New Month, New CSI

It's August!!!

And, if it's August that means that the first of 2 new challenges from CSI : Color, Stories, Inspiration is ready to go!! I hope you'll come and play along with us this month - we have lots of great sponsors and some great prizes to be won!!

Here's the casefile for this challenge :

And, here's what I made with it!

So, if you've followed me at all, you know that I rate purple right up there with pink. They are my favorites. No, no they are not. But since this is supposed to challenge us, I took purple on!!


Here's how I solved this case:

COLOURS AND SKETCH

All the colours are there. I liked the sketch and tried to follow it as much as possible. An extra challenge for me was making the colours go with my pictures - my dojos colours are red, yellow and green. Changing the photos to black and white solved this problem quite well. I also had the challenge with the number of photos I wanted to use - too many for a 12x12 page, but too few for a 12x24. You'll see my solution in a minute if you keep reading!

EVIDENCE

Solid white cardstock background
Polka dots - hard to see but I used a polka dot vellum over the white background
People icons - chipboard karate figure
Something shaped like floaties - my eyelets at the bottom of the page

TESTIMONY

I chose the prompt clue, and then chose #3 on the list - "Your Most Prized Moments"

Journaling

In total I have been studying Okinawan (Goju Ryu) Karate for about a year and a half. I started training as a way of being able to connect more with my husband and kids as well as for the physical benefits of working out. The program offered at my dojo includes body conditioning. I also am challenged mentally - thinking differently about how my body moves and remembering the series of movements in a kata (both open hand and in weapons) is something that is really hard for me.

About 8 weeks before the date of this tournament, I started learning how to use the Sai. I didn’t learn them specifically for the tournament, I learned how to use them just for the fun of learning something new.

Admittedly, I didn’t really feel nervous about the tournament until the day. And even then, I didn’t feel very nervous until our class was called. I’ve never competed in a formal setting for anything before. My friend Janna who studies karate with me was beside me competing as well. I was so happy to have her there because without her I would have been lost & EVEN MORE nervous than I already was. Of course, it didn’t help that we had to wait literally all day long for our class to be called. And then, everyone that was still there from our dojo and all of our Senseis were watching while we performed our katas. AND we had to perform in front of 3 other Senseis that we did not know as well as all the other participants in our class. So, with all that against me, it seemed inevitable that I would make a mistake at some point. And I did, both within the kata and afterwards as well. Thankfully, they were all overlooked by the Senseis to some degree, although I did not place for my open hand kata.

When it came time to for kobuto, it turned out that I was the only student in my class to present a kata. I thought that getting a first place for it at the end didn’t seem like much of an accomplishment since there wasn’t anyone to compete against, but Sensei John explained that the judges could have awarded a second or third, depending on my performance. I felt better about it after that.

It seems that this old dog CAN learn new tricks!!!



And, now for some closeups and the solution to my size problem!!

I opted to go for the middle of the road and make my page flip out to be 12x18!! Here you see how it opens up and where I journaled.

To keep the design cohesive, I kept the papers & ribbon on the top six-inch flap the same as the ones on the bottom 12x12 piece lining them up before attaching the flap to the layout. That way when the flap is closed, the patterned papers & ribbon looks the same all the way across.

To do this I attached a 4x12 piece of white cardstock which I scored down the middle to the BACK of the white cardstock, and the attached a 6x12 piece of cardstock to the BACK of that, lining it up with the 12x12 piece. Then I took another piece of 6x12 cardstock and attached it to the TOP of the 4x12 flap after I printed my journaling on it to complete the foldout. It sounds a little confusing, but it works!!

Adding the extra piece allowed me to expand the design of the page and store some more memories in the little pocket which you can see here.

Here you can see my little "karate girl", which is just a chipboard man shape that I chose to leave raw. There is no yellow in the combo, but that was the colour of my belt at the time of the competition, so I got sneaky and slipped it in.

This photo shows the photo of all the students and Senseis from my dojo who came to the competition. It's one of the extra pieces I have tucked in the pocket. I wouldn't be able to do this without all the support that my dojo family gives me, and I'm so proud to be a part of this great organization. Also in there I have one of the scorecards with my name and age on it. It was for part of the competition that I did not participate in, so I kept it for this layout.

Here's some closeups of my title work. In our dojo, we have the tradition of each student being given a nickname. My Sensei chose to give me the nickname Kamikaze which I gave the definition of, placing it on the pocket. The definition of Kamikaze is : Kamikaze (神風, [kamikaꜜ͜dze]; "divine wind" or "spirit wind"). It's really a beautiful definition, and the complete opposite of what the word is known for.

And finally, here's a few closeups showing photos that a friend took during my weapons kata and a photo from the plaque ceremony after. In the second photo you can see the seam of the 6x12 addition.

Thanks for popping by to check out my page today! I hope you'll come and join us over at CSI!!