New Kit by Sunny Day Scraps: Tropicana

Remember that last prize I sort of "won" for iNSD from Sunny Day Scraps? I say "sort of" because as part of Charly's CT, I already have access to her kits, and the contest was to suggest a motiff and theme for her next kit for a chance to win her entire store at Berry Sweet Scraps, and to get the kit based on the motiff and theme suggested after it was done.

This was the palette I suggested:

Source

And I suggested a Hula theme.

And Sunny Day Scraps delivered!

Kit Description:

This Kit is jammed Packed with Lots of Goodies,Whether you are Scrapping photos of a Tropical Vacation, Luau, Cruise,or any Tropical or non Tropical Photo you will Love this Kit.. The Full Kit includes 20 Papers, over 58 Elements.Personal Use S4H/S4O Approved!

Available here.

I love it! And if you can possibly have one favorite element in a kit, my favorite element in this one is the grass skirt :) So many possibilities!

Here is a layout I made with this kit:

That grass skirt and the lei elements instantly transformed a regular summer photo into a Luau-ready character!

It's a sad day

I was doing my usual check of my galleries and forums this morning. Since it's the last day of May, I wanted to see if there are any other challenges I missed and could squeeze in. And like I do every day, I always check Coolscrapsdigital (CSD)first. When I logged in, I got this pop-up notification that I have a private message with the title "QP Contest - Cancelled". My initial thought was "Oh... ok." and proceeded to open the message to see what it was about. What I read came as a shock and I thought I misunderstood the message. So I closed it and proceeded to the forum.The forum was empty except for this one thread:

And the announcement confirmed what was on the private message. CSD forum and gallery are closing.

CSD was the first forum I joined and participated in. I have been browsing several other forums before and have been admiring members' work in the galleries. I don't remember why, but it was at CSD that I felt brave enough to actually sign up and participate in my first challenge: to create a freebie from a commercial pack provided in the forum. 

After my first submission, I immediately felt welcome. I browsed other challenges, joined a couple more and actually won something! I was hooked. And this gave me the confidence to explore the other forums, where I discovered that members are equally friendly and welcoming, and join their challenges too.

I visit several forums now and maintain several galleries, but I always considered CSD as my home. It's the first forum I visit every day, and the first gallery I make an effort to update. And now it's gone. And I miss it already. I know I will miss it more tomorrow when June starts and I will not have the CSD challenges to look forward to. Addie didn't provide details and only said it was a very difficult decision on her part. Whatever difficult time she and her family must be going through now, I can only pray for her and wish her well. 

I think I will be taking a break from challenges for a while.

Happy and Happier

I must be running out of inspiration. I made a couple of layouts last weekend and I only noticed yesterday that it pretty much contained the same words: HAPPY.

Elements from Sunny Days Add-on kit by A-liya

I made this layout first and when I made the word art, I totally forgot that I downloaded a word art for one of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's challenges that also said "Happy". The photo above was taken last April during our family's trip to Baguio. I made this layout as part of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's Birdcage Challenge for May 16-31.

This is the mini-kit provided:

For the challenge, we had to use all the elements in the kit. 

Here is my second "Happy" layout:

Elements from Splashtastic Summer by Sunny Day Scrap; Word art by Claudio

This photo was taken from our trip 2 weeks ago (I finally managed to get the photos organized! Posting about it later!). I made this layout as part of Scrappity-Doo-Dah's Word Art Loving Challenge for May 16-31 (I can't believe I missed the May 1-15th one! How could I have not seen that??). Don't you just love that word art from Claudio?

May is almost done! I still have around 3 or 4 challenges to finish before I say good -bye to May though. Will be back with more! :)