USB Cord thievery!

So it was true, Danielle's husband DID swipe the USB cord for her camera...so even though her page was late, it's here now! I gotta say, D, that journaling block is perfect for this page! Nice work!

Challenge 74

Wow, what a wild and wooly week! (Nice alliteration, huh?!) My rant from the other day was barely the tip of the iceberg. I have been so busy and going non-stop and it's Friday already. How does that happen so friggin' fast? This week's post marks the official end of Session One with the Design Team but there isn't anything to post for Sallie this week and poor Danielle...her husband left for logging camp and took her USB cord so unless she can swipe one from one of her kids' electronics her page will remain a secret for now! It will get posted once she's 'connected' again.
This week's challenge is loads of fun. I love a good advertisement for design inspo! And I love circles...this fantastic Volkswagon ad is just OOZING design goodness. If you want to create something from this week's challenge, make sure you upload to our Flickr Group so that you can have a shot at winning May's Blast Off Couture Collection. All you have to do is indicate which weekly challenges your uploaded pages are for so we (the design team) know who to vote for. Once you've uploaded your page to Flickr, don't forget to add your page to the Lotus Paperie Photo Pool. You don't have to create your page using the Couture Collections but you can if you've got them.This is the final challenge for May and we won't be voting until after the first challenge of June is posted to give you enough time to get all five weeks' worth of May's challenges uploaded to the photo pool. Some absolutely amazing artwork has been submitted thus far and I can't see what is added after today.

Jessi

Vanessa

Ronda

Tania

Chrissy

Chrissy was pretty stoked to get started with her new DT position so here's an early contribution from her for this month's final challenge (LOVE that pencil crayon business on that page!)

And this tidbit is an extra from Jessi...what a kick-ass way to use of the matrix from chipboard letters! Note to self: save chipboard alpha matrix! Love it, Jess :)

Challenge 73

How much fun is this sketch!! Of course, I created it specifically to coordinate with our robot papers but as you can see below, there is so much room for interpretation that it really doesn't matter how you arrange your page and how you embellish it.

There have been tons of contributions to our Flickr Group this month and I can't wait to see more. So keep 'em comin! If you haven't added photos to the Flickr Group yet you can do so by going to your Flickr Account (or creating one if you don't have one) and uploading a photo of your page to the Lotus Paperie Photo Pool. Please remember to include in the title which challenge your page was created for so that we know which pages in the pool to choose from when we vote. Voting is conducted at the end of the month, after the last challenge has been posted and we ALWAYS leave enough time after the last challenge being posted to give you lots of time to get those pages uploaded. You do not have to use the Couture Collections to create your pages but you CAN use it if you've got it! The winner of the monthly challenge will receive that month's Couture Collection for FREE!!!! Winners are announced right here on the blog. So have a look at what our talented DT created for your scraplifting pleasure this week!!

Vanessa

Ronda

Tania
Jessi

Danielle

Challenge 71

It never stops blowing my mind how fast a week can go by. We have been overcome by Spring cleaning urges here at our farm and with big changes like building a house and other structures, I know that the chaos and craziness has only just begun! I've barely unpacked and reassembled my studio after the crop - so exhausted!- but have so many exciting things coming up for the fall...but we'll talk about that later seeing as Spring really only started for us yesterday. What I do like about our current season is that I feel rather creatively charged and somehow can't seem to get everything made that I want to...an abundance of creativity and a shortage of time.

I have some fun classes that I'm offering over the summer so if you live in the Whitehorse area, please visit the Classes site for details on that.

So this week for challenge 71 (I can hardly believe we're there already!)I created a really fun 6x12 sketch. I love this format and the vertical orientation makes me super happy. I am a lover of the single photo scrap page and these 6x12 pages just ROCK for that! American Crafts just introduced a 6x12 vertical album too...can't wait to get that sucker and fill 'er up! It seems that having a pre-schooler at home makes him the most likely candidate for the majority of my pages just because it's opportune to grab more photos of him than anyone else...so that means that when I made this page, it was using another Sethy photo. The photo is from his birthday...Noah gave him his hand-me-down Gameboy and Sethy sat right down and knew exactly what to do. Too cute!

I know that there are lots of you who are playing along with our weekly challenges and posting your pages to the Flickr Group. I love that! It's so exciting to see how you interpret the artwork week by week. Please continue with your submissions!! If you haven't contributed yet, visit our Flickr Group, upload your page (make sure to add it to the LP Photo Pool!) and make sure to indicate which week your page is made for. The design team will vote on a favorite and the winner will be awarded with a free Couture Collection! You don't have to use the Couture Collection to be able to submit your pages, just use the amazing goodies that I KNOW you have in your stash.

Vanessa

Ronda

Jessi

Tania

Christine

Danielle

Challenge 70- Blast Off Couture Collection

This week's challenge is a home decor image swiped from Domino Magazine, an absolutely fabulous place to drool over amazing home decor ideas...and the BEST DIY section EVER!

I really enjoy working with challenges like these because you have to look inside the design & composition to find the page hiding there. If you like this week's challenge and think you'd like to take a stab at it, please show us whatcha got! You don't need to create your page using this month's Couture Collection but you can if you want to! :) Be sure to upload your page to the Flickr Group and don't forget to add it to the photo pool so we know it's there to be voted on at the end of the month.

So enjoy the amazing creations that the gals came up with for this week...(some of whom managed to pull it together even with a very very late kit delivery!)

Jessi
oh, and check out the amazing class she's offering at The Inked Barn

Ronda

Vanessa
Tania

Christine
SallieDanielle

Challenge 69 - Holy Smokes!

Okay, so I'm not exactly feelin' the love for Canada Post...there's just something very wrong with a salesperson trying to convince me that the shipping method that I want to use isn't a good idea...GRRR! I'll not go into all the details of the encounter (what I've already said should be enough!) but luckily, I managed to convince HER that my idea was indeed how my stuff would be shipped...sigh...so tiring!

So here we are at another Friday (where the hell does the time go?!) and it's challenge time YAY! I really loved working with this sketch. I'm a big one-photo scrapper so this was a no-brainer for me. It was fun to try and use a little bit of everything from this month's kit for the last page of the month. I (like everyone else) can hardly believe the month is almost over...there's so much stuff left in this kit!

Remember if you want a shot at winning this Couture Collection for yourself, all you have to do is create layouts from this month's challenges and upload them to our Flickr Group (be sure to label them according to which weekly challenge you used). You can use any products you want, just use the challenges as inspo! You have till the end of the month to get your pages uploaded to the Group Photo Pool so go on and get scrappy!

Vanessa

Ronda
Jessi





Tania

Danielle



Christine

Sallie
And get a load of this...as always, Tania has an extra goodie for us this month the idea just popped into her head! The date card on the side rotates (how cute!) and inside it reads 'every day of the year'. Love it!

Challenge 68

Where does the time go?! I think I was trapped in a timewarp that was tinted a very unsavory shade of green this week...there was a bug...a flu bug...eeew! It all started with Noah, then I got it and so did Seth. Ray got a headache and stiff joints (I'm a little bitter that he got off so easy) and we were all glad to see it pass.

Okay, enough of that! It's Friday again and we have a challenge but sadly my page is absent due to the sickness :( Our challenge image is actually a Starbucks greeting card. I thought it was a great composition and I just knew it would trigger some more amazing creativity in our gals...

And of course, as always there is our Flickr Group where you can upload a copy of your page created from our weekly challenges. You will have a chance to win one of the current Couture Collections but you are not required to create your pages from the Collections...although, if you have one, we'd love to see what you create with yours!

Jessi

Ronda
Christine

Tania

I love this mini album...what a great way to use up this kit, goodness knows there's enough stuff to do it!

Sallie

Challenge 67

Wow, Just when I thought all was lost this month with the long reaching ripple-effect of slow-to-arrive Couture Collections to our Design Team, the gals got their stuff and rocked out the five-star pages below! Way to go everyone! This week's sketch is clearly one that can be interpreted many different ways as you can see. It puts the focus on one main photo with lots of room for journaling.

If you want to try your hand at this week's challenge, please remember to upload a copy to our Flickr Group so that you can have an opportunity to win a Couture Collection. All you do is load the image to your gallery on Flickr and once that's done, go to the 'Organizr' and upload it to our group (it's all drag &drop!) just be sure to mention which week your page is for in your title so you are included in the voting process for the month. You are not required to create your pages using the Couture Collections but we love it when you do!

And if you haven't already, don't forget about the Open Call for Design Team applications! Go HERE to find out more about being a Lotus Paperie Designer

Ronda

Vanessa

up close

Jessi

Sallie

Danielle
Tania

Christine

Oh, and on a side-note, the Bison feast was unbelievable. We sat at a table with Noah's teacher and her family and shared no end of belly laughs. After an amazing dinner with our choice of burgers, sausage or steak and tables upon tables of potluck dishes the group was shown a slide show of the Bison hunt. It was pretty standard slide-show stuff, you know kids goofing off and unflattering photos of teachers bundled up in every possible layer of warm clothing but the piece de resitance was the video that followed where you could see the 'field dressing' (that's the graphic part where they skin, gut & quarter the meat) and some of the kids' accounts of the experience. The Bison were brought back by snow machine (AKA skidoo) to the location where it was being prepared and one of the kids was describing his job which was to make sure that the intestines didn't fall out the arse of the Bison from his group's kill while being hauled back . He mentions with nonchalance that he had to shove his arm up the beast's rectum to keep its guts inside. When asked how he felt about that, he replied with perfect comic timing, " it was quite warm...but I just kept telling myself, ' this is the worst puppet show ever!' " Well, that had to be the damned funniest account of the glamorous side of Bison hunting I'd ever heard. What a way to end the night! Hahahahaha