January 2010: Scrapper's Portfolio & Tracker

[Robin Carlton]

Hey Chicklets!!

We are sooo excited to roll out the very first challenge portfolio of 2010! We really hope the prompts below inspire you to scrap a ton this month. Our team has already gotten started creating their own portfolios to inspire you, so check em out after you read through this month's fun tasks!

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.

January 2010: Sweet Shoppe Scrapper's Portfolio

One Point Tasks - 20 Primary Points Possible

1 - Lift a layout by Jaclyn Bernardo, our Treat of the Month for January, and get to know her better in this month's special feature.

2 - January 13th is Make Your Dreams Come True Day. Scrap one of your biggest dreams. Include a to-do list outlining how you're going to make that dream come true.

3 - Year In Review: Pop Culture - create a layout which features a Top 10 list of either your favorite Music, TV shows, Movies or Books from 2009.

4 - Get Organized! The 1st of the year is the perfect time to regroup and reorganize, choose one place in your home to take before and after photos of and document the reorganization process!

5 - Hat Day is January 15th - photograph and scrap one of your favorite people wearing their favorite or wackiest hat!

6 - Twitterpatted - With the advent of sites like Twitter, many of us have begun to share snippets of what we're doing right this second with the rest of the world. Using that concept, scrap a photo free, graphic layout that expresses what you're doing RIGHT NOW. Don't over-think it!

7 - Use the incredible website Before I Die... as inspiration for a page of your own.

8 - Holiday Aftermath: Now that the holidays are over, the decorations are put away, the guests gone back home and real life is back in session, scrap a layout about those "must have" toys and gifts which have already been tossed aside & forgotten.

9 - January looks like... Take a photo looking out your front door or a window, standing on your driveway or front porch or even what your kids are wearing to school and scrap it! You'll see this challenge again and again throughout 2010, so choose a spot or subject which will illustrate the passage of time or seasons changing in an easy to capture photo.

10 - Coloriffic! Use the following swatch as inspiration to create a layout.



11 - The Midseason TV break is over! What show are you most looking forward to seeing return this month? Scrap It!

12 - January 31st is Backwards Day - put your thinking cap on and use the concept of 'backwards' as a design element on your page.

13 - If I could be a _________, I would be a _________. Scrap It!

14 - January is National Hobby Month. Create a layout which celebrates your favorite hobby be it scrapbooking or something else. As an alternative, consider scrapping your husband or child's favorite hobby!

15 - Get Graphic: Scrap a layout with NO shadows!

16 - Behind Closed Doors: Your Closet(s). Shoot it & scrap it, but DON'T clean it!

17 - What we did today: Dateline January X, 2010. Simple enough, scrap a family memoir of a single day in January from start to finish!

18 - The ipod/itunes silhouettes are iconic! Use them as a source of inspiration for a layout...



19 - Use a winter themed kit to scrap a non-themed layout.

20 - Eyeball Benders: Use the macro setting on your camera to capture some of your family's favorite things from a whole new point of view (see the examples below) and scrap a whimsical and playful look at these "things".



Two Point Tasks - 20 Primary Points Possible

21 - Hand the camera off to your children or spouse and scrap a layout with photos taken from their point of view.

22 - Use the thought provoking inspiration at Baby Love Letters to choose a topic and create a layout which includes a letter to your child, a loved one or even yourself. (let us know which love letter prompt you were inspired by in your portfolio point tracker post too)

23 - January 23rd is National Handwriting Day! Get creative and create a layout which features your personal handwriting prominently on the page. If you have a custom font featuring your handwriting, feel free to use it! You can also journal with your favorite paper and pen and scan or photograph it too!

24 - Create a layout which uses no less than 8 different alphabets or fonts. NOTE: a combination of both does not count.

25 - Two Sides of Sweet: New Year's Resolutions can inspire wonderful changes in our lives, but they can also make us crazy with feeling like we just can't do it. Pick a resolution you've made in the past or will be making for 2010, and create a layout that shows off the sweet and not so sweet sides of trying to accomplish this change in your life.

26 - Year In Review: Things You Meant To Do. Create a layout which captures those things you meant to do in 2009, but never got around to accomplishing.

27 - January 4th is Trivia Day - create a page that shares some trivia about you or one of your little ones.

28 - Traditions: How Does Your Family Ring In The New Year?

29 - Color Me Katie has spectacular inspiration, but one of our favorite things on this site is the short little stories she tells with a few words and pictures like this or this or even this. Get creative with your own photos and short captions to tell your own mini story in a layout.

30 - Digiscrap Rewind: Recreate a layout you've done in the past to make it bigger and better than ever. Add that journaling you skimped on before, update the style and design vibe or share what you were REALLY thinking at the time to make it more personal, sentimental and significant to those who will reflect back on the memory in the future. (share the original layout and the updated version in your portfolio point tracker post to earn both points)

Five Point Tasks - 10 Primary Points Possible

31 - Book of Me 2010 - this year SSD is encouraging you to create a Book of Me Album! So often we focus on scrapping everyone else in our lives, but we're challenging you to record more of who YOU are on a regular basis throughout the year too. Pick 3 of the 5 topics below and scrap 3 layouts to earn 5 points:

31a - Introduce Yourself with Basic Stats
31b - 10 things I Love About Me
31c - If I could live anywhere, it would be...
31d - If a song turned on when I walked in the room, it would be...
31e - If I had a million dollars...

32 - Past, Present, Future: Travel - scrap a trio of layouts which represent your travel memories of past, present & future.

32a - A childhood vacation
32b - A recent vacation
32c - A dream vacation

Ten Point Task - 10 Primary Points Possible

33 - Mini Badge Albums - This month we’re creating a mini album using plastic name badge holders, business card file or trading card keepers. Use one of the fabulous projects below as inspiration to create a mini album of your own that includes at least 6 two sided pages (12 mini pages total).

Mini Business Card Album by Teresa Victor
Perfect Purse Album by Julie Brooks
Mini Badge Album by Julie Michelle

Flex Tip #1 - 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 January, all layouts and points need to be posted by 11:59pm EST at the end of the day on February 1st. Our SugarBabes have started trackers of their own in this thread to show you how it's done, but here are the basics.

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!!

Happy New Year and Happy Scrapping!

Robin