Outdoor Memories

With a crazy busy week, I just barely completed the weekly sketch challenge for Scrapbook Steals.  I seriously considered skipping a week, but then I started thinking about how many weeks in a row I've played along (over 150 straight weeks) and I just couldn't "not" do it this week.  I modified the original sketch to fit my papers and pictures and threw this together in about 30 minutes. 

 

I do not recall the manufacturer of the printed "hunting theme" background paper, but the rest of the patterned papers and embellishments are from the Take a Hike collection by Simple Stories.  I'm glad I made time to play along for yet another week!

I {heart} fall

I can't believe it's already the first day of fall.  I love the season, thanks to all of the smells, colors, and activities.  My youngest is already asking if he can carve a jack-o-lantern.  I told him it's too soon, but hopefully next weekend will find us picking apples at our local orchard.  I decided to make this week's Scrapbook Steals challenge layout with some of my favorite photos from last fall.

I love the multi photo sketch that Melodee gave us this week!  I decided to pair these fall photos with my favorite fall collection, Harvest Lane from Simple Stories.  The warm colors and patterns just make me happy! 

Astonishing Aquamarine

The majority of my blog posts are inspired by Scrapbook Steals and their weekly sketch challenge.  Not only do they bring us amazing daily deals on scrappy supplies and offer wonderful giveaways, Scrapbook Steals has been a place to connect with other scrappy friends from all over the US and Canada.  Every week they post a sketch, and I play along with whatever supplies I have on hand.  Each group of 10 sketches is named after a gemstone and this week I completed the Aquamarine series.  The generous folks at Scrapbook Steals are giving away a $50 gift certificate to someone who completed all 10 sketches in this series.  Here are all my layouts for this series:

 

Live Life

This is the 10th sketch from the Aquamarine challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  The original sketch called for two vertical photos, but I substituted a horizontal 5x7 instead.  This is what I came up with:

 

The papers I used are all from the 24/seven collection by Simple Stories.  I love the trendy patterns and bright colors, especially when I am creating masculine layouts.  The textures and patterns are so fun that I didn't even use any solid cardstock anywhere on this layout.  Thanks for stopping by!



Charming

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals inspired me to break out a photo of my youngest.  He loves climbing and playing and doesn't mind humoring mom while I snap pictures.  The papers I used were from the Collectable series by My Mind's Eye.  I love the bold primary colors and patterns that are perfect for my boy pages. 

I decided to use kraft paper for my background, but wanted the green polka dot paper to serve as a border.  Since I hate the thought of wasting paper, I couldn't bear the thought of covering up perfectly good paper by layering, so I created a frame from the green paper.  I used my paper trimmer to cut the center out of the green paper and I stored the center piece away for another project.  I took my green "frame" and layered it right on top of a piece of 12x12 kraft cardstock.  To add some stability and to anchor the frame to the background paper, I used my sewing machine to stitch a small zig zag stitch all around the edges. 

Another "new to me" technique involves the cork photo corners.  I started with a piece of adhesive backed cork paper from my local Michael's.  I used my square punch to cut two one inch squares from the cork material.  Cutting the squares in half left me with four triangle shapes.  I trimmed away the centers of the triangles to make my own adhesive photo corners.  Cork adds amazing texture and the fact that it was already adhesive made it that much better!  Now I need to look for some new punches or die cut shapes to make more fun cork embellishments.  Thanks for stopping by!

Enjoy the Ride

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was a good chance to use up some of my August kit from Gossamer Blue.  I decided to mix and match a bunch of random patterned papers and came up with this:

It's not my favorite work, but it's done.  And some weeks, that's all I have time for.  This weekend was spent camping with my family, so I hurried this one out before our trip.  It was a good excuse to play with my Silhouette Cameo, which I used to cut out the bicycle "card", the title work, and the arrows on the side of the layout. 

Explore

This week I used my Gossamer Blue August kit to complete the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals. 

I found a few pics of Caleb "in his element" and decided to go with an "exploring" theme.  The GB kit has lots of travel elements this month and since we don't travel very often, I tried to use them in a different way.  I added some stitching and distressing to the already distressed background paper and made a "clothesline" effect with some twine.  As usual, I kept adding things and messed up when I was doodling around my title.  I had to pull up some stickers and add the speech bubble/journaling spot behind my title to cover my error.  Luckily, it was an easy fix.