Amazing Amber Series

I've completed another 10 layouts for the gemstone series at Scrapbook Steals, my favorite place for online deals and crafty inspiration.  This group of 10 was called the Amber series, with one new sketch issued every Wednesday.  To be eligible for a weekly drawing, my version of the weekly sketch has to be posted to their blog by the following Monday.  I'm happy to say that I play along every week and completed all 10 of these on time.  At the end of each group of 10, the lovely ladies at Scrapbook Steals give away a great prize to one lucky winner chosen at random.  Now I'm crossing my fingers and hoping to win a $50 gift certificate to Scrapbook Steals!  In order to enter the drawing, I have to compile all 10 layouts in this blog post.  If you're a faithful follower, you've already seen these layouts, but just consider this a bonus showing!

 

Soar

This week's scrapbook page was completed in a hurry.  We finally have some decent weather, so we spent a lot of time working in the yard and getting the house purdied up this weekend.  When the sun is shining and grass is green, it's a little harder to spend a beautiful afternoon in my windowless scrapbook room in the basement.  But, because I never miss a weekly challenge at Scrapbook Steals, I snuck down there for an hour while hubby mowed the lawn.  If I couldn't see blue skies and green grass from my windowless room, I decided I should at least scrap pictures of them.

These kite themed pieces from the Lime Twist collection by My Mind's Eye were perfect to scrap photos of my boys flying kites at the campground.  I originally intended to use only two photos on this layout, but then I decided to use the blue sky picture as the background for my journaling.  I used a white pen to write directly on my picture and love the way it turned out.  Using the kites on my background paper and title piece as inspiration, I pieced together a larger kite to finish off the page.  Sweet and simple this week!  Thanks for looking!

a taste of summer

This week's Scrapbook Steals sketch challenge was another great source of inspiration.  Since I'm sick and tired of winter, and looking forward to a camping trip in a few weeks, I decided to do a cheerful fun layout about summer! 

I used some bright fun papers from Pebbles' Seen and Noted collection and added some fun tags from Elle's Studio.  Since I didn't have any coordinating embellishments, I decided to make a few pinwheels of my own to complete my layout.  Here's the original sketch by Melodee Cloud that inspired my layout:

Oh shoot!

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was created by my scrappy pal Jessica Laureano who was guest designing this week.  I modified her sketch ever so slightly, to work with the papers I selected and came up with this:

I finally broke into the few pieces of the Take a Hike collection that I had been hoarding from Simple Stories.  Since I only have a few pieces, I hate to use them all up, but decided this photo worked perfectly with this outdoorsy collection.  I layered and layered and even stamped a little.  I added a few elements from October Afternoon's Sasparilla collection and called it a day.  Thanks Jessica for a wonderful sketch!

My Heart is Full

This week I pulled out a photo of my favorite boys and got to work on this week's sketch challenge for ScrapbookSteals.com

 

I went through my paper stash and pulled out pieces from several different collections.  Most of the elements on this page are from American Crafts/Pebbles, with bits and pieces from Simple Stories, Imaginisce, EK Success, October Afternoon, and Studio Calico thrown in for good measure.  I tend to get all "matchy matchy" when I do a layout, so I pushed myself to use a variety of colors and patterns.   Thanks for looking!

Lela's birthday

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was a good excuse to scrap some photos from our darling niece's 1st birthday a few weeks ago.  Lela Ray turned one and was joined by dozens of friends and family as she celebrated her big day!

 

Since I was in the mood for Spring, I loved working with fun bright colors that coordinated with Lela's beautiful birthday outfit!  Thanks for looking!