due August 17th before the next one!

hugs,

Diana and the AAM Gals

{AAM Challenge #22} My Demons

2010-07-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hi, everyone! It’s Donna here, one of the more neurotic of the DT members (let‘s face it I always like the strange ones), bringing you the new challenge: My Demons. It sounds serious, doesn’t it?

An artist is a creature driven by demons. He doesn't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. ~William Faulkner

Everybody has demons, things that drive her, something that takes over her life at times--maybe it is a fear, paranoia, prejudice, arrogance, or another weakness. It’s very difficult to see those in ourselves, acknowledge them and do our best to defeat them.

So today is the first step. Identify your demon and journal about it. It can be a fear of flying that prevents you from seeing family, a sense of pride that interferes with personal relationships, the artist demon that drives you to create or a shoe-buying demon that is sending you to the poor house.

My demon is pride: not the kind of pride that is boastful or high-handed, but the kind that makes it almost impossible for me to ask for help. I have struggled a lot in my life when things would have been a lot easier with a little help.

The design team has come up with some great inspiration to get you going so check them out. And let’s exorcise those demons!!

Donna

Janis

Melissa

Rachel

Diana

Vicki

Now it's your turn! This month our prize has changed. Originally we thought we would be able to offer up some Couture Cardstock but due to some reorganization going on over there, Melissa has 12 sheets of some fabulous 12x12 Core'dinations Cardstock for one lucky winner. You just need to participate to be eligible and who doesn't need cardstock?

Remember to use Mr. Linky to direct us to your layouts! And rest assured that August will be a very CELEBRATORY month in all ways! We know this has been kind of a heavy month with challenges but isn't it good to dig deep sometimes?

{AAM Challenge #21} Your Fear

2010-06-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

Melissa here with a super, duper, freakin' awesome, totally rad, uber-cool, can't-even-fit-enough-cool-adjectives type of post for you! Seriously. This is the mecca of all meccas. This is the post that I've been so anxiously waiting to have posted. It's been a really hard wait too! You know how when you receive the coolest news ever and your first instinct is to go to the people that are closest to you.. the ones that will understand the reasons of your excitement? So you get ready to go tell them.. only to be told you have to wait? Ugh.

Okay. Are you ready for me to stop babbling about the good news and tell you? We've got a few things to go over in this blog post. So grab a cup a' joe, a margarita, glass of wine.. whatever you drink when you are celebrating and read along with me here.

FIRST. All About Me has been published! We are so very excited to be featured in the Blog Bay article of ScrapStreet's July issue! I am so happy that this has finally come to fruition. That AAM is out there and we have people that appreciate the challenge prompts we so intentionally work on. It's a group effort of love and I know I can speak for the AAM DT Gals when I say... we love what we do and are thrilled you stop by.

SECOND. We are having a DT Call! Okay. Okay. So this is sad and exciting all at the same time. Because with a DT Call comes goodbyes. Yes, it's true. A few gals will be leaving as permanent DT but we will be getting some new, fresh faces that will surely inspire you! Six months doesn't seem like a long time until you start diving deep into your soul. I know several gals need to take a little break and that's perfectly okay. We're going to be rolling out the call tomorrow. So come back for all the details.

THIRD. Oh my heck we have an amazing Sponsor this month. If you've been toying with playing along with us, this is definitely a month you need to dip your toes into our challenges because we have COUTURE CARDSTOCK giving away some of their NEW line of cardstock as the prize of the month. Yep. We... the AAM crew... get to help debut this fabulous, new, scrumptious stuff from Couture Cardstock. We have a full page feature about Couture Cardstock on the Featured Sponsor page of the blog. You can find that link at the top of the site or simply click here.

FOURTH. AAM is celebrating in August! It's our BIRTHDAY!!! And boy do we have some great fun up our sleeves. We have multiple Sponsors and prizes, some returning DT Gals to guest design with us and some fabulous fun on the Forum and Facebook. You will not want to miss it!

Alright. Are you ready to get to our current challenge? How about a mega shift in emotion here. Let's go from excitement.... to fear. Our prompt for you until July 20th is to think about your greatest fear and scrap about it. I'm afraid of several things. I'm afraid of spiders and any type of animal or pet that might resemble a rodent. I'm afraid of rejection and failure. I'm afraid of falling in love. (Weird... or not so weird...). I fear the day when both my parents are gone and I will be the "matriarch" of the family. And my greatest fear? That people won't like me. I had that fear about this blog. That people wouldn't like it or get it. And I fear that everything I do - that people won't appreciate it or like it. Even though this is a fear - I know the truth... it doesn't matter if people like me or not. Because I am the me I was created to be. (You can quote that...)

Would you like to see what the fabulous AAM Gals did? You can also see these in ScrapStreet with full details on supplies, etc. And... as per the usual - you can check their blogs too. (I'm so proud of them!) Alright, here we go:

Melissa

Janis

Arlene

Donna

July

Michelle

Due to life circumstances, this will be Michelle's last layout with us. Didn't she go out with a bang? So beautiful! We will miss having you on the team Michelle!

