Inspiration Elevator~Guest Designer!

 May is here! Hopefully it means more sunshine and warmer weather.  More daylight hours means more time for me to be creative too! And at Inspiration Elevator, it means the start of our 3rd year as a challenge group - how exciting is that!!

We are beginning a new season of Inspiration Elevator, with some new designers, familiar faces and amazing challenges. Our main purpose here at IE is to challenge ourselves, each other and YOU to take the creative process to the next level;  to inspire growth and change in our scrapbooking beyond the mundane.
You can see all of Inspiration Elevator's previous challenges at our blog and catch us on Facebook and Instagram (soon!) too.

This month we welcome Shelby Dwyer (that's me!) to join us as a Guest Designer. Shelby is a very talented scrapbooker who is famous for her creations at Two Scrapbook Friends where she creates kits and other inspiration for the very busy store. We are so thrilled to have her joining us! ( I am thrilled to be here!)
This month's challenge is issued by the innovative Joanne Burton. Joanne's style is classically elegant blended with a touch of current trends, and garnished with her signature love for buttons. Here is her challenge for us, in her own words:

"Currently. That is the topic for our next challenge!
Social media and digital cameras inspire us and make it easy to capture the everyday and that is the reason for my challenge. It used to be that pictures were only taken of special events or during vacations. Now, photos are taken all the time. Whether or not we agree with the number of photos that people take now, it is fun to document an ordinary day. It is interesting to capture a moment in time and I am sure we will enjoy looking back on it someday.
So, I want you to pick a day, grab your camera and take a few pictures of your surroundings. I want you to document what you are currently: Eating, Reading, Loving, Wearing, Listening, and Hoping. I would like you to include the date on your design, the complete list and at least one photo. Otherwise, make it your own and have fun!"

As a guest of IE I really wanted to embrace their philosophy of stepping outside my comfort zone. I wanted to create something completely different than anything I had done before. I loved the challenge Joanne gave us as I am a big fan of chronicalling the every day. I chose my day, May the fourth, mainly because I was taken with the thought of including my son's Star Wars pyjamas on my layout!

   I approached my day by snapping everything in sight (pretty much what I do every day!) so I would have lots to choose from. In the end that made it super difficult to narrow them down and I used 8 photos on the finished product.

There are many reasons this layout is different than my 'norm' one of which is the serious lack of pattern paper. I used a sheet for my background and a card for my 'title' but other than that it's mainly cardstock and embellishments. Oh and LOTS AND LOTS of Silhouette sketch pens!

I used the 'Plus One' collection from Amy Tangerine, again not something I would traditionally go for but the fun and bright colours grabbed me.

I do love pink however, in a house full of boys, I rarely use it so I decided to use my new running shoes as inspiration for the colour scheme and matted all my pics in bright pink! 

I ended up including so many pics that there wasn't much room left for the complete list so I decided to underline each word in my journaling to honour that part of the challenge. I am LOVING flair buttons and the fact that so many companies are carrying them makes me happy :) 

 In case you were wondering I DID put the pyjamas and the date on there too..

 

I added some washi from my ever-growing stash, a few sequins and a sticker from Simple Stories that pretty much summed up my whole day.

 

 Thanks so much for the invite ladies and allowing me to delight in the everyday!

Here's a complete list of this month's participating designers, including some new faces! Please welcome Jayne Morgan, Katherine Sutton and Wendi Robinson as regular creators.  We sure are lucky to have them creating and challenging us this year! We encourage you to check out each designer's creation this month, then come on back and give the challenge a try yourself!

Joanne Burton
Jayne Morgan
Wendi Robinson

Katherine Sutton
Lisa Spiegel
Ann Jobes 

Shelby Dwyer - Guest Designer (you are here!)

I hope you feel inspired to play along with our challenge this month.  When you do, please share it using the linky tool on our Inspiration Elevator Blog and/or our Inspiration Elevator Facebook page.

We would LOVE to see what you made!

We would also like to say goodbye and a heartfelt thanks to those leaving us this month: Laurel Seabrook, Cathy Harper and Laura Whitaker. We have been inspired by your challenges and your designs.