sweet!

I was lucky enough to win the last prize giveaway at Scrapbook Steals, making all of my weekly challenges pay off!  This week, I modified the original sketch and made things a bit more linear to work with my photos and came up with this layout:

 

Since I spent the last week baking and packaging sweet Christmas goodies, I decided to stick with the Christmas theme and featured some photos from last year.  Instead of our normal gingerbread house, we went with a gingerbread train and had lots of fun piling on the candy.  The papers I used are mostly from My Mind's Eye, with a few embellishments from Crate Paper and Simple Stories.  Thanks for stopping by!  

Happy day

In the midst of holiday shopping, wrapping presents, addressing Christmas cards, etc. I almost ran out of time to complete this week's mid week mojo challenge at Scrapbook Steals.   After a busy weekend, I finally managed to sneak in some time in my crafty space on Sunday evening.  I finished right before bed and long after the sun went down, so I couldn't get a good picture of my layout using the natural light I always use to take photos.  So, this week you get a wonky colored, not quite squared, impossible to crop photo of my challenge.  Despite poor photography, I managed to enter the weekly challenge just in the nick of time!

In the midst of cold and snowy weather, I once again turned to some of my favorite shots from a warm sunny day in August on my grandparents' farm.  The papers are all from Simple Stories, using an old Summer Fresh collection that I simply adore!  I love the primary colors, burlap and denim papers, and all of the rustic beauty of this simple collection.  I am down to just a few scraps, but I'm determined to make them last for a few more layouts!  Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Lovin'

This week is the start of a new 10 week series of sketch challenges at Scrapbook Steals.  Having this weekly inspiration really does push me to create and means I will complete at least 1 layout a week.  After over 160 weeks of this, that adds up to a lot of completed pages.  Would you believe I'm still not caught up?  Maybe because I take more photos now than ever, or because I scrap more "everyday"  moments than just major events (birthdays, holidays, etc.) but I love that I have found such inspiration and have a chance to win cool prizes too! Here's the layout I completed this week:

 

I combined a bunch of tags and journaling cards along with a few pieces of patterned paper, all from Elle's Studio.  I love the "boyness" of this layout featuring my little man.  It was fun to "interview" him to fill out the journaling card.  And I asked him to write his own name and age at the bottom of the card, just to capture what his handwriting looks like at this stage in his life.  It's little details like this that will be fun to look back on 20 years from now.  

Completely Citrine

I've come to the end of another 10 week sketch series at Scrapbook Steals.  I love playing along with their mid-week mojo challenges and have been doing this for over 160 weeks in a row!  They are giving away a gift card to Scrapbook Steals, which I could definitely put to good use!  Here are my 10 layouts from the "citrine" series:

 

 

 

 

Ouabache

I turned this week's Scrapbook Steals sketch into a two page layout so I could include more photos.  These papers and stickers are from the Take a Hike collection by Simple Stories.

I can't believe this trip was almost 3 years ago already!  We tried out a new state park and were "blessed" with storms and rain throughout our trip.  I hate storms as it is, so riding out a storm in our RV made me a wee bit anxious.  Luckily, we had friends nearby who we were able to visit.  Despite ruining some of our gear and being covered in mud most of the weekend, we still managed to have fun.  That's what I love the most about camping.  Even if we have adverse conditions, we still make memories and have fun stories to tell afterwards.

This Family Rocks

This week, Melodee at Scrapbook Steals gave us a fun grid pattern to inspire the weekly sketch challenge.  I picked a photo of my boys and got busy cutting my grid.

I used some of my favorite papers from the Pebbles Seen & Noted collection.  I love the coordinating colors and patterns and especially love that I snuck a few floral prints onto a boy layout (something I don't often do).  I used part of a journaling card for my title and added some letters die cut from craft foam.  The same foam was used to die cut the hearts by my photo.  A fun and simple page with lots of patterns and colors!  Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Fun

Perhaps because I'm already longing for summer weather, or maybe because I'm missing my niece and nephew like crazy,  I decided to pull a few summer photos of these cuties for the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals. 

I had two pieces of paper in my stash from the I Heart Summer collection from Simple Stories and paired them with some washy tape to make my version of this week's sketch challenge.  I flipped the sketch  to better suit my photos and paper.  I added a hand drawn border using a ruler and my trusty red Sharpie!  Thanks for stopping by for another week! 

