Christmas at CSI...

My last challenge at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration is also the last case file for the year as everyone is busy preparing for their own Christmas and precious time with family.

I have loved playing along as Special Deputy for this month and hope you have also enjoyed the challenges. The overall inspiration from the combined colour scheme and associated visual stimulus, the evidence and testimony at CSI is just amazing!  I find journaling quite difficult on my layouts, generally because I struggle to find a suitable place for it, so being required to do so is quite a challenge for me.  My favourite element though would have to be the colour inspiration.  I just LOVE colour and enjoy experimenting with different combinations that I would not attempt otherwise.

Debbi does an amazing job putting these challenges together and I found the visual stimulus and testimonial prompts to be profoundly inspiring.  Thanks Debbi.

So, onto my take on the final Case File for 2013, #103...

|snuggle|

And here are the case file details:

And some close-ups:

Solving the case went something like this:

Colours:  
As required.  I'm not really a fan of what I consider to be 'Christmas green', so kept this touch to a minimum. I quite liked the green and red surrounded by lots of crisp white though... and I think the 'chestnuts roasting' colour really offset the Christmas colours enough to make it not so cliched.  I also really loved the distressed red shutters, so tried to emulate that effect by touching up the red with some gesso when it dried.

Evidence:  
Circles and stars!  Love combinations of these shapes, so sort of made them the 'star of the show' if you like. Circle chipboard rings, punched paper circles, gears, epoxy Prima 'sugardots', buttons, doily, letter 'L' and flowers... accompanied by several Studio Calico fabric star stickers.
Distressing - all of my circles, including the photo have been sanded around the edges.  
Paint - not one mm of this page escaped the ordeal without some type of paint smothering!  lol  
Something Transparent - I printed my journaling on to transparency.
Metal Accent - Prima 'precious' zipper, 'L' letter and gears.
Twiggy Accent - Tiny snippet from a Prima vine, including 2 leaves and a little twiggy swirly bit.  :)
Brackets - Around my journaling.
Rub-Ons - Rub-on butterflies at the top of my photo cluster.

Testimony:
I was really inspired by the { hue.ol.ogy } tag at the top of the inspo pic for my testimony, so decided to put it in similar brackets.  I drew inspo for the content from the prompt link and decided to make it about a favourite Christmas carol, or words from it.  I had this really special photo of my youngest little guy all snuggled up in bed, so thought it just went together perfectly.

Thanks for popping in for a visit.  I'll have to take a break from challenges for a little bit I think, to concentrate on getting a couple of Christmas crafting projects (aka presents) finished!  lol

All the very best for a fantastic Christmas to all my scrapping friends... and anyone else who pops in to say 'hi' from time to time!   I hope you all have a fabulous break with your special people and stay safe and happy.

Oh, I might be back before Christmas to share some tags and cards... will see how I go! :)

Cheers for now,

Jules
x