CSI 193: Dear Messy Home

Long time no see − I'm so happy to be joining the CSI Challenge again after a long break!

And of course very happy to see all of you readers again. Warm thanks to everyone who has visited or commented! I haven't been as productive as I would like to this winter, but now I feel energetic and inspired to catch up.



For my Testimony, I chose a theme from 365 Questions: On a scale of 1 to 10, how clean is your house? (I shall tell you more about this in a minute).

I'm really happy with the background, by the way! It was something I had started previously and found when I was looking for papers in this week's CSI colours. It's mixed media on an old Basic Grey paper, using stencils, modeling paste and acrylic paint, crayons and what else. I like how the pattern still shows through a bit.

This is what the CSI Major Case File #193 looks like:


For Evidence, I'm using String, and Frames, which are of Something transparent. I found an unused Halloween themed transparency and took it to mat two of the photos. I like the effect I got combining its black doodles with the string.

From Evidence, I was also inspired by Labels, and from Testimony, the Frame Your Story one. I was thinking of those themes when I decided to make my journaling in strips and frame some words, but I'm not sure if these would count.



And the one spider - our home is not quite that dusty but at our country cottage we do spot spiderwebs here and there! I left the middle photo without the transparent frame since I wanted some empty space between the two.



The cleanliness of our home was actually a good theme to think about! I asked the opinion of my 8-year-old as well, and we had the same sort of idea of where in the scale we'd be. Between 6 and 8. My journaling says: Our home is quite messy. There is a lot of stuff, and so much more important and fun things to do in life than cleaning! I enjoy putting things in their places, but those things that don't really have a place at all, that's the trouble!

The journaling continues on the back of the layout and it's about how we gave the grade 7. On someone else's scale we might get a 5 or even worse, but I didn't want to compare with someone who has very different expectations than we ourselves. Our mess does not bother us terribly, we all have quite similar ideas about how it should be and hardly argue about cleaning at all. So it's 7 is compared to 10 as in our own ideal cleanliness, not a general one!



I used this fun sketch from Memuaris, but was late to join the link-up.



I hope to join CSI soon again and hope to see you joining, too! It's really fun for a change to combine colour palette, theme and techniques in the same challenge.

They are also having a DT Call open right now, until April 9. I'm thinking of applying and if you do as well, check it out here!

Thanks for popping in, and see you in a couple of days for the April Scrap Africa Challenge, if not before then!

The Colouring Book: Layout for Scrap Africa Mood Board 71

Hi there! It's mood board time again at Scrap Africa.



The mood board felt perfect for a joyful, playful theme, and I chose a photo of curtains I recently finished sewing for our kids' room. The colour-it-yourself fabric and the striped one are both from Ikea. What a super fun idea!



Before sewing them, we had the fabrics for quite some time, our 8-year-old and I. Colouring together was really nice, but there was not always enough space to take the fabric out when we would have liked! So it was a long process, though we never intended to colour all the images.

Above you can see a more detailed photo of the fabric. We like it the way it is now, with the coloured images popping out of the black and white pattern! Finally ready, yay!



When I saw the Let's Get Sketchy March Week 1 sketch with triangles, I was eager to try using triangles and thought it would go very well with the playful theme.



I am also joining the following challenges: Crafty Life with their Bingo Board, from which I picked Stamps, Mists and Patterned Papers.

And That's Crafty! Challenge with the theme of Stencils and Masks.







Thank you for your visit and have a nice week!

Coffee Moments: Layout for Scrap Africa

Happy March everyone! Here in Finland we still have plenty of snow, but when you look at how much more daylight there is every day, it's easy to tell that spring is on its way.

My Coffee Moments layout for the new Scrap Africa sketch challenge is made with pictures of Mothers' Day last year.



This is the super cool sketch by Denise van Deventer:



I am also joining the Coffee themed challenge at Mixed Media Place Creative Gym.



I did some dying with real coffee on the collage papers I used to mat the photos.



And the Stamps and Stencils challenge with the theme of Splatter, Spritz and Smooch! The stamping and stenciling is not very visible on the background, but here's a photo that shows a bit of both.



Before the stamping and stenciling, I also used gesso on the background, and finished with layers of different mists and tiny dots of Stickles glitter glue.



I am loving my Sizzix Frameworks Trellis die! I got it recently and have been using it in most of my layouts since then.













Thank you for your visit and I hope to see you soon again! I would also love to see you joining Scrap Africa - the challenge is on until March 14!