July Case Files | Mid-Month Reveal - Deadline: August 4, 2020

Happy July! How is it that 2020 is already half over?

We're excited to bring you some fantastic new challenges, new sponsors, and new guest designers to inspire you!

We hope you've been enjoying the June challenges, and don't forget that if you haven't yet had a chance to play, we've added a few extra days to the deadline--submissions will be accepted by the 4th of the next month.

For this first reveal, we'll be sharing inspiration from the design team and guest designers for our first Case File. On the 15th, we'll be sharing inspiration from the design team and guest designers for our second Case File as well as our Cold Case File, our special stash-busting challenge.


ANNOUNCEMENTS 

We're excited to announce that Melissa Vining has joined our ranks as a CSI Detective. She makes her debut with this reveal. Here's a little about Melissa:

Hello!! My name is Melissa and I'm so excited to be designing for CSI. I live in Queenstown, New Zealand with my husband and our 4 children. I'm a Town Planning Consultant and have been self employed for over 13 years. I first started scrapbooking when I saw a beautiful brag book that my sister in law made of her new baby. When my firstborn was 18 months I decided that I wanted to make him a baby book, but I couldn't find any pre-made ones that I liked, so I made my own and I've never looked back. I love creating traditional 12 x 12 layouts to record our everyday life, and I love playing with cut files, mixed media and stitching (machine and hand). I also love to make mini albums and travellers notebooks.

As well as scrapbooking I cross stitch, read, bake, mountain bike, snowboard and train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The international scrapbooking community is wonderful, and I've made so many friends from around the world all from this awesome hobby! I love the challenges at CSI, and am so honoured to be designing here. I'm looking forward to solving the cases each month, and I'm hoping to use up some of my stash!

SPONSORS 

This month, we have seven generous sponsors donating prizes! Click here to read more about our sponsors and the prizes they are donating. Winners will be selected randomly from all of our players, with a few exceptions where sponsors have asked us to choose from certain geographic regions.

CASE FILES 

Since July is National Ice Cream Month, we're celebrating summer delights and Independence Day with our Case Files this month. Draw your own inspiration from The Scene on the Case File, or you can use the traditional clues, which can be found at the bottom of this blog post.

Image Credit: The Lovely Drawer

Image Credit: Junk Garden Girl

Image Credit: Style Me Pretty

The traditional CSI clues can be found on our Facebook page in the first entry under the album. Just click on the Case File images above. They are also posted at the bottom of this reveal.

To submit your layouts, click on the Case Files in our sidebar, which will bring you to the individual albums in our Facebook group.

GUEST DESIGNERS

We're honored to have some members of the CUT to YOU and 2Crafty design teams joining us as Guest Detectives this month! You are sure to be inspired by their beautiful work!

Also, we've got a team of Special Investigators joining us as guest designers. We've invited our players whose work caught our eye and were placed Under Surveillance to join us this month.

INSPIRATION 

And now, are you ready for some serious inspiration? Here's what our design team and guest designers created with Case File No. 325.

Here's how the talented team members of the 2Crafty Design Team solved the Case:

We're excited to bring you a team of Special Investigators, chosen from our CSI players. Some of our Special Investigators will be revealed at our mid-month reveal.

Amy Churchward

How Amy solved the Case: I solved the case by 

Using stars,
Painted stripes
Wrote a journal on star
Distressed around the photo
I used
Moodboard Colours
Metal and vintage brad
Vintage/retro style goodies from stash

Jessica Navarro

Hi, my name is Jessica Navarro and I’m super excited to be a Special Investigator for CSI this month! I’m an SVP/Electrical Engineer at an amazing firm designing hospitals by day and a wife/mother by night. I’ve been married to a wonderful man for over 11 years that completely supports my craft obsession. He even encourages me to purchase crafty supplies – stay back, he’s mine! I’m a mommy to a super intelligent and spunky 8 year old, who is officially the most photographed child in the world; seriously, it’s a documented fact. I’ve been scrapbooking for over 25 years and I love using challenges, like CSI, to push my creative limits and to use more of my overflowing stash. Come check out more of my crafty layouts on my blog at: scraplifterdesigns.blogspot.com.

How Jessica solved the Case: I used the scene and the scheme to solve the case. I used all the colors (rusty red, pale gray, muted navy, cream, and black throughout my layout. My evidence included: stripes (the banner, the ribbon and the flag), stars (everywhere), wood grain pattern background paper, 4th of July themed elements, a jar (sticker with flowers), flowers (on the banner and sticker layers, flags/banners, ribbon (white and blue striped), distressing (ink on the cardstock), circular elements (little star circles and celebrate sticker), and transparent element (journaling block). For my testimony I documented the 4th of July and added stars to my journaling block. Such a fun case to solve!

Wendy Crowe

Wendy's bio can be found on our first July reveal.

How Wendy solved the Case: This scene ( the color scheme) was my main focus for solving this case. I used lots of bits and pieces for evidence: stripes, stars, wood grain patterned paper, 4th of July themed elements, flowers (I made rosettes), flags, circular elements (I punched out some circles) and fabric (USA are all fabric stickers).

The CSI design team masterfully cracked the Case. We'll share how they solved the Case on Facebook.

And here's how everyone solved the stash-busting Cold Case:

From our Special Investigators:

Amy Churchward

Here's how Amy solved the Case:

Jessica Navarro

Here's how Jessica solved the Case: I used the scene and scheme to solve the case. I started with older K&Company and Creative Memories papers that match the colors in the scene, yellow, green, and gold throughout my layout. My product cluese included: older papers, textured/embossed papers (the word paper has embossed gold text), I used metal accents (the metal quote and the metal rims that resemble railroad crossing signs), I used ribbon along the bottom of the textured word paper, I used stick-pins for the poles of my signs, I used very old Reminisce rub-ons that I was surprised still worked so well (the signs, the title, the "on track", and the all aboard), I used never used stamps for the arrow banner/tag at the top on either side of my "all aboard" rub-on, and I used the magic number 4 (4 photos). For my Design Clues I used a stamped banner for my little "all aboard" title at the top. I also used the Scene as inspiration to compose my layout. I created layering of photos, paper, ribbon and other elements set on top other elements to mimic the stacking of the candy jars and books. I hope you'll join us this month for any of the 3 cases!

Wendy Crowe

How Wendy solved the Case: This case was my favorite to solve! I LOVE the colors from the scene! I found some old evidence to put together my case file: A few bits from Imaginisce (smiling lemons), a paper piecing (lemonade glass and lemon), corrugated strips, green ribbon, I made my own straws for the drink, vellum for the transparent drink, and dimensional stickers - more lemons! For more dimension, I put the title and smiling lemon on pop dots.

From the CSI Design Team:

CASE FILE CLUES 

Choose as many or as few as you are inspired to use! 

Testimony Link - July Prompts

Testimony Link - 100 Ideas

Rosette tutorial

We trust we've provided enough clues for you to solve the Cases! You have until Tuesday, August 4, 2020, to solve this case. We can't wait to see what you'll create! Upload your creations in our Facebook Group (album links in sidebar).