Playing Along With LGS Team B

Actually got my layout and post ready on time this week! Shocking, I know!! The girls are on Spring Break so I've taken full advantage of the extra free time to get slightly ahead with my DT commitments. We have another week to go so I hope to make a serious dent in April's assignments too!!

But back to today's challenge at Let's Get Sketchy. Here is the sketch Team B was given as well as their Colour Combo Twist.

If it looks familiar to this one, it is. Slight changes but ideal for more Christmas memories. As I did with the last colour combination twist we were given, I chose not to take it in a holiday direction and instead scrap some photos from our recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Here's my layout this week.

I have decided to keep Kraft as a common element on all my layouts for this trip. It's a great way to keep some continuity through an entire album or story within an album. You can vary the embellishments and other papers all you want, but ensuring that all of your layouts about a certain trip/event/story have some bit of Kraft on it (or whatever uniting element you choose) keeps the album cohesive. That way, even if you add a forgotten story many months or years after the original ones were completed, it will still flow nicely because it shares a common element with all the earlier layouts.

This particular layout is about Greg and my trip into Puerto Vallarta (sans children - thanks Grandma and Grandpa!) for a date at Pipi's. The sketch was great as it gave me a lot of room to journal (once I flipped it) and I was able to tell the back story to our pilgrimage to Pipi's. 

I also dug deep into my stash and found these glitter chipboard letters for my title. They are popped up with foam adhesive and layered over strips of washi tape. When I laid them down initially (without the washi tape) they seemed to float a bit. Adding the tape behind grounded them and gave me another opportunity to introduce the colours from the inspiration picture. The flowers were also found in my stash during a recent sort/reorganization and I'd pulled them out knowing they would be perfect for this colour scheme too. 

And finally my journaling. I know that as long as we continue to visit Puerto Vallarta (as often as we can afford to take the family - so every 5 years or so!! LOL!) we will seek out Pipi's. I hope it stays in business long enough for us to take the girls there one day!

Thanks for stopping by today. Make sure you head over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog to see the beautiful layouts Team B has created for your inspiration. This is the last sketch for March which means that if you are interested in the prize this month you've got until Sunday to get your submissions linked up. You are playing for a $10 Gift Certificate to The Paper Bakery so get those layouts in! Good luck to you all!!

New Sketch up at Let's Get Sketchy!

It's Monday again and the Let's Get Sketchy team has got a new sketch for you. What do you think?

I liked the distressed background and figured it was a perfect chance to play with my new Heidi Swapp products. Um, yeah, I said new. I may have fallen off the wagon a tiny bit. I got a bug in my head about her Color Shine products and so when I was in Michael's looking for yellow gems (didn't find any I liked) and saw an entire display of Heidi Swapp ... well ... I just wasn't strong enough to pass them by!

(Insert sheepish grin here.)

Have you ever tried Heidi's Color Shine products? They are white with black patterns printed on them and if you twist them in the light you can see areas of gloss as well as matte that create a pattern. When you applied the spray to it, the matte parts soak up the colour and you can use a cloth (I used a baby wipe) to remove the spray from the glossy parts. When you're done you have the original pattern plus a new pattern of colour and gloss. Pretty cool, eh?

I had chosen the photos long before I got the paper and just knew the Tropical Teal mist would be perfect. As my daughter Paige pointed out, the arched pattern in the paper mimics the arches in the picture. Huh. Totally unintentional but I guess somewhere in my brain I knew that too!

Okay, here are your detail shots. 

I am a tiny bit addicted to these little rose buds Michael's sells too. (Yes, this may have been a part of my falling off the wagon thing too!) If you find yourself with little flowers but you need to create more presence on your page, try layering them over larger flat flowers. Either punched flowers or the type you can buy intended for layers. These brown ones are of that latter type - old Making Memories ones from my stash.

Using up my letter stickers still (managed to win THAT temptation battle yesterday) - these glossy ones are fun and the perfect hot pink!

A journaling tag tucked into the pictures keeps the design cohesive.

The bottom of the larger photo needed a larger cluster so I mixed in one larger rose from my stash and some pearls. Using the same washi tape and word stickers keeps the two embellishment clusters cohesive.

I also purchased a package of Color Shine arrows and used 3 on this layout. Two I sprayed in the same blue as the background paper, the third I sprayed in pink. They have a very subtle grid pattern on them that becomes visible once you spray them. Not sure if you can totally see that in this picture though.

I was trying to show off the shine quality of the spray. Can you see it on this arrow? Again, not sure!

Well, that's all for this week's sketch. Can't wait to see what you do with it!

Have a great week everyone!

A New Challenge at S.W.A.T - Colour Combo!

There is a new challenge up at S.W.A.T today and it's put me in a Spring-like mood! Intrigued? I won't keep you in suspense. It's a colour combo ... check it out.

