I was saddened to hear about the passing of Leonard Nimoy the other day.

Then I was angry to see his death overshadowed on social media by the dumb white and gold dress. (It’s white and gold… get over it!) – Not sure what I’m talking about… you’re lucky, but here’s a LINK.

Why am I so sad about Leonard Nimoy’s passing? Am I a Trekkie?

I think that no matter whether you are a Trekkie or not (I’m not obsessed, so I guess I’m not.) you have to appreciate the effect the character of Mr. Spock has had on our culture.

People often quote him… or at least his character.

“Fascinating is a word I use for the unexpected. In this case, I should think “interesting” would suffice.”
-Spock in ‘The Squire of Gothos’

“There is no reason that function should not be beautiful – in fact beauty usually makes it more effective.”  -Spock

“Creativity is necessary for the health of the body.” -Spock

“That is highly illogical.” -Spock

I love how Mr. Spock approached everything with logic and practicality. His austere manner and quirky characteristics showed audiences that everyone (human or not) has a place. I loved seeing a character that used his brains to solve any problem. (If you don’t know I’m a big fan of clever people… here’a link to the page I made inspired by Nancy Drew.)

Several years ago my family was traveling through southern Alberta. I had heard of a small town named Vulcan, and how, in the goal of attracting tourists, they had embraced their name and made their visitor centre a Star Trek themed attraction.

If you don’t know, Vulcan is the home planet of Mr. Spock.

I HAD to go!

It was awesome!

The centre is shaped like a space ship. They have a replica of the Starship Enterprise outside with signs in multiple languages that say, “Welcome to Vulcan”, English, Vulcan, and Klingon.
There’s a large display of Star Trek artifacts and memorabilia, they have a simulator room/virtual reality room (that unfortunately wasn’t working while we were there, although the staff was happy to allow me to take photos) and of course you can purchase Star Trek merchandise.

They had ‘crew’ shirts that you could put on for photo ops with a multitude of character cut-outs.

I found a Star Trek pin that I thought was cool… okay, maybe I am a bit of a Trekkie, and when I came home I wanted to add it to my scrapbook layout.

I cut off/broke off the back of the pin as much as possible then I mounted it with foam tape to my layout to help cushion any sharp parts left over.

I have to give props to Vulcan, Alberta, Canada for embracing the Star Trek culture and creating such a fun place to visit!

Design Tips:

Other than the pin, which I explained above I did a couple of other cool things on this layout.

• I downloaded a Star Trek font online to use for my journaling and title. There’s a ton of them, so if you’d like one just Google it.
• I embossed the gold braid. The only ric rac I had was white, but I really wanted to create a gold braid effect like the sleeves of the crew uniforms. I applied Versamark ink to the ric rac, then added the gold embossing powder and embossed it! It worked great… so be creative!

Want to read a touching interview from George Takei about working closely with Leonard Nimoy for so many years… it’s HERE.

Thank you Leonard Nimoy for bringing such a captivating and unconventional character to life. You have captured a piece of my heart along with countless others.

If you have any Star Trek/Mr. Spock stories you’d like to share PLEASE share them in the comments!

Now, I’m going to sign off with a massive cliche, and I’m not embarrassed about it at all.

Live long and prosper.

Alice.

St. Patrick’s Day will soon be upon us. We will see shamrocks everywhere and people will drink green beer and talk about getting I mean being lucky. 😉

What about scrapbooking? How can St. Patrick’s Day inspire our layouts?

First let’s interrupt for a second…

Make it Monday:

If you’ve joined me from Clicky Chick Creates you’ll see that Connie was getting artsy with an easy watercolor card. Did someone say distressing?

I’ll share your next stop on the Make it Monday blog circle at the end of this post.

Back to the ‘Luck of the Irish’…

Here’s a quick page prompt that will get your journaling flowing like Guinness in an Irish pub.

Prompt:

Everything has a story. Tell the story of an object or item in your life.

This is the story of my lucky shoes.

Journaling reads: Celeste and I went shopping the day after US Thanksgiving, without kids! There were big sales on in every store. It was so exciting! We went into a shoe store and a lady approached us and told us that in three minutes there would be a draw for a free pair of shoes. We went and put our names into the draw, of course, and I turned to Celeste and said, “We better go pick out our new shoes because one of us is going to win.” Three minutes later a salesclerk asked, “Is Alice Boll in the store?” I WON!!! I go to pick any shoes in the store. The shoes I picked are Skechers, and they are sparkly and fun and extremely comfortable. They are my LUCKY SHOES!!!

