Gettin' SMASHy With It!

Time for your new Seriously Creative Challenge:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete a project with a summery theme and include the colour YELLOW!  I love yellow, it's such a happy colour, so I had no problem using it on these here SMASH spreads:

The first page is one from my red SMASH book, the one that's all about moi!  I used to love going to concerts, and I kept all my ticket stubs.  See, even before I was a smasher I was thinking like a smasher!  Anyway, I had a lot of fun trying out new techniques here, like doodling on the tree, and using watercolour pencils for my background.  The mandala is one I printed off (found it on pinterest here) and thought it would be fun to use as a sun.  I love all the art journals I've been spying on pinterest, too, which inspired me to try my hand at some fancy lettering on this postcard - probably not a professional job, but not too bad for a first try, I guess.  I attached the postcard to the binding with paper clips to make an insert (another idea I found on pinterest here), and when you flip it, the spread looks like this:

Score!  I found this postcard from Arts County Fair in my stash, and it adds just the right amount of orange to balance out that mandala.  The photo is one taken at Edgefest circa '98 or '99.  Wow, how the years blur the older you get!

Here's the second layout from my red SMASH:

In 2008, I trained my butt off (literally - my butt's never been that small!) to enter a fitness competition.  I traveled from Dawson City to Vancouver to compete, wearing a jeweled bikini and heels on a stage in front of hundreds of people.  Crazy, yes, but it's one thing I can cross off the bucket list!  My mom and aunt traveled to Vancouver to watch the competition, and then spirited me away for a week's vacation to Hawaii.  After two weeks of -50 degree weather, it was wonderful to just relax and lay on the beach in the heat.  This page is more about body image, however - how it felt to wear a bikini and not feel self-conscious for once, and how I feel now about losing that figure and struggling to get it back. 

I added a postcard insert again, and here's how it looks opened up:

On the postcard I wrote about how wonderful Hawaii was, especially the food (hard to see with the flash lighting it up like that!) and I stuck in a card that my aunt sent me after our trip.  I just love the watercolour picture of the dolphins on the card, so pretty!  I used some Graphic 45 paper here, as well as some Tim Holtz tissue tape and some shell shaped buttons made from coconuts that I bought in Hawaii.

Are you still with me?  Well, here's the final page for you today:

This one is in my orange SMASH.  As soon as I saw this paper printed with logs and orange paint, I knew it would be perfect for my forester husband.  Quite often when he goes out in the bush, he takes these photos of himself, and I find them later on the camera and think, "What were you doing?"  The orange ruffle across the second page?  That's flagging tape I found in his pocket when doing the laundry.  He let me use his brand new RPF stamp to make the white circle accent on the left hand page (RPF stand for Registered Professional Forester, and it's a pretty big deal to pass the test and call yourself one here in BC).  The second page has a couple of stories about him and Ailis.  They're pretty cute together!  Jason tries to have daddy/daughter time with her quite often, as we both spend a lot of time troubleshooting with Nolan and Brenna.  Ailis is not one to make a fuss, so if we're not careful, we can easily overlook her need for attention, poor thing.  I like to think I did a good job here of capturing some simple, everyday moments that might otherwise be forgotten. 

And one last pic in case there are any nurses or doctors out there that may have any clue as to what is going on with my thumb:



See that bump on the side of my right thumb?  Well, it's squishy, and I don't know how in heck it got like that!  All I know is it's been that way for at least 2 months now, and I don't remember whacking it or getting a splinter or anything.  Some nights it hurt and throbbed so bad I couldn't sleep, and other times the swelling would go down a bit and I totally forgot about it.  But now I'm damn sick of it, I have trouble grasping a pen or scissors (how can I scrapbook?!)  and I think I have to get it drained or something.  Weird, eh?  Anyway, if any of you have any advice or knowledge about strange puffy thumb syndrome, feel free to send it my way! 

Have a great (long) weekend!  I'm heading up to Vanderhoof today to drop Jason off at his new job, but I'll be back hopefully with a new post soon and before I make the big move with the kids (long story, I'll fill ya in later).