Q: what is your challenge this week?
A: journal a question followed by the answer.
if you need to do a little explaining somewhere else on the layout, i guess that’s ok…
Here’s Suzy’s layout about her friend Katie’s wedding weekend:
Journaling reads: ” What could be better than a weekend away sightseeing, hanging out with friends, & relaxing? Just seeing my dear friend, happy, radiant & totally in love, on her wedding day. ”
Heather’s challenge a ways back to journal in the form of a haiku was one of my favorite challenges ever. And it got me thinking about what other types of poetry were out there that would lend themselves well to journaling on layouts. That question led me to a type of poetry called the “diamante poem,” one that has seven lines in the shape of a diamond and incorporates nouns, adjectives, gerunds, and a sentence or some more nouns. Sounds hard huh? Well Suzy did some searching and found this website that does all the work for you. You just have to decide what words you want to plug into the formula. So it’s really not as tough as it sounds. Give it a try.
If for some reason, you are innately opposed to journaling in a diamond shape, like I seem to be, you are welcome to play with your design a little bit.
Here’s little ducky’s version, she’s innately opposed as well, but she got around it nicely, don’t you think?
Heather went straight for the diamond…
Here’s mine. Even though I didn’t stay in the diamond shape, I did get an old photo scrapped and that makes me happy!
Here’s Suzy’s – she went with the diamond shape but not wanting to be too conformist took some liberties with her parts of speech!
This week, the challenge is a journaling technique. You need to journal INSIDE your title. There are many ways to interpret that, this is what we came up with:
Emily:
And Stephanie’s:
And Suzy’s:
And Heather’s:
and little ducky’s will be here shortly, she’s been reorganizing her scrap room. 
This fall I’ve been taking Cathy Zielske’s Design Your Life class over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. It’s been a great opportunity for me to learn about the elements of design and how to make them work for my scrapbook layouts. Plus, Cathy’s really cool and funny and makes a darn good bowl of chicken chili!
And while I love her style and her layouts are always eye-catching with funny, touching and well-composed journaling, she’s all about the straight lines. It’s the basis of all that is good in design and I can appreciate the principles that support that.
However…
Sometimes I just need to tilt something! It may not be rational, but it’s fun and I’m pretty sure that Cathy would agree that’s what it’s all about.
So my challenge to you is to put your journaling on a tilt. Just because.
Here’s mine (and while the tilty words are technically not my own, making the photos fit in on those angles was surprisingly hard for this former mathematics intsructor, so I say it counts!):
And A’s:
And Emily’s:
I apologize. I forgot to do the blog post for the 18th. It was my challenge and I totally spaced putting it up here. And tomorrow is a brand new one. So add this to your list of things to do…
I got this catalog in the mail, and it looked like such a fun thing to do, word-wise. We did a joint challenge with the Pub Ad Inspiration over at Two Peas. I just liked how the words went into each other in a funky way. I still haven’t done my version, but little ducky and suzy have done theirs, see below.
little ducky’s:
suzy’s:
Yup, it’s a straight line. And that’s the challenge I have for you this fine second week of October. I tend to journal in a box shape, I’ve noticed. So this week, I challenged myself to do something different. And it was harder than I thought it would be design-wise!
So here you go: start on one side of your layout and journal straight to the other side, no stopping, nothing more, nothing less. You might have to go REALLY small or REALLY big depending on what you have to say. You can go up or down, or side to side, that’s up to you.
Heather kept her journaling to one of a two page spread, and what she didn’t say on this layout is she beat her personal best time this year. Yay H!
little ducky made her’s short and sweet, just a recap of the doctor’s visit:
and mine, about my son’s love of the classic books:
suzy’s (please excuse her thumb!):
steph’s:
For some US Peas, summer is still in full swing (unless you live here in the Northeast, where it’s been soggy for the past two weeks!) and for others, school has started again. Needless to say, Peas around the world are always busy.
This week I’ve got an easy challenge for you so you have one less thing on your to do list. The challenge is to journal in 2 different ways. Handwritten and typed, strips and blocks, rub-ons and stickers – choose any combination you like!
It can also be about the content if you like. Quote a conversation that you overheard at home this week and then describe why it’s funny or sad or just plain important. Write a list and then explain its contents. Include the lyrics from your favorite song and then write about their significance. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination!
Here’s mine:
If you’re anything like me, you have hundreds of fonts loaded onto your computer. And you use the same three over and over again. (Really, three is being generous – I pretty much have used the Autumn Leaves Uncle Charles font exclusively since I downloaded it from 2Peas!)
So this week’s challenge is to use font to support the theme of your layout. Choose any topic you like and then play it up with a fancy, plain, scary, silly, futuristic, or old-fashioned font. The possibilities are endless (which is often the problem!).
Feel free to use one font or several. If you handwrite most of your journaling, play up the font in your title instead.
Here’s mine:
And Ducky’s:
Heather’s:
And Em’s:
what does it say about you when you hate your own challenge?
well i’ve tried it and i hate it.
design problems beyond design problems.
one word answers needed.
but i suppose that’s what a challenge is all about, so with that glowing description, i offer you this week’s challenge.
a crossword puzzle.
there are plenty of free puzzlemakers out there if you just google “free crossword maker” but i’ll give you a couple of links to get you started. and i’ll get back to you on my layout.
and if no one wants to play this week, i completely understand.
i’ll post more layouts once they are done. but here’s heather’s, she’s a trooper to say the least.
little ducky’s page about her son, what a fun idea! and she did not disappoint, i was hoping for something like this from her…
and i finished mine and actually think it turned out ok… see what complaining will get you!?!
I can’t figure out how this new version of wordpress works. i can’t figure out how to load pictures and i can’t link, so you’ll have to bear with me for a while. but here’s the challenge, sans pictures and links: it’s a random word challenge. there’s a generator online that just throws out words, if you don’t like the first word, i’ll give you the option of trying again 4 more times, but that’s it. you have to use one of those five words as a jumping off point for your journaling. i think this will be fun because everyone’s pages are going to be SO different.
google RANDOM WORD GENERATOR to find the link.
for your word and get creating!
remember, you only have to use the word as a jumping off point, it doesn’t even have to be in your title or journaling, just explain how it inspired you.
University*Foundation*Expressway*Copy*Wrath
here’s my take on the challenge, my word was “traveling”:
And Suzy’s (her word was “frown”):
Here’s Heather’s page. Her word was “Entrance”, it can be pronounced two different ways, can you tell which one she used?
and Steph’s is using the word “Human”
ducky’s word was “teacher”
