Summer Games - Jul 1: Scrabble *WINNERS ANNOUNCED*

[Robin Carlton]

Hey, hey Sweet Shoppers! It's July 1st and I am so excited to be here to kick off the first day of our annual Summer Scrap-a-Thon! Over the next two months, our amazing team is going to take you through 32 challenges inspired by some of our favorite games as part of the Sweet Shoppe Summer Games. A brand new challenge will be posted every other day starting NOW, and we hope the fun & games will inspire you to get a ton of pages scrapped during this special event!

As you can see from the header, today's challenge is inspired by the classic game, Scrabble! Scrabble has always been one of my favorite games and when my husband and I were long distance, we often played Words with Friends or would take a small scrabble board on vacay with us. I can count on one hand the number of times he's beaten me... I love the game that much!

I knew I wanted to do something special and over the top to kick off this summer's event, so I hope you're sitting down and ready to put some brain power into your layout for today's game of...

SCRABBLE

Step One: Download my web sized Scrabble board and tiles so you can play along with today's game!

Step Two: Create words on your scrabble board by adding elements to your layout which begin with the first letter of the letters in your word, like so...

In this example, I've scored 22 points for CANDLES (including the double word and double letter spots), plus an additional 9 points for the word DONUT!

Hypothetically, my 31 point layout might include...

C - a Coffee Stain
A - An Alphabet
N - Newspaper
D - Doodle
L - A List
E - An Emoji
S - Stitches

D - A Doily
O - Ombre Background
N - A Number
U - Underlined words
T - Tabs

I think you get the idea!

Before you get overwhelmed, you can make this as easy or as hard on yourself as you want! You can scrap a single word and you'll get credit for participating in today's challenge, buuuut if you want to challenge yourself, you can go all out by piling as many "words" on your game board and "elements" on your page as you want! More on that later.

Our amazing SugarBabes will be sharing some of their game boards and pages in the next few replies, so look to those for a little inspiration on how simple (or complex) this challenge can be!

Some Basic Rules

Our Babes have come up with an awesome list of scrapbook-y words that start with various letters that you can use to build the words on your board and your layout.

This list is a starting point. You MAY use words of your own (there's no way for us to have covered all of the possibilities), but please stay genuine to the challenge and don't make your letters / words too much of a reach!

As you can see in my example list, "A _____" counts as the first letter of the second word, not as the letter "A". A Doily counts for the letter D, not A. An Apple or an "Angled" composition counts as the letter A.

You MAY pile as many words onto your board in an effort to create the highest scoring layout, but you MAY NOT exceed the standard distribution of letter tiles in the original game of Scrabble...



This means that while you could create a "zoo" themed page which includes a "zipper" and a "zebra print paper", you would only get credit for using the 10 point Z in two of those words because there is only one Z tile. Here's a handy graphic you can use to check off the letters as you add them to your page...

Like Scrabble, the special spaces on the board only count toward doubling a letter or a word, etc. the first time a word or letter is played on the space.

Your first word MUST be played on the star in the center of the board, either horizontally or vertically. The star counts as a double word score space.

The blank tile may be used twice to help you create a word, but it has no score value.

Finally, if something is on your page, it must be in your list of words and letters.

The Stakes

Now, you might be asking yourself... WHY would I bother trying to go all out for a high score in scrapbook scrabble? Well... of course I'm upping the stakes and sweetening the deal by giving away a couple of bonus prizes to some lucky scrappers who go all out in today's challenge...

NOTE: If playing for the highest scoring single word prize, you get only 7 letters to work with, just like the start of a game of Scrabble.

How to Enter to Win!

If you aren't interested in playing for one of today's bonus prizes, please post your board with a single word (7 letters or less) and your completed layout as images in this thread for credit in today's challenge.

If you're playing to win, reply to this thread with the words "email sent" and your LAYOUT ONLY, and then send an email with the subject "Summer Games - Scrabble" to challenges@sweetshoppedesigns.com with the following info...

A .jpg of your completed Scrabble game board
A .jpg of your final layout
Your word list & the corresponding elements used on your page
Your final point tally

Because we want this to be fair, you must keep your final game board and word list secret so that no one can build upon anything you've done.

We'll review the final boards for point accuracy, included elements and the highest score will win! In the event of a tie in point score, the most creative layout will be chosen by our team as the winner.

All submissions must be received no later than 11:59pm Saturday, August 31st to be eligible to win!

I know this may seem like a challenging "challenge" but I hope you'll take a deep breath and think outside the box on what you can include to make your page and your Scrabble game board work. You have the entire summer to create your page, so take your time and have fun with it!

__________

Remember, there are NO SET DEADLINES for our daily challenges. YOU decide what you want to scrap, WHEN you want to scrap, and have the freedom to decide what prizes you want to earn or try to win. As long as you've met those requirements and updated our master tracker by September 2nd in the case of our grand prizes, or have this month's tracker updated by the end of July if you're trying to earn this month's 40% discount, you're golden!

Most of our prizes will be awarded in early September, so YOU have the freedom to participate when you can without missing out on any of the fun this summer!

We're so happy to be back for this year's Summer Scrap-A-Thon and hope you're ready to jump into the fun!

<3

R