football

This week my scrappy pal Cathryn Hanson was the lucky guest sketcher at Scrapbook Steals.  She created two beautiful sketches this week and I was so excited to play along.  This is the sketch I worked from:

I decided to create a layout for my son's first season of football.  I flipped the sketch to make it work better with my paper and created this:

I matted my main photo with a piece of textured paper that had dimples just like a real football.  Then for my journaling spot, I hand cut a football shape out of another piece of textured paper and added the white stripe across the top.  The word FOOTBALL was already printed on the background paper, but it didn't stand out as much as I liked, so I outlined the letters with a sharpie and added some dimension with Glossy Accents.  I added some football ribbon and a few die cut embellishments.  Maybe this week the random.org drawing will be in my favor.  If not, I still have a great new sketch to work with and another layout completed!

One month in

A little over one month ago I threw my hat into the crafty ring and applied for a position as a temporary design team member at Practical Scrappers.  I have "met" a lot of crafty friends online who were very supportive and encouraging.  They see my work every week and always give such great feedback.  I decided I'd like to try showing my work to even more people, so the fresh face design team was calling my name. I had submitted projects to Practical Scrappers as a "fan" and had several of my layouts featured on their blog.  I love the way they use "practical" themes and ordinary products while challenging readers and designers to look at things in a different light.  At the beginning of October, I got an email telling me I was going to be part of the team through the end of January.  I was beyond excited to be chosen and I started right in, working on projects for the month of October.  In this first month, these are my projects that have been featured:

The requirement for this layout was to use "print" from either book, music, etc.  I didn't have any music note paper handy, so I photocopied parts of a hymnal and used them to highlight these pictures of my youngest playing his keyboard.  I printed a 6 inch strip of piano keys off of Google images and cut it to go across as a border strip.  Since the color of my son's shirt didn't really match the rest of my layout, I had my photos printed in black and white.  He was so excited to see himself on the blog feature!

This is the card I made for the fall/leaf card feature.  I used some scraps from my favorite Apple Cider collection from Imaginisce and fussy cut some stamped leaves.  I embossed the orange leaf for a little extra touch and added some torn kraft paper to make the card a little more rustic.

Following in the fall/leaf theme, I created this page for the layout feature.  I had this photo sitting around for almost two years and decided this was a good excuse to finally use it.  I combined pieces from Apple Cider and Happy Harvest collections, both from Imaginisce and I distressed the edges and made a grid pattern.  I had some flimsy leaf border paper that I snagged a while back and I cut it into strips to create a leaf mat behind my photo which I popped up using dimensional tape.  I added a leaf that I cut from my Cricut and threw in some baker's twine for good measure. 

This card was created for a "stitching on cards" feature.  I simply love my Sew Easy and couldn't resist making a sweet rainbow card for a dear friend recovering from surgery.  I traced some lines with pencil using a circle cutter as my guide.  Then I "drove" my sew easy right over the pencil lines to create my holes to stitch my rainbow.  I added some free form clouds that I edged with glue and dipped in glitter.  A little white ink around the edges and it was done.  Super fast and super easy. 

This layout combined two different projects.  I signed up to do a stitching layout for Practical Scrappers and was inspired by the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  I used Kristy Lee's amazing sketch and created this layout.  I used papers from Echo Park's Splash collection and added some "waves" of stitching using my sew easy once again.  I tucked a cute little half circle at the top of my page and added more stitching to make a sun.
I love a good challenge and I'm a stickler for deadlines, so I am already working on my next projects to be featured at Practical Scrappers in November.  Thanks for looking and be sure to play along.  Go to the Practical Scrappers blog to see a list of the current calls and send in a photo of your project to practicalscrapperslayouts@gmail.com to see if your work will be featured on their blog.  That's exactly what I did to get started and now I'm thrilled to be part of the team! 

Halloween Happenings

We survived yet another hectic Halloween.  We crafted one homemade costume, recycled an old one, and are up to our armpits in candy.  Here's what we've been up to:

The boys (with lots of help from mom and dad) carved pumpkins on the eve of Halloween.  I put them on the porch complete with candles, and then we got busy wandering the neighborhood and never got them lit.  Oh well. 

Jacob settled for a rubic's cube costume.  Maybe one of the cheapest to make, but definitely a challenge to find a perfectly square box.  I used $2 worth of black spray paint and covered the box, then added 6x6 squares of scrapbook paper in a grid design.  That shows you just how much I love him.  I used (wasted) several sheets of scrapbook paper and didn't think twice about it.  He got tons of comments while we were out and even got some extra treats because his costume was just so cool.