Rani

Rachel

Vicki

Diana

And may I introduce you to our July Guest Designer:

Sarah Buck

Sarah was published with us in ScrapStreet! Here is her layout:

To learn more about Sarah, click here.

Here is our sketch for the month created by the lovely Helen Croft:

You don't have to use it but it's there if you need the extra mojo.

Hey you made it! Now what to do? Get to gettin' and make those layouts then come back and leave us the direct link. You need to do this to be eligible for the prize of the month.

hugs,
Melissa and the AAM Gals

{AAM Challenge #20} Your Idol

2010-06-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

Hi all! It’s me Mo! It’s my turn to yack at ya’ll! So listen up….let’s talk IDOLS.

The challenge is to scrap about “Your Idol”...whoever that may be!

There are a lot of people in my life I look up to, but the one person that always seems to get me thinking "I wish I could be more like that" is my Mom. I've said it before, I'm lucky to have her in my life and soooooo lucky to be able to learn from her.

So go ahead and scrap about an idol! It could be someone in your life, a celebrity, a public figure...whoever! When I was a little girl....I wanted to be Wonder Woman...you could even scrap about her…or something like that! Make it lighthearted and fun or serious and emotional…or…….you could even scrap about YOUR pick for American Idol (if it wasn't Lee aka Mo's boyfriend)....roll with it :) Those are just SOME ideas…take this challenge how you want to!

Now let’s see what our amazingly talented DT conjured up this time!

Janis

Rachel

Diana

Vicki

Jennifer Campbell (Guest Designer)

Also, you can check the individual DT blogs for more info on their Idol layouts if ya wanna peek at the journaling and other details.

Now off you go to create some loveliness for everyone to look at! Don’t forget post your layout to Mr. Linky. Be sure to include the DIRECT LINK to you layout! I’m soooo excited to see what you all create!

Hugs,

{AAM Challenge #19} I'm worthy

2010-06-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, Rachel here! I'm bringing you this week's challenge- "I'm worthy/Why I'm worth knowing". The inspiration came from one of my classes in which the professor was talking about how every person would be lucky to know that they are worthwhile and worthy of being known and loved. This idea stuck with me and I began thinking about the many reasons why I am worthy. It is difficult to think about the good things, just as it is sometimes harder to hear compliments rather than criticism. I challenge you to thing about all of the good things about yourself and why you are worthy of being loved- by yourself and by others!

Here are the other DT members' takes on this challenge:

Melissa

Arlene

Donna

Vicki

July

Michelle

Our Guest Design Team Member for June is

Jennifer Campbell

I’m Jennifer Campbell, 32 years old, I’m married to Brian, the love of my life, for the past 7 years. We have 2 fabulous children, Bryce 5 years old and Clara 3 years old. We are currently building our dream log cabin.
I began scrapbooking in college which is over 10 years ago. I have always loved all types of crafts growing up. One of my other interests as a child was the beginning of my love for photography. I remember always having my own camera that I always carried around. When you put those two things together, my love of scrapbooking was born. I have numerous styles to my scrapbooking. I love a clean and classic look to a page; however, I love to do the trendy styles as well.
This is my 10th year of teaching kindergarten. Before becoming a school teacher, I taught dance for several years. Currently, I enjoy teaching scrapbooking and creating scrapbook kits and selling Stampin Up!
I am a designer for Scrap That Poetry, Scrapping the Music, Practical Scrappers, Artastic, Challenge Masters! I have guest designed at Sketchy Thursday and am very excited to be guest designing here at All About Me!

Please visit Jennifer's blog and leave her some love Happy2Scrap4Life.

There are a lot of fun and exciting things coming up in the next couple of months- we've started the celebration with a fabulous blog makeover- so make sure to grab the new fan badge on the left sidebar and tell Melissa what a FABULOUS job she did with the new design!

Also, join us on Facebook and become a fan and you will receive an extra entry for this month's prize. Just post a comment here or on Facebook when you become a fan to be eligible for an extra entry. If you are already a fan, leave a comment as well and you will get an extra entry too! Keep an eye out for updates on Facebook- I promise there will be lots of exciting things there in the coming months and you'll be glad you are a fan of AAM!!

Our prize for the month is a fun little collection of scrappy supplies! A photo of the prize will be included with our next challenge. :)

So please join us this week in celebrating yourself with this challenge- you can link the direct link of your layout with Mr. Linky. Thank you!

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to all of the positive layouts that you all will create!
Love,
Rachel

{AAM Challenge #18} IN HER SHOES

2010-05-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!!!

This is Janis, your blog hostess for this challenge!!! I am soooo excited as this is a super fun one coz' I bet everyone has a good pair of shoes!!!

I recently bought this black pair for office use. It is my current fave!!!! The heels measure about 3 1/2 inches - - too high, I know - - but I can't help it. I'm not exactly sure if it says something about my personality, but they make me feel confident and sexy. LOL!!!! I'm sure you guys have a fave pair too - - do you go for comfort, style, color, or trend? Do you think your shoes reflect YOU?

Take a look at what the design team created for this challenge:

Guest Designer - Cathy Bautista

As always, you can visit the DT blogs for information. If you see a technique or trick, come join us on the message board and you can ask how it was done!