I'm a Guest Designer for WRMK!!!

I was lucky enough to be chosen as a Guest Designer at We R Memory Keepers!  They sent me some of their wonderful product and asked me to make "something awesome".   Here's a sneak peak of the awesome project I made using their Harvest collection.

You can see the whole project HERE on the WRMK blog.  I absolutely loved playing with the Harvest collection and couldn't resist making a fall layout to showcase some beautiful photos of my aunt's property.

I used the Sew Easy stitch piercing tool and hand stitched a zig zag pattern around my border.  I love the texture that stitching adds!  I decided to use the I {heart} Fall die cut as my title and made my own embellishments by die cutting leaf shapes with my Silhouette Cameo.  To add additional texture and volume, I ran each of my die cut leaves through a paper crimper before I adhered them to my layout.   

I used foam pop dots to give my leaves additional depth.  I love the corrugated look and need to remember to do this more often to add interest to my embellishments and titles.

 

Since this collection really put me in the "fall spirit" I decided to create a quick card using another of the die cut tags.  This simple card came together in less than 2 minutes!  I love the colors and patterns in this beautiful collection!

 

Thank you for stopping by and thanks to WRMK for giving me the opportunity to guest design!  If you're visiting my blog for the first time, I'd love for you to stick around, check out my work, leave a comment, or even become a follower!  I'm giving away this WRMK sew easy stitch piercer and piercing mat to one of my faithful followers at the end of the week! 

I bought the Sew Easy as soon as it came out and was lucky enough to win another tool and mat during an on-line crop/chat, so I thought I'd pass along the love :)  Stay tuned because I'll announce a winner on November 11th!

Life is Good

In honor of my son's birthday this week, I decided to use a photo of him for the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  This photo is one of my favorites from a spontaneous photo shoot at my grandparents' farm.  It was a beautiful summer day and the boys enjoyed climbing on the dock for some fun casual photos. 

I used the 24/seven collection from Simple Stories and just LOVE how this layout came together.  The colors in this collection are fun and gender neutral and complimented my photo perfectly!   I used several of the 3x4 journaling cards and lots of stickers to create loads of layers.  The cork title letters were die cut using Lawn Fawn alphabet dies and adhesive cork.  Thanks for stopping by! 

Halloween 2010

This week's sketch at Scrapbook Steals got me in the mood for Halloween.  I dug through my old photos and found this photo from three years ago, when my oldest son chose to be a caveman for Halloween.  Since my youngest son is recycling this same costume this year, I decided I should scrap these old photos.

I had a few Halloween papers from Heidi Swapp and made some fun embellishments with my Silhouette Cameo.  Thanks for stopping by!  Hopefully it won't take three years to get my 2013 Halloween layout completed.

My Duck Man

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals inspired this fun layout featuring my favorite duck man and some of his favorite quotes!

The speech bubbles were blank chipboard die cuts by Pebbles.  I made my own rub-on phrases by printing a mirror image of my words/designs on a transparency. I placed the transparency on the chipboard shape and rubbed over the image with a bone folder.  I had some difficulty holding the transparency still, so there were some smudges and some areas that didn't transfer so well.  It was nothing a quick go-over with a Sharpie couldn't fix!  This page was a bit simpler than I prefer and had a few too many mishaps, but we had a busy weekend and I was short on time, so I quickly deemed it "good enough".  My duck loving boy loved it, so that's a win in my book!

Wetlands Trail

This week's Scrapbook Steals sketch was another great source of inspiration!  I keep going back to my Simple Stories collections when I'm looking to quickly put together a great layout.

These papers are all from the Take A Hike collection.  I love the fun, bold colors and all of the campy themed elements. Perfect for some photos that I took on a summer hike at our nearby Potato Creek State Park. 

wonderful you.

I almost forgot to post my version of this week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals.   The original sketch was created by my scrappy friend Minousha Bari.   I actually created this layout last Thursday, but then got busy celebrating the 9th birthday of my youngest little dude.  Since it was his birthday weekend, I decided to do a page in his honor.  For this layout, I used pieces from Seen & Noted by Pebbles and a few elements from Simple Stories' 24/seven collection.  I love the finished product!