Caleb recycled the spider costume that Jacob wore three years ago.  We started with a cheap hooded sweatshirt, stuffed black tube socks with polyfil and I sewed them on and tied them together with fishing line.  A couple pom poms and googly eyes glued to the hood and we've got ourselves a spider.  The best part, now that we're done with the costume, is that I can remove my stitches and Caleb will have a new sweatshirt he can wear the rest of the year.  He was a little disappointed that he didn't get as many ooohhs and aaahhs as his brother, so next year he wants to go back to the tried and true costume from a box.  Those always get the most attention.

The boys started off at Truck or Treat at our church.  Then they came home to empty their bags and start over in our neighborhood.  Mom and Dad both wanted to walk them around, so we kept our lights off and headed out with the masses to walk the neighborhood.  By the time we got home we were too tired to hand out our own candy, so we called it a night.  That means we had even more candy left over.  I let the boys keep one canister of candy for home, then we donated a big bag to each of their classrooms for the prize boxes and we're both taking a big bag of candy to work with us.  I'm proud of my little candy goblins, because they each only ate one piece of candy at the end of the night.  We generally ration the candy out pretty well.  When I cleaned out the candy canister to fill it with Halloween goodies, I threw away candy that was still in there from Easter and even some from Valentine's day!

Here are the treats I made for Caleb's classroom party.  I couldn't get out of work on the day of the actual party, so I found this cute mummy idea on Pinterest and headed to Sam's Club to buy a case of Hershey bars.  I wrapped them with white streamers and added some googly eyes.  I attached a little note that said Happy Halloween and Caleb took them for all of his classmates.  Jacob no longer has classroom parties, but he took some for his teachers and I had a few left over to hand out myself.

I already have the materials to make Jacob's box costume for next year, and Caleb will recycle an oldie but a goodie, so stay tuned......

Perfect Age

This week's sketch from Scrapbook Steals was just what I needed.   I had a great pic from this summer and decided to break out more of my favorite AC line- Campy Trails.  Here's what I came up with:

I have to admit that I fell in love with these colors as soon as I saw the papers.  I even dressed  my kids in coordinating colors on our camping trip so that they would match the papers.  Now that's a true scrapbooker! 

Time to Make the Donuts!

This week's sketch at Scrapbook Steals was a bit of a challenge for me.  This was the sketch I was working from:

I struggled with what photos to use and started thumbing thru my stacks.  I found some photos from a recent camping trip where I made homemade donuts for the boys for the first time.  I decided the circle on the sketch could be turned into a donut and I went from there.  The entire time I worked on the page, I tried to think of a catchy title.  All I could think of was the old Dunkin' Donuts commercial where the baker says "Time to make the donuts!"  This commercial is probably older that some of my scrappy friends, so it may be lost on many.  But it stuck and I ran with it.

I created my own donut embellishment by cutting a large circle with my Circle cutter.  I cut a slightly smaller brown circle and then went around with scissors, trimming the wavy edges to look like frosting.  I added several dashes of colored "sprinkles" using old tubes of puffy paint that I've had for over 10 years.  I guess this whole layout is kind of a throwback.  Old commercial, old products, old donut recipe.  But it made a snazzy new layout that I hope can bring me some random.org luck this week in the Scrapbook Steals drawing!

One Sweet Ride

This week at Scrapbook Steals, my scrappy friend Van Nguyen was featured as a guest designer!  She created not one, but two fabulous sketches.  I loved them both, but being pressed for time, I opted for the one that I thought I could finish quickly.  This is the sketch I started with:

I immediately thought of a photo I snapped of my new bike and I dug out some old My Mind's Eye papers that matched the "feel" was going for.  This is the layout I created:

I love my bike, but I love it even more because it was a total surprise.  My husband isn't exactly great at picking out gifts, and we had all but abandoned buying for one another at this stage in our life.  We pretty much get what we want or save up for something special, so we don't buy each other Anniversary gifts anymore.  This was our 10th Anniversary, so I decided to be prepared "just in case" he got me something.  I didn't want to be empty handed if he happened to buy me something.  I bought him a new ipod since he sent his last one through the washing machine.  I decided that if we didn't end up buying anniversary presents, I would simply save the ipod for Christmas, so I wouldn't make him feel bad if he didn't shop for me.  I was surprised to find this beautiful bike sitting in my kitchen on the morning of our anniversary.  He snuck it in before leaving for work.  It was everything I had been dreaming of!  And I happily set out his new ipod so that he would be surprised when he came home from work.  All in all, we had a wonderful anniversary and are looking forward to spending many more together!

World Card Making Day

In honor of world card making day, I busted out my new Cricut cartridge- Walk in My Garden and created this flower pot pocket card

I started by cutting out two identical flower pots.  I inked the edges, added a punched border and some twine, and stitched the pocket together.  I cut an insert slightly smaller than the flower pot and cut out several flowers using papers from Fancy Pants.  I layered the flowers, adding pop dots behind some, and wrote my greeting inside the card. 

I added a little leaf at the top of the flowers that says "pull" so that the recipient knows the flowers can be removed to see the sentiment. 

Happy card making!