Breakfast @ Chef Mickey's

This week's sketch at Scrapbook Steals was created by my scrappy friend Heather Conklin who was the lucky guest sketcher this month.  Heather created a super fun layout featuring the oh-so-trendy chevron pattern and her adorable daughter Isla.  Here's the original sketch and Heather's layout:

I changed things up just a bit by squishing my chevron strips closer together and by moving the journaling tag.  Here's my layout:

Scrapping this page brought back a lot of great memories of our Spring Break trip this past April.  I'm more than half way through my Disney album and hadn't worked on it in a while, so it was good to get back to it.  Thanks Heather for a great 2 page sketch!

Opal Club @ Scrapbook Steals

In my never ending quest to win free crafty supplies, I am pleased to announce that I'm "Officially Opal" and am in the running for a wonderful prize package from Scrapbook Steals!  They feature super discounted products and have amazing customer service.  And while I can't afford to purchase their "steals" very often,  I have been faithfully completing their weekly sketch challenges (I haven't missed a week since I started their challenges 66 weeks ago!) At the end of every group of ten sketches (grouped with gemstone names), they are giving away some scrappy swag. Even though these layouts have all been featured elsewhere on my blog, I have to group them all together to enter for the prize, so please indulge me (and enjoy looking at my creations one more time!)

Thanks for looking!  Now I'm crossing my fingers that it's my lucky week at Random.org so that I can win this amazing prize:

Paint Can Gift Box

This week I was featured on Practical Scrappers, making an altered paint can to show a creative way to package a small Christmas gift. Start with an empty (and clean!) quart sized paint can. I found mine at a local hardware store but have seen them at the big box home improvement stores as well. Measure your can and cut cardstock to fit around it. My can was just over 13 inches around, so I used two pieces, overlapping the paper just slightly and leaving one seam in the back and one seam directly in the front since it would be covered up anyway. Apply a thin layer of ModPodge to your paint can using a foam brush and apply a thin layer on the back of the cardstock. Adhere the cardstock to the can, smoothing out air bubbles as you go. For the "fur" trim on Santa's suit, I cut a strip of quilt batting, but you could also use white felt instead. I adhered the batting with a glue gun and added a "belt" made from black velvet ribbon. I cut another piece of batting to fit the lid of the paint can and adhered it with ModPodge. I embellished the lid with some trim, a tag, and some jingle bells. Don't forget to include a paint can key so the lucky recipient can open their gift! I was able to get the hardware store to throw in the key for free when I bought the can. I embellished the key with more ribbon and another jingle bell.


The quart size can is perfect for holding a gift card, packets of drink mix or tea, homemade snack mix, candies, or cookies. The possibilities are endless and it's a great way to give a gift! Kids and adults alike love prying open the lid to reveal the goodies inside. 

Blessed

I loved this week's sketch at Scrapbook Steals and decided to break out a recent family photo and some terrific new paper I picked up over our Thanksgiving trip.  Here's the sketch I started with:

And here's my take on it:

We recently made a trip "home" over Thanksgiving week and I had to pay a visit to the Doodlebug, the local scrapbook store, since I no longer have any local scrapbook stores where I live.  The first display I saw was the Autumn Splendor line by WRMK and I knew the papers would go perfectly with our recent family photos. 

Up until recently, the only family photos we had were those taken for the church directory.  I hated the thought of spending lots of money trying to get professional photos and the pressure of getting four people coordinated and smiling, etc.  But when my good friend Stacey offered to take some casual family photos for us at a local park I jumped at the chance.  I figured we could walk around and give it a shot and even if we looked terrible the boys would still have a good time at the park.  It was so much better than trying to do studio photos and Stacey got some great shots of us.  She took over 400 photos, and Jacob closed his eyes in at least half of them.  The kids were goofballs and grew tired of posing by the end.  But I was able to go through the weed out all of the ones that I deemed unflattering and still managed to find several photos that I fell in love with.  This was one of the first ones Stacey took and is one of my favorites.  I edited the photo for free at Picnik.com and printed it out at Walmart.  The fall colors matched perfectly with these papers and made for a pretty nice layout if I do say so myself.   

Loved Beyond Measure

This week was a busy one, with a road trip to visit family and friends at the opposite end of the state.  I came home to a mountain of laundry but still managed to work on my mid-week-mojo challenge from Scrapbook Steals.  After an 11 photo layout last week, I was thrilled to see a one photo layout that I could put together quickly.  This is the amazing sketch by Kristy Lee:

And here's what I threw together, in between six loads of laundry:

I started with a piece of woodgrain paper from K and Company, then added other patterned paper from Simply Stories, the Paper Studio, and My Mind's Eye.   I cut some letters from patterned paper and added other letters from Echo Park.  This photo was taken during one of our summer adventures to Marengo Cave.  I love seeing photos of my boys when they enjoy being together.  One of them always has their arm around the other.  Occasionally that arm is used to put a brother in a headlock, but for the most part they love one another and are really good brothers.  They tend to pick on each other when they are bored, so outings like this are usually good for all of us.  It was great fun to escape the June heat and put on sweatshirts to head underground where we explored the caves that I had been in so many times before.  It was the first cave trip for the boys and my husband and I'm so glad we worked it into our plans. 

Bounce

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was one of my favorite kind-  a two pager with tons of pictures.  While it's certainly easier scrapping one photo layouts, I have a terrible time narrowing down photos or "telling my story" without multiple pictures.  Here is the sketch challenge for this week, including 11 photos!

I decided to create a bright fun layout about our trip to Bremen Bounce, an inflatable wonderland where my kids could play for hours days at a time.  It was a great day and they had lots of fun.  My favorite part was that adults could even go into the bounce houses and slides.  Before the place got too crowded, I joined them to take pictures and even had a ride down the big slide.  Thank goodness there were no photos of that!

I used a combinations of papers from Echo Park's Little Boy and Playground collections.  I stuck with sunny fun colors because they matched the mood of our day.  The only problem with scrapping this layout was that it reminded my boys of that great day and now they're begging to go back to the bounce place.  Hmmmm, they did have big tables for parents to use to sit and watch their kids...I wonder if I could scrapbook there while my kiddos play.  Maybe we should go back!

November Imaginisce Challenge

This month's sketch challenge at Imaginisce is by Cari Locken and looks something like this:

A few months back, I was lucky enough to win a Geek is Chic prize package from Imaginisce.  I loved the fun colors and the whimsical designs.  When my son pulled out a pair of silly glasses, I knew I had to snap some photos just so I'd have a good excuse to use some of this collection.  I snapped photos of my sons and husband as they tried on the silly glasses, and before long, we were all laughing and snorting.  Of course, they had no idea that I planned to use these photos on a layout and post them for all of the scrappy world to see! 

This title says it all!  Being a self proclaimed nerd, I relish my days participating in marching band, orchestra, academic quiz bowl, spell bowl, and otherwise "nerdy" activities.  I embraced my nerdiness, was Salutatorian of my class, and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by my high school classmates.  No matter what I do, I always try to do my best.  If that makes me a nerd, then so be it!