Outdoor Memories

With a crazy busy week, I just barely completed the weekly sketch challenge for Scrapbook Steals.  I seriously considered skipping a week, but then I started thinking about how many weeks in a row I've played along (over 150 straight weeks) and I just couldn't "not" do it this week.  I modified the original sketch to fit my papers and pictures and threw this together in about 30 minutes. 

 

I do not recall the manufacturer of the printed "hunting theme" background paper, but the rest of the patterned papers and embellishments are from the Take a Hike collection by Simple Stories.  I'm glad I made time to play along for yet another week!

I {heart} fall

I can't believe it's already the first day of fall.  I love the season, thanks to all of the smells, colors, and activities.  My youngest is already asking if he can carve a jack-o-lantern.  I told him it's too soon, but hopefully next weekend will find us picking apples at our local orchard.  I decided to make this week's Scrapbook Steals challenge layout with some of my favorite photos from last fall.

I love the multi photo sketch that Melodee gave us this week!  I decided to pair these fall photos with my favorite fall collection, Harvest Lane from Simple Stories.  The warm colors and patterns just make me happy! 

Astonishing Aquamarine

The majority of my blog posts are inspired by Scrapbook Steals and their weekly sketch challenge.  Not only do they bring us amazing daily deals on scrappy supplies and offer wonderful giveaways, Scrapbook Steals has been a place to connect with other scrappy friends from all over the US and Canada.  Every week they post a sketch, and I play along with whatever supplies I have on hand.  Each group of 10 sketches is named after a gemstone and this week I completed the Aquamarine series.  The generous folks at Scrapbook Steals are giving away a $50 gift certificate to someone who completed all 10 sketches in this series.  Here are all my layouts for this series:

 

Live Life

This is the 10th sketch from the Aquamarine challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  The original sketch called for two vertical photos, but I substituted a horizontal 5x7 instead.  This is what I came up with:

 

The papers I used are all from the 24/seven collection by Simple Stories.  I love the trendy patterns and bright colors, especially when I am creating masculine layouts.  The textures and patterns are so fun that I didn't even use any solid cardstock anywhere on this layout.  Thanks for stopping by!



Charming

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals inspired me to break out a photo of my youngest.  He loves climbing and playing and doesn't mind humoring mom while I snap pictures.  The papers I used were from the Collectable series by My Mind's Eye.  I love the bold primary colors and patterns that are perfect for my boy pages. 

I decided to use kraft paper for my background, but wanted the green polka dot paper to serve as a border.  Since I hate the thought of wasting paper, I couldn't bear the thought of covering up perfectly good paper by layering, so I created a frame from the green paper.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the center out of the green paper and I stored the center piece away for another project.  I took my green "frame" and layered it right on top of a piece of 12x12 kraft cardstock.  To add some stability and to anchor the frame to the background paper, I used my sewing machine to stitch a small zig zag stitch all around the edges. 

Another "new to me" technique involves the cork photo corners.  I started with a piece of adhesive backed cork paper from my local Michael's.  I used my square punch to cut two one inch squares from the cork material.  Cutting the squares in half left me with four triangle shapes.  I trimmed away the centers of the triangles to make my own adhesive photo corners.  Cork adds amazing texture and the fact that it was already adhesive made it that much better!  Now I need to look for some new punches or die cut shapes to make more fun cork embellishments.  Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy the Ride

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was a good chance to use up some of my August kit from Gossamer Blue.  I decided to mix and match a bunch of random patterned papers and came up with this:

It's not my favorite work, but it's done.  And some weeks, that's all I have time for.  This weekend was spent camping with my family, so I hurried this one out before our trip.  It was a good excuse to play with my Silhouette Cameo, which I used to cut out the bicycle "card", the title work, and the arrows on the side of the layout. 

Explore

This week I used my Gossamer Blue August kit to complete the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals. 

I found a few pics of Caleb "in his element" and decided to go with an "exploring" theme.  The GB kit has lots of travel elements this month and since we don't travel very often, I tried to use them in a different way.  I added some stitching and distressing to the already distressed background paper and made a "clothesline" effect with some twine.  As usual, I kept adding things and messed up when I was doodling around my title.  I had to pull up some stickers and add the speech bubble/journaling spot behind my title to cover my error.  Luckily, it was an easy fix. 

