All About Gavin

 

Challenge #263 has just gone live at Time Out Challenges and this fortnight it's a theme challenge because we're celebrating 

ALPHABET MAGNET DAY

This challenge is generously being sponsored by Altenew and they are offering our Top Pick as chosen by the design teams a $15 credit to their store!  

The Top Pick will also be invited to join Time Out as a guest designer in a future challenge!  Speaking of guest designers, we are joined this challenge by Carol McFarland our winner from Challenge 259!  If you're still stuck for ideas, Carol and the rest of the team have plenty of inspiration for you over on the Challenge Blog!

Alphabet magnets are such a lot of fun!  I love the bright vivid colours and they are such a great educational aid as well!  When my husband and I arrived here 26 years ago with a 2 year and a 5 year old in tow, we knew we wanted to give them the opportunity to fully experience a foreign culture and learn new languages but we also realised that that meant they wouldn't be learning any English at school, so we would have to be their English teachers!   Making words across and down with the magnetic letters on the fridge door was just one of the things we would to do to make sure they had a good grasp of English vocabulary and spelling!    

My eldest son still has a thing for magnets and so I thought I'd make up an "alphabet magnet card" to celebrate his birthday!  It took days (and nights) to plan it as I sought out words that describe him while trying to fit those words around the letters from his name - and then there were the colours to consider!  My original design was a lot more complicated, with over 60 characters but I realised (fortunately before I got to the die cutting stage) that I needed a simpler design and ended up with just his name spelt vertically in red and adjectives using those letters spelt horizontally.   Still, with 43 characters cut twice and stacked it was a lot of die cutting and required an A5 panel to accommodate it - can't tell you how many times I wished I'd chosen shorter adjectives - definitely a labour of love!

Of course I couldn't resist getting the Glossy Accents out so the letters resembled plastic! 

Then I created a frame using strips of red and mitring the corners so it resembled a school blackboard.  I also wanted to draw the eye to the letters in red which actually spell out his name.

I'd like to enter these fab challenges

Word Power Challenge #5 - Make the sentiment the focus of your card;

Simon Says Stamps Wednesday Challenge - Use Die Cuts;

Colorful Options May Challenge - Rainbow option!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you go away a little inspired!  Your visits and comments are always a joy and always appreciated!  And if you leave a comment, I’ll know you were here and how to find you!

Kate