Hope you can share with us your favorite pair of shoes and play along with us! Don't forget to put the link of the actual post in Mr. Linky so that we can check your creations and leave you some love!

Janis and the AAM Gals

{AAM Challenge # 17} My Impossible Future

2010-05-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, this is July from Philippines. Do you still have those day dreams of what you want to be in the next number of years? Like when we were young we have long lists of what we want to be when we grow up. Me, I always have this long list to plan out my next moves. Most of them I didn't realize actually as it was written but I'm glad I have my options. It takes away the guilt and regrets of "I should have done this..."

Well our next challenge is "what is your impossible future" - do you have list of what you want for your future?

Here is my take:

I wanna be a princess.

And here is what some of the DT did:

Melissa

Please meet our May Guest Designer Cathy Bautista!

Hi, I'm Catherine Bautista and I'm fondly called by all as
Cathy. I am from Manila, Philippines and I'm married to my childhood sweetheart for a little more than a year now. Since we got married and had our own place, I get to have my own scrapbook room and that's when I actively started scrapbooking. I started to "actually" scrap on June of 2009 although I have been collecting scrapbook stuff 2-3 years prior to that (they all just stayed under my bed!). Since then I have been very productive and have accomplished a few milestones I am proud of. This hobby keeps me sane from all the buzz in the corporate world and helps me keep / journal the memories I don't want to forget.

You can visit Cathy's blog here.
Take a look at Cathy's take on our current challenge:

And for added inspiration, we have a sketch of the month created by our DT member Vicki! You don't have to use it but it is a fun one!

This month is a "no prize" month which means you get to participate simply because you LOVE this hobby! We hope that you will enjoy creating a layout about your "impossible future" however you would like to interpret it!

Oh wait.. would you like to know the winner of the fabulous kit from Treasury of Memories??

Congratulations STELLA! You are going to enjoy this kit so much. Please email us at allaboutmechallenge@gmail.com with your shipping information by Friday, May 7th!

- July and the AAM gals

{AAM Challenge #16} What's your Angle?

2010-04-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Rani to the people of the creative world! Yes...I am talking to you! If you are reading this, then you are up for the next challenge....which is.....

"MY WORLD FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE." What does this mean, exactly? Well, it's really up to your interpretation, but I decided to take a look at my world through the eyes of my new puppy. If she could talk, scrapbook and create, what would she say and make? I know, I know...kinda out there....but also quite challenging! There are a number of ways to take this on really, and I along with the rest of AAM are looking forward to your creations! Wait till you see what the DT came up with!!!

Here is my take:

Credits: Shimelle Laine's Write it Down Negative Strips, Brad and SpringTime Basics Dotted Paper.

Journaling reads: Ruff! Hi! My name is Slider! I just arrived at my new home, where I live with two little girls and a couple. They live by the Pacific Ocean. See the picture back here...is this gorgeous or what?Now see the picture in the bottom right...the one of the hands typing. That is one of my pets, Rani. Now I would think, like most pets, that she would rather be at the beach, instead of at the computer. Am I right; Can I get a bark-out! Maybe if I start biting and chewing her shoes, she will get the point, that we live in a beautiful place, and life it too short...the beach is calling! I know she loves to create and share on the web, but inspiration is in our backyard for barking out loud! If you get a chance, please tell her so! I'm off to chew! *Slider out!

And here are the fabulous creations from the team:

Melissa

Vicki

Rachel

Diana

Janis

And since we did a blog hop last, we didn't get to do a proper introduction to our April Guest DT. Please meet Siobhan Fry!

Hi everyone, I’m Siobhan, from Reading in the UK. I’ve been scrapbooking for just over two years now after reading about it about it in a card making magazine. I only ever made about five cards as I realised that you have to give your card creations away but with scrapbooking you get to keep what you make! I found my way onto the UKScrappers forum and lurked there for about six months before creating and posting my first layout.

I love scrapbooking because it allows me to be creative in my own way. I don’t consider myself to be artistic or crafty, I can’t draw a straight line for toffee (or stick photos on straight for that matter!), but scrapbooking gives me that creative outlet that I crave. My last DT bio said this: "I’m not one for producing quick and graphic layouts as I really enjoy the whole process of getting inspired, choosing papers and embellishments that will enhance what I am trying to convey with my layout. I often choose time-consuming techniques that will absorb me for a while so I can switch off from the workaday stresses" Can you tell I was on maternity leave and had a ton of free time? LOL!!! Since then, I have returned to full-time work and barely have time to breathe let alone create a scrappy masterpiece. My style is changing and I am even dabbling in digi in an effort to make the most of my creative time.

I'm so honoured and excited to be a guest designer here at the all About Me blog, I love the challenge of scrapping about me and my life, so this is the perfect challenge blog for me, ha ha :)

You can visit Siobhan's blog here.

Siobhan did THREE lovely layouts for us:

Now we want to see yours! Don't be shy, show us you from whatever angle you desire!!! Get your layouts linked to Mr. Linky by May 4 to be eligible for the fabulous prize from Treasury of Memories!

- Rani and the AAM Gals