Brothers

This week at Scrapbook Steals, Melodee gave us another great sketch for the weekly challenge.  When I was visiting Southern Indiana last week, I was lucky enough to spend a few minutes visiting the local scrapbook store, The Doodlebug.  It was great fun to wander through the store and chat with the owners about their trip to CHA.  Among my purchases were a few papers from the Brothers mini collection from Echo Park.  They were perfect for this week's layout featuring some old photos of my boys:

The masculine colors and patterns are great for my boy pages (I especially love the plaid).  I only wish I had picked up a few more sheets from this collection!  My only regret with this layout was my inking.  Because I can never leave well enough alone, after I finished my layout, I decided to add "just a little" ink to the edges.  A little quickly became a lot, thanks to a random swipe from my inking sponge. In an effort to even things out, I ended up with way more ink than I ever intended. I actually thought about cutting off the edges of the paper and matting it with another piece of cardstock, but I was afraid I might not be happy with that either so I decided to quit before I did any more damage. 

Genuine Boy

I had to get right on this week's mid-week mojo sketch challenge, since we were going to be traveling for most of the week.  I was glad to see a one photo, one page sketch, since I can put those together rather quickly.  I completed the layout on Wednesday, but am just now getting around to blogging about it. 

I used papers from My Mind's Eye Collectable Remarkable theme. They coordinated so nicely, with little effort, so this layout came together quickly. 

I finished the layout on Wednesday evening and hit the road on Thursday for a 6 hour road trip to visit my hometown.  We hadn't been there since Easter, and I had a wonderful weekend of family time, which ended rather sadly.  My grandfather, the most amazing man I've ever known, passed away suddenly on Sunday morning.  Luckily, I was able to visit with him over the weekend and I was able to mourn with my family.  My heart still aches to know that he's gone from his earthly home, but I'm glad he didn't have to suffer.  He was 85 years old and for the past couple years had great difficulty getting around.  Even with his physical limitations, my grandfather still insisted on getting out and about on his farm.  He and grandma would travel over their farm on the ATV he referred to as "the buggy".  When we were at my aunt's house on Thursday, Grandpa came by in the buggy to spend a little time with us and see my boys.  I just happened to have my camera handy and couldn't resist snapping a photo.

 I knew I had to be quick, because he isn't one to pose for photos.  He didn't see it coming, so he didn't have time to protest.   After I took his photo, Grandpa playfully announced that he probably broke my camera.  Little did I know, this would be my last photo of him.  I love that he's smiling and happy and that's just how I want to remember him. 

A Camp Story

This week I completed another Scrapbook Steals sketch challenge while camping with my family.   Since we were camping, it was only appropriate that I scrapped a camping layout.  I grabbed the Simple Stories Take a Hike collection that I recently "stole" from Scrapbook Steals and decided to modify the original sketch to work with my papers and photo. 

 

 

I used a fun journaling prompt from the collection and filled in the blanks with stickers from my collection.  A couple stickers and popped up elements made my layout complete.  Thanks for stopping by!

Are you ready for some football?

Melodee gave us two versions of this week's sketch for the weekly challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  I decided to use them both to make a two page layout.

 

These photos are from last year's football league.  My oldest son is totally obsessed with football and will be starting a new season in less than a month.  This year both of my boys will be playing so I'll be spending a lot of time at the football field.  I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut out the title and mat and used some stars to embellish the page.  I even modified a "flag" that didn't match my layout by adding a football sticker and doodling on the end.  Luckily, this one came together very quickly, especially since two pagers usually take a lot of time.  

Lake Michigan

I decided to play along with the Pinspired color challenge with my July kit from Gossamer Blue.  The photos were taken yesterday, when we took a quick trip to Lake Michigan for an instant dose of summer!  We walked on the beach, played in the waves, walked to the lighthouse, and soaked up the sun!  Here's the spread of colors that inspired it all:

Since my beach photos included lots of blue and "sand", I only added some yellow to make it all pop!

I kept this layout clean and simple.  I love how the blues and teals came together with the woodgrain paper from Elle's Studio.  I adore the Simple Stories I (heart) Summer collection and the cork Thickers are perfect!