Bonus Prompts:

• Scrapbook using the colour green
• Create a monochromatic green page.
• Scrapbook something lucky.
• Tell a story about winning something.
• Share a story of celebration.

Design:

I was scrapbooking shoes so to be creative I used a shoelace design on the page!

The background on the green paper is embossed with silver embossing powder. I pressed an ink pad directly to the surface of the paper in random blotches, poured on the embossing powder and melted it.

The little shamrock and four-leaf clover stickers were way too bright and shiny, so I sanded them to dull them down a bit.

Don’t be afraid to write the story first, then design your page with that in mind. If you already know how much you have to say you’ll know how much room you need to tell your story. If you try to fit it in at the end you’ll compromise how you tell your story.

Make it Monday:

Your next stop on the Make it Monday hop is to Digital Scrapbooking HQ where Melissa is sharing touch of green in her layout in her baby boy’s album.

Geeky fact:

Did you know that a four-leaf clover and a shamrock are NOT the same thing?

The shamrock plant is a symbol of Ireland. It is a young clover and has three leaves. It is still custom to see people wear a shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day.

A four-leaf clover is an uncommon variety of a three-leaved clover. As they are uncommon, finding one accidentally was thought to bring good luck to the finder.

St. Patrick’s Day is a day of celebration, be sure to celebrate in your scrapbooks too! If these ideas are inspiring to you don’t forget to sign up for the Scrapbook Wonderland email list!

Alice.

I just heard about this crazy online event for scrapbookers. And I’m in!!!

Calvinball.

If you are a fan of the Calvin and Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson you may be familiar with Calvin’s competitive game of Calvinball. It’s a random sport-type game with no rules, points for self-designated goals and the flexibility to change the game as you play.

A couple of creative gals over at Get it Scrapped brought the chaos and excitement of Calvinball to scrapbooking!

Yay!

Click HERE to go to the Calvinball board on the Get it Scrapped forum. You’ll find links to the rules and much, much more. (Plus if you are not already a member you can sign up… it’s free.)

Check out the Calvinball rules.

Here’s some of the rules I saw at the time of this writing, but these may or may not still be there now, and I can pretty much guarantee there’s MANY more.

1. game runs from March 1st till midnight on March 31st.

2. one layout (or half of a 2 page spread), one project life page = one point

3. one mini-album page (covers count as pages), one card, one tag = 1/2 point each

4. projects = 1/2 – 2 points, depending on size/difficulty

5. art journal pages = 1/2 – 1 point depending on size/difficulty

6. decorated daily planner pages = 1/2 point

7. photobook pages = 1/2 – 1 point

8. non-paper craft projects = 1 point (project must take an hour or longer to create)

There’s also points for publicity, team building and then there’s bonus points too. You can earn bonus points for fun things like:

Using 3+ photos on a page

Using Christmas product on a non-Christmas page

Using old unopened product (bought prior to 2015)

Scrapping a photo the same day you take it

Scrapping with product the same day you buy it (I’m pretty sure this is a licence to shop!!)

There’s also points for getting those tasks done that you just don’t want to do like:

Scanning old photos = 1 point (awarded weekly)

Purging supplies = 1 point (awarded weekly)

Printing photos or digital pages = 1 point (awarded weekly)

And then there’s some one time only points:

Newbie get 2 points, Returning players get 1

Listening to the Digital HQ Calvinball Podcast gets you a point

Binge watching an entire TV series during the month of March gets you a point

Wondering about all of the points? What do you win?

You award your own points based on the rules and there’s NO prizes, other than the prize of having fun and getting scrapbook pages done! (It’s a free game, what do you expect?) Lol! 😉

So…

Are you still not sure if this is the fun event for you? Listen to the Scrapbooking Inspiration podcast on Digital Scrapbooking HQ about the origin of Calvinball. (P.S. if you do decide to play… this will give you 1 point!)

Okay, I’m going to get a bit geeky on you…

Want to read some interesting facts about Calvin and Hobbes? Click this link to go to a Wikipedia page about the cartoon. Don’t miss the sections about Merchandising and Calvinball of course! But to really get into the geekiness of it all read the section about Syndication and Formatting… sounds like Bill Watterson was a true rebel… much like Calvin. 🙂  LINK HERE.

Games are always more fun when you get more people involved so this is my official invitation for you to come play and bring a friend! If you you’re looking for me on the message boards, (I just signed up today) my name is Alice. (Yes, I was super excited that I could be Alice… not Alice1 or Alice7 or something else that wasn’t as awesome as just getting to be Alice.)

Let’s play ball… Calvinball.

Alice.

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