April 2011: Scrapper's Portfolio & Tracker

[lauren grier]

Hey Chicklets!!

April is here and is bursting with inspiration from every corner of our lives. Whether you celebrate passover, or Easter, earth day or just the fact that it is the glorious month of April- there's so much to look forward to! Hopefully our prompts this month will inspire you to showcase all that April means to you! Our team really cranked out some amazingly inspirational ideas for you all this month so take a look at the challenges we have below for you and get moving on that portfolio now!

For ease of reference, we've created a printable checklist of this month's portfolio. Click the link below to download and print!

As always, you MUST use primarily Sweet Shoppe products to complete your challenge layouts.

April 2011: Sweet Shoppe Scrapper's Portfolio

One Point Tasks - 20 Primary Points Possible
1 - Lift a layout by Sue Setiadji, our Treat of the Month for April, and get to know her better in this month's special feature.

2 - Quote Inspiration! "Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe."-Gail Devers. Create a layout inspired by or featuring this quote!

3 - Spring is the perfect time to create layouts that focus on growth. Create a layout that shows growth - it could be personal, about one of your children, or even about the flowers in your yard!

4 - Be inspired by your favorites! Check out this cute imageand create a layout inspired by it and your favorite person, place, or thing. Be silly or serious! Scrap about your favorite socks or your great grandmother.

5 - Baseball is back!! Create a layout using lots of stitches.

6 - Scrap a page using a quote from quote-me. Refresh the page to get a new quote or use the first one that comes up!


7 - Use the Colour Wheel to come up with a colour scheme for your layout! Go with the first option, or keep clicking until you find one that you like. Feature these 3 colours as the main colours on your page!

8 - Rainy Days are here again - create a layout about rainy days or grab inspiration from your own "rainy day".

9 - The Boston and London Marathon are in April - let's make a page about something that took you a long time to accomplish. Getting your bachelor or master's degree, buying a house, paying off debt, etc.

10 - Hope. Hope inspires us, it pushes us forward, it gives us new life. Scrap a page inspired by hope, something you are hopeful for.. Or something that you hold on to in your heart because hope tells you things will get better.

11 - Without the Rain there'd be no Rainbow. Create a layout inspired by this image- be it a rainbow based colour scheme, inspired by the quote, bold text, you name it! Get creative!

12 - Make your own bunting on your page out of patterned paper and string. Flag banners are popular right now so get creative and make your own!

13 - One Little Word Challenge: Renew! Scrap a layout based on that word (use it as your title!)

14 - Frame the letters in your title! Check out this adorable card for inspiration! Mix and match frames.. get creative!

15 - Photo Editing Challenge: Take a picture of someone holding a blank sign. While creating your layout, add words, a quote, or your title to their sign.

16 - This time of year makes many people think.. PASTELS. Create a layout featuring a pastel scheme.

17 - It's time for one of our steady favorites again! Paper 2 Digi! Browse Nicole Harper's (aka brains32192) gallery and lift one of her amazing layouts! Paper 2 Digi is always a blast and a great chance to try out some new techniques!

18 - If you're quiet you're not LIVING. You have to be noisy colourful and lively! Create a layout inspired by this image and quote. Include some bright colour pops!

19 - April is a month full of tradition, celebrations, and holidays for many of us. Scrap a layout about what your family does throughout the month.. Do you celebrate passover? Do you celebrate Easter? Tell us about your April traditions!

20 - Are you keeping up with your recipe book? April 30th is National Raisin day! Create a recipe card featuring a recipe full of raisins! Need some ideas? Check out the Sunmaid website for 100 years of raisin recipes!

Two Point Tasks - 20 Primary Points Possible

21 - Design Trays, digital or not, are a fun way to block out little bits and pieces you want to highlight. Use this inspiration to create a layout (or project!) that showcases blocking & little snippets of fun.

22- Embed a title in your title! Check out this example image. Get creative and blend two titles into one!

23 - Check out this fun photo inspiration Create a layout based on this design idea.

24 - Technique Challenge!! Create a little digital lift and curl on your papers or photos. Check out this tutorial on how to make curled photo corners for tips and tricks.

25 - Left Brain vs Right Brain. The Left sided brain is logical, organized, neat and tidy.. The Right sided brain is creative, and random. Split a layout down the middle and design each side as Left brained and Right brained. Keep the left clean, and organized- straight lines and simple text. Make the Right side colourful and bright, full of doodles and random organization. Get creative!

