50 by Fifty {CSI Case File No. 56 + Birthday Presents Blog Hop}

CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration turned one this month, and we've been celebrating with fun and festivities all month long. But what's a birthday party without presents?

We are rounding out CSI's birthday celebration with a huge pile of presents! The talented and very generous CSI design team, aka the CSI Detectives, have prepared special blog posts for you this week, and all you have to do is leave a comment on participating design team members' blogs for a chance to receive a present from them! The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you'll have to receive a gift!

We also have the brand-new company Blue Fern Studios joining our blog hop! Our very own Detective Michele Singh is the designer of this company's beautiful chipboard, and we are delighted to have Blue Fern Studios join us to celebrate our birthday on the month they were introduced to the world!

The CSI Birthday Presents Blog Hop will run from January 25 - 29. Winners will be announced in our Full Disclosure (Announcements) Forum the following week. A newsletter will go out to members once this announcement is posted.

Here is a list of the blogs you will want to visit:

Adrienne Ford

Anna-Karin Evaldsson

Annette Gearside

Ayeeda (Aida Domisiewicz)

Blue Fern Studios

Debbi Tehrani

Debbie Standard

Eila Sandberg

Heather Jacob

Helen Wallace

Jasmine Shea

Jeanette Lee

Lindy Gillespie

Michele Singh

Riikka Kovasin

Sascha Schmidt & Maria Schmidt

Shaunery Wharton

Tina Walker

Yumi Takasaki

Zanka (Zaneta Glowa)

Here's a picture of my birthday present you could receive by leaving me a comment on my blog. Just some odds and ends from my stash--all unopened packages--things of which I had double or things from kits too large for my 8 x 8 pages. I just grabbed a bunch of stuff in various colors so that they might go with lots of different future Case Files. (Sorry for the not-so-great photo--hard to get a good one without the glare of plastic packaging.)

So here's our Case File that we just opened for investigation:

Look at these fabulous Coordinates Michele made for us this week. 

When I saw them, my mind went in a million different directions. Here is what I finally came up with. (Clues I used... Evidence:  clouds, strings, dangled something, plain (sort of) cardstock in the background; Testimony: Inspiration Word: optimism.)

How adorable are those little airplane characters? They're from the coordinates.

My design team is phenomenal, and I'm sure they're going to share all sorts of mind-blowing techniques. In my dreams I am a "technique-y" scrapper, but in reality...not so much. Instead, I'll just share my process and thinking behind the elements I chose. I love to try to include elements that help me to tell my story. Some of the things I included may not be so obvious just by looking at my page.

Here are some details. How could I not use this little lady? She's my favorite bit in the Coordinates this week. The papers I used this week are BasicGrey (the background and the black stripe), My Mind's Eye (the diagonal stripe),  and some super-old BoBunny (the red polka dot).

Here's my dangly part of the Evidence. I didn't have any letters in the right shade of gray, so I used some foam Thickers and colored them with gray chalk. The arrows are photo corners.

These two phrases from the Coordinates are what spurred the subject of my page. I'm on a mission to lose 50 pounds by the time I turn 50 in September. I've been saying "50 by 50," like a mantra in my head for the past week and a half since I went back to Weight Watchers after having fallen off the wagon and gained back almost all of my 60 pounds that it took two years to lose. I've been beating myself up about it, and I finally decided to listen to my Weight Watchers leader and give myself positive talk instead of negative. The brad is by BasicGrey, and the loopy border punch is by Martha Stewart.

A little closeup of the sweet doggie. I love that Michele put those stripes on the airplane! That gray element behind the dog is called Starburst from the Silhouette website. (Part of the star prompt in the Evidence list).

I wanted more stars to not only go with the Evidence but also to symbolize the stars we earn in Weight Watchers for positive behaviors and each time we lose five pounds. Hence the "Catch a Falling Star" (emphasis on the falling, as in dropping pounds...) These stars are made with a Studio Calico mask. I originally tried to use gray stamp ink, but they got all smudgy because the stars are so small, so instead, I just used a fine-tip pen and traced some of them. The Maya Road sheer ledger piece is part of the Evidence too, but I also chose one with numbers and turned it upside down so the numbers would be decreasing, as I hope my weight will do. :)

You will definitely want to visit the other design team members' pages, not only for the chance at winning some fun scrappy presents, but also to look in detail at their beautiful work.

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog and reading about my page. Don't forget to leave a comment for a chance to win a birthday present!