The yummy looking cupcakes aside, doesn't that just scream "Spring" to you? 

Unfortunately, it's not quite spring around here. Almost. But not quite. My crocuses are blooming and I have seen some cherry blossoms in the village but the rains continue and with it some stiff winds and cool temperatures. I know, I know, there are blizzards raging across the continent but it was 19 degrees in Osoyoos the other day! Maybe Aunt Moira would like a room mate for a bit? Just kidding!!

I used the colour combo plus a recent layout idea by Shimelle's alter ego Glitter Girl to create this.

Glitter Girl used papers  from 6x6 paper pads to make her patterned paper quadrants but I used my scraps. I found several in the colours from the inspiration picture that were large enough for my purposes and got to work. 

The top was feeling a little barren to me and I wasn't too sure how to fill it but then I got the idea of a banner and made one with lots of different shapes, papers and layers. It was a fair bit of work and took many times of moving things around but in the end I really like it! You may see more fun banners like this from me!!

Fun was the order of the day so I had fun with the title too. Wrapping it around the photo block and using two different letter stickers. 

Usually I plan where my journaling is going to go before I get too far into the process but this time I got sort of carried away and forgot. Whoops! I am not totally in love with how it looks but the more important thing is that it got on the page! This is one of those types of pages that I'll make a new one of each year - the annual measuring of the birthday girl - so I don't anticipate what I say will change too much over the years. "Oh, how you've grown!" can only be said so many ways before you start repeating yourself!!

Thought I'd leave you with another look at my banner. Love the little washi tape pennants!

Okay, now it's your turn. What will you come up with in response to this colour challenge? Can't wait to see your projects posted on the S.W.A.T. site! Have a great weekend everyone!

Playing Along With LGS ... Finally!

Do you ever find yourself so swamped with all the items on your "to do" list that things slip? This week has been a week of letting things slip for me! Starting with not getting a layout ready for Let's Get Sketchy's Monday reveal. It IS Team B's turn this week so playing along is really a bonus for me but it's something I told myself I would do as a way to have regular posts on my blog. But ... I dropped the ball this week. I also completely forgot to take my girls to their hair cut appointment on Monday. Not sure where my head was that day!! 

Without further ado, here is the sketch that we are working with this week.

And my interpretation.

I have a tiny confession to make. I looked at the sketch, saw that I needed two landscape photos (I went with 4x6 to keep things simple) and then totally forgot to look at the sketch again while building my layout. What?!?! I am not advocating this as a way of following along with a sketch challenge by any means! I count it as a lucky coincidence that my layout resembles the sketch at all - albeit mirrored. This is just how my week has gone!

Sigh.

Here are your detail shots.

My title is made up of 3 different components. A word tag, small letter tiles and more traditional letter stickers. Remember that you can have fun with any component on your pages. Don't get locked into one way of thinking. Like, "My titles must be made up of Thickers!" When you're using up your stash like I am you quickly realize that you've got to get creative with your resources or pretty soon you'll run the risk of thinking you can't make another layout because none of your Thicker sets have enough letters in them to spell "Thickers"! Mixing and matching styles, manufacturers and products keeps things feeling fresh and new - no matter how long the product has been sitting on your shelf!

From that same Teresa Collins set as the "family" word tag was a 12x12 sheet of month journaling cards. I cut out the February one to use on this layout. The clocks are also from a Teresa Collins collection pack (for whatever reason I have a TON of Teresa Collins packs - must have bought them on sale or something!) I liked the symbolism of time passing for a child's birthday layout.

The row of little clocks looked a bit bare so I dug out some mini brads to fill the centres. Now it looks finished and I love the pops of red and hints of shimmer with the gold.

In fact, I loved the gold so much I knew I needed to add it somewhere else - the centre of the large clock embellishment seemed like the perfect spot! Kind of wishing I had some of that Heidi Swapp gold lame colour shine spray too ...

Well, that's all for today. Thanks for stopping by. Are you playing along with Let's Get Sketchy this week? There's a $10 GC from The Paper Bakery up for grabs this month. All you need to do is enter 3 out of the 4 challenges by the end of March. Good luck - hope to see you on the blog.

First March Monday Reveal ... And A New Twist!

Welcome back! It's Monday again and time for another new sketch over at Let's Get Sketchy. Since this is the first Monday in March everything resets. We had a TON of participants last month. I love checking out how everyone interprets the sketches! It was great to see some new faces playing along. Keep up the great work! 

Hope you're looking forward to 4 brand new sketch challenges (one with a new twist!) and a new sponsor too. At time of publication I don't have details on who our sponsor is for March but check back with the Let's Get Sketchy blog for more details. And don't forget about our Birthday Bash Blog Hop! It's still going on - you've got until March 8th at midnight CST (that's 10 PM PST) to submit a challenge entry based on one of our Birthday Inspired Projects and be entered to win the grand prize. Just not able to get to your scrap space this week to create something birthday inspired? Don't despair! There will be plenty of other opportunities to win RAK's this month as we are celebrating ALL MONTH with prizes. Make sure you you're a follower of the blog and check back often for those extra chances to win!