26 - We all have struggles.. Each person has their own weight to bear. Scrap a layout about your current woes and heavy hearted moments. Journal heavy and honestly!

27 - Get photo heavy! Create a layout with at least 6 photos. Repeats are allowed to a minimum (ie don't use 1 photo six times.. but 2 or 3 times is acceptable). Minimalistic layouts are popular-- let's go to the opposite end of the spectrum! Pile it all on!

28 - Life isn't always sweet. Sometimes we're forced to let go when we don't really want to. Create a layout and journal heavy about that person, dream, idea, or love that you had to let go of when you weren't ready to. Take it in a positive or therapeutic direction.

29 - Think outside the box - your layout cannot be a square or rectangle - make it another shape(brackets, hearts, egg shape...)

30 - Packaging inspiration! Browse this site and find a packaging design that inspires you! Create a layout based on the design.

Five Point Tasks - 10 Primary Points Possible

31 - I just can't live without...a person(s), a place, and a thing. Use this prompt and create three layouts that answer the prompt. One layout will be about a person, another about a place, and the third about a thing.

32 - Life Lessons 2011 - this year SSD is encouraging you to create a Life's Little Lessons Album! One of the greatest things we can pass along to our loved ones is the stories of lessons we've learned in our own lives, so this year we're challenging you to do a little soul searching and create an album of these little learning experiences. Pick 3 of the 5 topics below and scrap 3 layouts to earn 5 points:

32a - You were made special just the way you are.
32b - Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
32c - Take the stairs. There is no elevator in life.
32d - Sometimes you just have to take a leap.
32e - Prioritize. Do what you love often. Stop doing the things you don't.

Ten Point Task - 10 Primary Points Possible
33 - Celebrate Earth day this April by reusing, and recycling things you have around the house to create some amazing new projects! From albums using starbucks wrappers and toilet paper rolls (yes! even those), to re purposing old cards, phone books, water damaged books, paint chip samples, magazines.. or even altering that old flower pot or pencil case that you no longer use! There's tons of possibilities if you just get creative and focus on reusing some old things you have laying around! Mix your recycled project with digi goods and presto instant hybrid project! To earn the full 10 points this month please show us the before and after of your project. Be sure to include some SSD goodies in your final project too!

To give you some ideas.. Shawna created flowers and bows using old things she had in the house. You can use these as a starting point to create a card, album, hybrid layout or anything else you are planning!
Flowers BEFORE and AFTER

Col is a big fan of altering objects.. Have an old planter or candy tin laying around the house? Throw some SSD goodies on it and presto you've brought new life to an old item!

Here are a few other Projects from the gallery to inspire you!

Juli's Recycled Notebook
Juli's Recycled Gift Box
Sara's Recycled Wall Art

and even more inspiration out in other galleries
Toilet Paper Roll
Recycled Lunch Bag
Recycled Packaging



Flex Tip - Be Creative! If the challenge is asking for a TOP 10 of your favorite TV shows, feel free to scrap your husband's or child's favorite shows instead! If it's asking a question, feel free to ask the question of a loved one and scrap a page for them instead. The only time this wouldn't apply is to your Book of Me album which should be a stunning tribute to YOU!
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DON'T FORGET! As you complete layouts for our challenges, you'll be tracking them yourself in one post that you'll update throughout the month. For April, all layouts and points need to be posted by 11:59pm EST at the end of the day on May 1st. If you're joining us for the first time this month, have a look at the amazing portfolio tracker threads from throughout the year to see how it's done!

1) Post to claim your tracker spot for the month.
2) When you finish a layout for a challenge, upload it to the gallery and right click to get the image information for your layout.
3) Return to your tracker spot you claimed in this thread, and click edit to add the image of your layout to your portfolio. You'll want to add your layout in order of the numbered list above and include that number and the points earned above your image.
4) At the very end of your portfolio, please keep a running tally of the total points earned to date.

PLEASE NOTE: Portfolio points may NOT be carried over into the following month as each month begins anew with a fresh set of inspiring challenges! Additionally, you may NOT use the same layout for more than one numbered task - each task requires a new layout.

Please don't post chatter or comments in this thread as we'd like to keep it clean and easy to check at the end of the month. If you want to give praise to your favorite prompts or layouts, feel free to chatter as much as you like in our General Info & Chatter Forum. Thanks!!

So thankful to have you scrapping with us,

La