Just one more picture?

This week, my super talented scrappy friend Chloe Salerno, provided the sketch and inspiration layout for Scrapbook Steals.  Chloe used three photos and three blocks of patterned paper.  But, since I had 6 photos I wanted to include, I skipped the patterned paper and just made a grid of photos.

After marking out my grid with pencil, I machine stitched over the grid, to "frame" my photos somewhat.  I added a large title, just like Chloe did, and added stickers and stamps and various "photo" themed embellishments.  It's fun to do a silly page like this every once in a while.  It goes to show that all of our photos don't have to be perfect to make it into our albums.  In fact, the crazy photos are my favorite ones of all the photos I took on this particular camping trip.

Caleb{age8}

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals came together quickly.  I pulled out some photos of my little dude and let him fill in the blanks on my journaling tag.  It's a fun way to capture his personality and preserve his handwriting at this stage in his life. 

These papers are all by Simple Stories, from the Take a Hike collection.  It is my favorite collection to use with photos of our outdoor adventures! 

The boys of summer

After a week long crafty hiatus, I'm glad to say I'm back on the scrappin' wagon.  I really look forward to the weekly challenge at Scrapbook Steals, but just ran out of time last week and didn't play along for the first time in over two years :(  But this week, I was determined to get 'er done, and I just barely squeaked this layout out.  Here's what I came up with for the Rose #2 sketch:

Since we're still in the midst of a never ending winter and buried in snow, I dug out some pictures from last summer that make me long for the warmer days ahead.  This layout features papers from Echo Park's That's My Boy collection, along with a few stickers and embellishments from some of the older EP lines.  It was quick and simple and didn't have as many "layers" as I like, but it's finished in time!