And now for our sketch this week - which comes with that twist I was talking about ... a colour combo!

As you can see from our colour inspiration picture we thought maybe you'd have some Christmas photos needing scrapping but ... I took it in a very different direction!

As we had just come back from Mexico and the colours were showing up in my pictures a lot, I decided to use them to create a tropical feel. I'd also been sent a couple sets of rub-ons that contained the colours I needed so I decided to use them.

Here are my detail shots.

The blue isn't in the inspiration picture but as Greg was wearing a blue shirt I thought that adding a few touches here and there would help tie everything together.

Here are those rub-ons I was talking about. I am not the biggest rub-on user out there (they kind of scare me to be honest!!) but I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out. I was also able to journal right over them which was great!

The doily was also part of the same prize pack I won. I liked how it was square! Using it on an angle gives the layout some movement and energy.

The little red flower was from the same rub-on pack and the brad and the dahlia are from my Stampin' Up stash. 

Another look at those big flower rub-ons and my white Mister Huey splatters. Marley had suggested mists for another layout (this one) and I liked it so much I duplicated it here. This may have to become my unifying thing for all my Mexico layouts. That and the kraft card stock. Thanks Marley!

Now it's your turn. How will you interpret the sketch and colour challenge? Can't wait to see! Be sure to upload your layout on the Let's Get Sketchy site by the end of March. Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great week!

S.W.A.T Drill #3 - 4 Photo Challenge

It's time for another challenge from your local Scrap Warrior! Oh heck, it's too late in the day to think up witty little lines for a blog post! 

With St. Patty's Day right around the corner we wanted to challenge you with some four focus fun.Just as a four leaf clover brings good fortune, so does this challenge. Simply create a layout using four photos and you could be the lucky winner of a $20 gift card to 3 Scrappy Boys!

Here's my layout - another Disneyland layout. I've been lax on finishing this album but it is slowly coming together. 

I cropped two of the photos to 4x4 to make a even grid. 

Some of my details for you.

Tucked behind the flowers and the red journaling card is one of our Photopass Cards. I like finding new ways to tuck bits of memorabilia into this album.

My letter stickers were not sticking so much, despite additional glue, so I got creative and stitched them down. I don't have a working sewing machine but I do own a Sew Easy (We R Memory Keepers) that got the job done just as well!

Okay, that's it for today. Your challenge is to create a layout with 4 photos on it. Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Oh, and if you're looking for my Let's Get Sketchy Birthday Bash Blog Hop post go here.

Let's Get Sketchy Birthday Blog Hop Bash!

Welcome! Are you ready to PARTY?

Let’s Get Sketchy is turning ONE and to celebrate we are having a Birthday Bash Blog hop.  As you make your way along our hop to visit each of our DT blogs you will find lots of birthday inspired projects.   If you have arrived here from Lynn's blog welcome to the LGS blog hop!! If you have stumbled across this by chance and want to play along then you can head back to the Let's Get Sketchy site to start at the beginning and to start collecting your Birthday challenge words. These words should be in bold on each DT member’s pages.

It is Birthday Season in our house right now. Marley was 9 on Tuesday and she starts the birthday parade that culminates in my husband Greg's birthday on May 10th. Four birthdays in ten weeks can be exhausting! Especially when at least 3 of them require parties with all the trimmings!
My project was inspired by my daughter Marley's love of owls. She has been obsessed with owls for several years now and since we live close to O.W.L. (Orphaned WildLife Rehabilitation Society) she regularly raises money for them. Her birthday party is on Saturday and once again she has asked for donations to O.W.L. She also wanted a swimming party with an owl theme. Ummmm ... not sure owls can swim but, okay! We sent out invitations with both a life preserver ring AND an owl on them and I have been tearing my hair out trying to create these ...



I was inspired by several variations I saw on Pinterest - you can see my board here for all my inspiration pieces.

In typical ME fashion, I bit off a bit more than I could chew for this one. Marley's party is 48 hours away and I have exactly ONE of these bags finished. YIKES!!!! I apologize that I do not have more things to share with you today but ... well, life happened!

UPDATED 03/02: They're finished!! Check out my little brood!

Aren't they the cutest?! Okay, now back to your regularly scheduled programming ...

WAY back in November I took advantage of a Black Friday sale to pick up a Silhouette Cameo. Then my laptop died and my new Cameo languished, waiting for me to sort out my laptop so I could load the software and start playing. That finally happened this week ( along with a couple days of bad nausea - life, right?) and I started cutting out feathers. And more feathers. And then I realized I needed even MORE feathers! NOW do you see why I only have one finished? It's a great way to use up a ton of card stock though!!

