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!

the fort

This week marked the beginning of a new series of sketch challenges at Scrapbook Steals.  I love their challenges for lots of reasons, but mostly because it allows me to work with any products I have on  hand.  Lots of manufacturers have challenges, but you are required to use specific products, which I don't always have.  Scrapbook Steals also gives out a wonderful prize package each and every week to a participant picked at random.  I love that everyone has the same chance to win.  I've been playing along with their challenges, every single week, for 10 different gemstone series and for 50 weeks before that when they were numbered MWM sketches.  If my math is correct, that puts me at over 150 weeks of participation.  Every single week I've played along, looking forward to Wednesday when the new sketch is revealed.  I have even managed to get the challenge completed while we've been vacationing, camping, etc.  This challenge serves as my weekly motivation and reminds me that I don't have to be caught up or scrap my photos in order.  I just need to scrap whatever moves me. 

This week I was inspired to use this photo of my kids and their cousins and the "fort" they built in the woods.  Without even knowing they were doing work, they picked up sticks for Uncle Russ and stacked them up against the wood pile to create their very own fort, with a seat for each of them.  They had a blast and I love that they had fun with no toys, no electronics, just imagination.  My cousins and I spent hours in these same woods, building "forts" and playing house and building imaginary houses amongst hay bales, woodpiles, or whatever we could find.  Thanks to the random mishmash of colors the kids were wearing, I had to keep things rather neutral.  For this layout I combined lots of "earthy" elements from my stash, including papers from Imaginisce, American Crafts, Studio Calico, and Authentique.

Perfect Peridot

Every week I play along with a sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  They are grouped in a series of 10, with each group of ten named after a gemstone.  This week I finished up the 10th layout in the Peridot series.  Now I have a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to Scrapbook Steals, my favorite place to score on-line crafty bargains!  Here are my 10 Peridot layouts:

 

 

 

Scrappy Fun

I completed the weekly sketch challenge from Scrapbook Steals while camping over the weekend.  It is always more challenging using only a few supplies, but this Seen & Noted collection from Pebbles certainly made it easier.  The original sketch can be found HERE.  And here is my version:

This layout brought back all sorts of fun memories.  Last May I travelled to St. Louis to meet up with some scrappy friends and spent the whole weekend crafting and hanging out with my crafty girls.  It was a ton of fun!  Thanks for stopping by!

My first publications!

I've been a long time subscriber to Creating Keepsakes and I love the projects they feature.  I often read the same issue over and over, finding new inspiration each time.  It's always been my goal to one day see one of my projects featured in their magazine.  Last fall, I saw that they were planning a special issue about Boys and Men and were looking for projects demonstrating masculine layouts, products, and techniques.  Since my two boys are the reason I scrapbook, and because these are the only type of layouts I'm comfortable doing, I decided to give it a shot and throw my hat into the ring.  I sent in several photos of my layouts and had almost forgotten about it, when I got a surprising email in December.  It was from an editor at the magazine, asking to publish one of my pages.  I was home alone at the time and *may* have squealed out loud when I read it.  I was so excited that I called my husband at work, emailed some friends, texted some others, and finally settled down enough to check the rest of my mail.  Imagine my surprise when I see three more emails asking to publish more layouts.  Then a few weeks later, I got another email from another editor, letting me know that they chose a fifth layout to publish in the magazine.  I packaged them up and shipped them to Utah just after Christmas to be photographed and then waited somewhat impatiently for the magazine to be published in May 2013. 

 

The magazine is currently on newsstands (but only until July 8th) and contains some great projects and tons of inspiration, even if you're not a scrapbooker of men and boys.  I was like a kid at Christmas when my copy arrived.  I ripped into the box and poured through the magazine, amazed at the wonderful photography and still shocked to see my name in print.  I'm so glad I decided to give it a try!  These are my layouts that were featured in this special issue.  

If you struggle with scrap booking masculine layouts, this is the perfect publication to inspire you.  You can purchase you own copy HERE if you haven't already.  Thanks for stopping by!