Confessions of a Scrap-a-holic: Day 70 - October 23rd, 2010

Ever watch "Project Runway"? Unknown clothes designers compete. Given challenges of using particular themes or materials, they are given a certain amount of time to complete the task, and then their outfit is judged, and some one is sent home. Pretty much the same formula that is being used on all of the competition shows these days.

What I like about project runway is "use of theme". How, when given a particular idea or material, they immediately come up with something that is truly runway worthy. Let alone sew everything.

So I played "Project Runway".

I was given my assignment. "Good morning Designer! Today you will be working on completing a small scrapbook based on the event, "Divine Inspiration sings the National Anthem at the Kane County Cougars game". Completed in the "Finished In a Flash" scrapbooking style, you will have limited amounts of paper and emblishments to work from. Good luck, and we'll see your scrapbook on the runway".

So I sat and thought about it, and came up with a color scheme that I thought that I would like. It would be a 6x6 album. Cougar colors are green and white, it's baseball so it has to have browns in it somewhere.

"OK, Designer! You'll have 30 minutes and a budget of $0 dollars to go shopping at "Mood"." "Mood" is a fashion warehouse in New York that houses mountains of material, wall of buttons and every other feather, fastener, or lace you can imagine. My "Mood" is my scrapbook room, where it houses a mountain of paper, a wall of embellishment and every sticker, dazzle, or ribbon you may need.
It was 6:00am. I had 30 minutes to complete the task of picking out all my supplies. Ready. Go!

I pulled 4 sheets of pattern paper. Papers with browns and blues, some with greens. I pulled 5 sheets of co-ordinating cardstock. I went to my scrapbook closet and pulled out the 6x6 binder album. Refills... refills... I'll need more pages... where are those?
In the "Finished in Flash" style, you are limited to 50 embellishments. Each brad, flower, or sticker counting as one item. Every frame, transparency, or paperclip is one. I pulled brads, (one, two, thee four, five, six - who the heck counts brads!) some blue chip board pieces. Pulled out the "sports" folder and quickly flipped through to see what type of stickers I had with a baseball theme. (Talk about a limited selection!). And finally, one letter sticker sheet.

"All right designers. Time is up!"; and I stuffed everything in a plastic sleeve and was ready to crop on Friday night.

With my limited supplies, and my trimmer I started work on my "masterpiece" entitled... Take Me Out to the Ballgame". Not original, but it fits. And I work diligently and quickly. Not worrying that everything was just perfect, but "making it work" with the supplies that I had pulled. No looking for the perfect paper, not worrying if the brad is the exact color match. I got in there, got it down, got it pulled together.

And you know... by the end of the evening... it was just about runway worthy. The cover wasn't done, and authors note was missing from the back, and it wasn't journaled, (Tony needs to help me with all of the guys names) but it was "finished".
My "bonus" was that I had a $5 coupon from the crop that had to be used that night. So I got (I won't use the term "bought" because I didn't pay cash for it) were some Basic Grey tabs - that could stick out of the top of the book.

"One day you're in. And the next day, your out." I think I'm still in the game.

The unfinished cover...