I need to get this post scheduled as I have to work tonight but if you check back later over the weekend, I promise to update this post with pictures of all the bags and the other owl themed things I've got up my sleeves for this party. Until then, I'd love for YOU (hint, hint, hint!!) to tell me what your best birthday memory is. How old were you? What did you do that made the day so special? Did your parents ever throw you a big themed party? If so, what was the theme? I will pick a winner from my comments to win a little pack of goodies. I think I remember a stamp set and ribbon & brad set that could make some sweet celebratory cards! I'll get a picture uploaded tomorrow for you!

Also, Let's Get Sketchy is having a Birthday Bash Challenge. Create any birthday inspired project from examples you see on any of the DT pages on this hop and upload it to the LGS blog.  If the project you pick is a layout then do a lift of that page, If it’s a different project - like my goody bags - then do that project.  You can pick from ANY DT member’s blog project for the hop. 

Don't forget to collect your clue words as YOU (hint, hint, hint!) hop along. Once you have gathered all the words they will form a quote related to our Birthday. Tell us that quote by emailing us and get your name in the pot for an extra drawing. The winner of the hop will be randomly selected and will win a nice bag of scrap goodies from Lets Get Sketchy.  As always there are rules for playing!

Here are the rules for playing and winning:

1. You MUST be a follower of each LGS team members blog and leave a comment on each blog and;

2. You MUST also be a follower of the LGS blog.

Please make sure you visit the entire team today as some members are hosting additional blog challenges during the hop and offering their own extra goodies for you so the more you play the more chances you win!

All blog hop entries are due by midnight, March 8th, 2013. CST.   

Now hop on over to (Melinda's) blog to see what she has in store for you!

Here is the lineup in case you get lost!

Line up:

LGS

Brenshevia

Debbie

Stacia

Laurie

Carla

Michelle

Lynn

Alison --- YOU ARE HERE ---

Melinda

Tracy

Sherri

Marit

Lanette

Bev

Stephanie

Stacey

LGS

Playing Along With Let's Get Sketchy - February Week 4

It's Monday once again and I have another layout to show you featuring a fabulous sketch from Let's Get Sketchy. 

It's by our very own Jenessa Franco and I think it is so cute. 

It's a format I have started using quite a bit - 3 photos in row either portrait as they are in this sketch or, as I ended up doing, landscape stacked on top of each other. I have to give a big shout out to Shimelle Lain  who does this a lot too and is the QUEEN at showing us how easy it is to embellish in a style consistent with the rest of our layouts as well as leaving all the room you need for journaling.

Here's my layout.

These pictures were taken at the birthday of Christine's "boyfriend", Levi. His mother had bid on and won a birthday party visit by the Delta Fire Department at a school fundraiser. The kids loved it!! I think you can tell by Christine's massive grin in the bottom picture that using the big fire hose was a huge hit! 

I was drawn out of our house by seeing the fire truck across the street. (This is where I insert a joke about firemen, right?) 

Flipping the sketch to suit my photos gave me a natural place to journal and enough room that I didn't have to worry about it not fitting in.

I substituted the circles in the sketch for buttons and sewed them down with black thread to pull together the hits of black on the layout.

One final cluster up by the title finished things off.

Well, thanks for stopping by today. Since it is Team B's week (I'm on Team A) I will be linking my layout up on the blog shortly. I hope you will too! This is our final sketch for the month of February which means that if you've been thinking about trying for the prize from Moments of Tranquility you're rapidly running out of time! Get 3 of the 4 sketches completed by the end of the week to be eligible for the prize pack. We've had some truly amazing layouts submitted this month - it's been fantastic to see familiar faces each week as well as new ones. Keep them coming everyone!

One final thing before I sign off. This weekend we at Let's Get Sketchy are celebrating our 1st birthday!! In true LGS style, we are throwing a weekend long blog hop (yikes! better get my projects finalized!!) and I'd LOVE to see you all there. 

Thanks, have a great week!

S.W.A.T Drill #2

Time for our second Drill over at SWAT and this time we have a sketch for you to try. What do you think you can do with this beauty?

I turned it on it's side to make it work with the photos I'd chosen and came up with this.

Fun, huh?

The back ground patterned paper is from Teresa Collins' Spring Fling line (which I received as part of a blog hop prize from Sheila ages ago.) I have been using a lot of the papers when scrapping our recent trip to Puerto Vallarta as the colours are so perfectly tropical!

About the subject matter: I know my toes are not exactly the most photogenic part of my body but I really wanted to capture how relaxing this trip was for all of us. This view seemed to sum it up. Kids pool, palm trees, blue skies and lounge chairs. 'Nuff said, right?!

Here are some detail shots.

Every now and then a layout needs a long title. