Hey everyone! Mandy Rae here, host of this weeks Tuesday Template Challenge. This Challenges Template was donated by the lovely Brittney of Britt-ish Designs. So, lets all give her a big Thank You and round of applause.

After being asked to host this weeks challenge I was stumped. I sat at my desk looking around totally lost to what I would have you all scrap about when out of the corner of my eye I see my little 2 year old Zoey putting on a pair of my shoes. I start thinking to my self, “Aww! Look how sweet! She has a shoe obsession just like mommy”. BINGO!!!!! DUH, that is when it hit me. There is our challenge. That’s right – obsessions. What do you obsess over?

So, there you have it and the rules are simple, use the template provided and scrap your obsession. That is it. And lets face it, its our obsession so this is going to be way to easy!

I’m here today with a HUGE announcement! Many of you may know that Scrap Matters has been running a month long contest to find the “Queen of Scrap”.

We had 31 fantastic women enter the challenge and I am sure that they are all so very anxious to read about the big winners. These women were amazing – they completely blew me and the rest of the ScrapMatters.com Team away! Not only are they fantastic scrappers, but they are quick! I am in awe at the number of layouts that they completed. Collectively, they scrapped 1063 pages – and nope, that’s NOT a typo! That is a LOT of pages!

They scrapped about their kids, and their families, their vacations and celebrations, their joys and their sorrows and the most common theme appeared to be anything DISNEY! They truly poured their hearts and souls into their creations, gave us windows into their lives and showed off their artistic talents.

Each and every one of these princesses should be very proud at what they accomplished. So many of them scrapped significantly more layouts than they normally do during a month. Now, their families may not have been too excited about this, as I heard lots of chatter about dirty house & extremely supportive spouses!

Our competition had two parts to it. First, we were looking to find the person who could scrap the most pages during the month of May. In planning this challenge, we never expected to see numbers even close to these. We had 20 scrappers scrap over 20 pages each! 14 scrappers completed over 35 pages! 6 of these ladies scrapped over 50 pages this month! And we had 2 amazing women scrap over 100 layouts each!

The person that scrapped the most pages for the month is to be awarded a $20.00 gift card to the ScrapMatters.com shop. That amazing and very talented scrapper is Lina (ldrag2004)!!!! Congratulations Lina! Lina scrapped an astounding 122 pages during the month of May – WOW!!!

Now I mentioned that our challenge had a second part to it… one of these lucky ladies is going to be crowned ScrapMatters Queen of Scrap! The Queen is to win a guest spot on our CT. To qualify for this part of the competition, the participants had to be in the top 5 posters with the most layouts created for May. These women worked hard to get into those top 5 spots. Each of them created over 70 layouts each! Each of these princesses should take a bow – I’m sure many scrappers struggle to make that many pages in a year! You can truly tell that they are very passionate about this craft and the subjects of their layouts.

Well, it would have been way too hard for one person to pick a winner, so we put the fantastic ScrapMatters Creative & Design team members to work! We poured over their galleries and each of us voted on who we thought should be the Queen. It was such a difficult choice to make but…

Get your curtsey ready readers…..

The Scrap Matters Queen of Scrap is…. Denise (Neeceebee)!!! Congratulations – the team at ScrapMatters.com is so very excited to have you join us!!! We would love to have you take on a full time CT spot on our team – allowing you full access to our shop to scrap your heart out!

Not only is Denise a fast scrapper (she entered an amazing 113 pages!) but, she is extremely talented with her page designs and is an all around sweet gal!

Here are a few of our favorite pages that she has created. Click on the pics for credits:

You can check out more of her fantastic layouts here in her gallery.

I hope you will all join me in congratulating our new Queen!

Hi Everyone–Andrea here. This week we’re spotlighting one of our newer designers Leslie of What is your main job? A Mom

What’s the family like? I’ve been married to the most amazing guy in the world for 5 years. We have two ADORABLE kids…Landon (almost 4) and Abbie (2)

Where do you call home? I was born and raised in Murray, UT, but now we live in Tremonton, UT and it’s feeling more and more like home every day.

What are your three favorite foods? French fries, French fries, and French fries!!! No, I also love homemade pizza and a grilled cheese sandwich on homemade whole wheat bread!

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? Caramel Cashew

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks? DEFINITELY sweet!

What is your favorite beverage? Mango Lemonade

What is your least favorite food? Hmmm….probably onions…does that count as a food? Anything with onions in it would be my least favorite!

PC or Mac? PC

How long have you been digi-scrapping and how did you get started? 2 ½ years. I was introduced to it by my sister’s friend.

What program do you use to digi-scrap/design with? Photoshop CS3

How long have you been designing and how did you get started? 2 years…how did I get started? Who knows! I just realized it was possible to make my own stuff so I taught myself how!

What is the most challenging part of designing for you? Coming up with a color scheme, once I’ve got that, everything else seems to flow nicely!

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping? Sewing, playing the piano, singing, photography

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking? I would like to learn more about photography. I love to take good pictures of my kids, and pictures can make or break a scrapbook page!

What are your favorite books/authors? What’s a book? J

What are your favorite movies? The Inheritance, Cinderella (Disney and Rogers and Hamersteins), and Iron Man (if you haven’t seen it, you must!!!)

What is your favorite quote? Take time to enjoy the little things, for one day you will look back and realize they were big things.

What is one of your recent goals? Spend less time on the computer and more time with my family!!!!

One of Leslie’s favorite layouts that she’s made in the gallery is

This one is one of my favorites–

and this one too–

Go check out the rest of her gallery here and her store here.

The winner of last months photo challenge is……..

Chel with this adorable picture:

He looks so very cute holding the duster so lovingly in his arms.

Congrats and thanks for playing!!! The $5 gift certificate will be send to you soon!

As for next months challenge:

Hi there, it’s me, Henriëtte, again with this June’s photo challenge!

It is a challenge where no SCRAPPING at all is involved but just taking pictures is the only requirement to play. Each month I will choose a subject for the picture.

This month the theme is: be creative with light!

The subject can be anything as long as there is no direct sunlight to be seen in the picture. Just be creative; candlelight, moonlight, party lights or a (Disney) parade by night , anything will do.

Here is mine:

I love the shades a candle makes and the softness of the light.

How to play:
- Make a picture that has something to do with the subject, you can be as creative as you want, just make sure it has a connection with the subject.
- Post your picture in the gallery and link it back to this forum post (please just link it and don’t put the actual picture in this post).
- You can submit as many pictures as you like!
- I will choose the winner at the end of the month and she/he will receive a $5 gift certificate to our fabulous shop!

Henriëtte

Hi everyone! I just want to let you know about this month’s quick page exchange but before I do I wanted to tell you if you aren’t participating in the exchanges you are really missing out. Our May exchange brought in 30 layouts. You read right, 30 layouts. Can you imagine the gorgeous full book or two or three that you could put together?  The pages are all so beautiful too. I am so excited and I’m hoping for big numbers this month too because we are using an equally stunning kit by GG Digital Designs.

Our June exchange features GG Digital Designs’ “Flower Girl” kit. This kit has stunning colors and embellishments. There is something for everyone in this kit.  All through the month of June “Flower Girl” is on sale for 30% off in the ScrapMatters’ shop so stop by and pick up your kit today. We’d love to have you exchange a quick page with us.

Here is the LO I designed using this darling kit. I had to “borrow” a child again. This is the darling little girl that comes to my day care a few days a week. Isn’t she a doll?

And here is the quick page you will receive.

The exchange can be found in the Quick Page Exchange forum at ScrapMatters.  We hope you join in the fun.

Hello ladies! Wendy here! It’s my first time writing for the SM blog, and couldn’t for the life of me think of something to write, then it came to me.

As artists, we do an amazing job of preserving all our happy memories. Looking through my scrapbooks, you’ll see vacations, birthdays, layouts of my Godson, nephews, nieces, weddings, concerts and every other happy memory that i’ve been able to immortalize in pictures. However, as we all know, life isn’t always as peachy as our LO’s might suggest. Now, this isn’t meant to be a debbie downer post, its just a post to challenge you to scrap outside the box, scrap a not so happy memory in your life. Maybe it was losing a family member, not getting that dream job that you applied for, or anything else that you’ve made it through and as a result has made you a stronger person! Think of it as a way of healing, an outlet for your thoughts.

On June 16th of last year, my favorite grammy died. June 16th also happens to be my birthday! Talk about a bitter-sweet day! Ever since that day, I’ve wanted to dedicate a LO to her memory. Is it a happy, bubbly fun event? No, but it’s my way of saying I love you to her. It’s my way of scraping about one of my all time favorite people, and how I felt on that day when I heard the news. We used to sign everything “Love you mucho mucho”…so I incorporated that in my LO. My LO is below. Credits can be found in my gallery.

So I challenge you to create a layout to remember a particularly hard time in your life, after all, you’ve made it through. If you’re going through a rough patch right this very moment, think of it as a step towards healing, or an outlet for your thoughts.

I’ve created 2 pieces of “word art” that may help with this project. The drop-shadows in the preview are not on the actual word art itself!

You can D/L the word art –> here!

I hope this post sparks you to scrap outside the box!

Hi, its Britt, hijacking once again to give you Kate’s winners from her Template Challenge last week!! The winners are:

alamama

and rhonda42182

CONGRATS girls! Kate will PM you your $5 GCs!! Ok – back to Ellie for a brand spankin’ new Template Challenge!!!

__________________________________________________

Hi everyone! Ellie here with this week’s Tuesday Template Challenge!

This is my first time hosting a challenge here at ScrapMatters and my first template, so I’m very pleased and excited! I’ve been trying to think of a theme or idea or anything for this challenge and finally decided that I just want everyone to scrap about something that makes them smile. It can be a person, a thing, an event, a memory… Anything that makes you smile. And tell us a little about why it makes you smile! Easy right? Feel free to shake up the template, flip it or mix it however you want! Just have fun!

My favorite layout and one random winner will receive a $5 GC to the ScrapMatters shop! And two bonus winners will receive my brand new Scatter Sunshine kit!

This is the template you’ll be using. It includes PSD, PSP, and PNG formats.

You can download the template HERE.

Take a peek at some of the fantastic layouts the ScrapMatters creative and design teams made with it!

Check out this one by Kateypie! Adorable!

I love the gorgeous simplicity of Heather’s…

And Happy Scrap Girl’s is SO creative!

Here’s an adorable one by Katie…

And check out Linz’s sweet little angel!

LOVE this one by Krista!

Sarah’s take on the template is just gorgeous…

I love how Stacy H flipped hers! Perfect!

And here’s my own layout as well…

Today it is time to spotlight another Creative Team member….Melanie, aka sassypixie323 in the galleries.

Let’s get to know Melanie a little better, whaddya say?

What is your main job?
I have a salon business in my home so that I can stay home with my kids.

What’s the family like?
I’ve been married 8 years. We have 4 kids, 3 boys and 1 girl and 6, yes I said 6 dogs.

Where do you call home?
Sunny Arizona

What are your three favorite foods?
Mexican, Pasta, and Pizza

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Mmm Rocky Road, Schwann’s is my favorite

Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks?
Salty, I’m on a big Chex mix kick right now.

What is your favorite beverage?
Dr. Pepper

What is your least favorite food?
Stews or Pot Roast

PC or Mac?
PC

How long have you been digi-scrapping and how did you get started?
I was looking through all the scrapbooking magazines and loved what you could do with digital scrapbooking. I’ve been hooked ever since.

What program do you use to digi-scrap with?
Photoshop Elements 6

What are your hobbies besides digi-scrapping?
I love Photography, I dabble in beading a little, just to make my daughter her bracelets and necklaces and I love a good mystery novel when I have time to read.

What is the most challenging part of scrapbooking for you?
I have a hard time with the more masculine layouts. I can do girly and baby layouts but have a hard time doing layouts of my 2 older boys.

What would you like to learn to do (or do better) not related to scrapbooking?
Cooking, I hate to cook.

What are your favorite books/authors?
Anything from Mary Higgins Clark. I also like the Women’s Murder Club mysteries by James Patterson.

What are your favorite movies?
Sense and Sensibility, Enchanted and A Walk to Remember.

What is your favorite quote?
A mother holds her children’s hands for a while…their hearts forever. — Author Unknown

What is one of your goals for 2008?
Losing weight, I’m having a hard time getting off this baby weight. Soon it will be too late to even blame him anymore. LOL!

So that’s the *official* Scrapmatters questionaire. Did you guys look at her gallery yet? Why not?? You were too busy reading? What a sorry lot of you….I’ll give you the link again… sassypixie323

Aren’t those magnificent layouts??

Look at this one (I wish I knew how to insert the picture here…)

I first saw this one when Melanie used it for a challenge that I hosted a few weeks ago. Isn’t that just soooo adorable???

I love love love these ones too. They are uber-cute!!

(absolutely love this idea!!)

Anyway, thanks for letting me talk up our site’s CT member Melanie (sassypixie323).

Katie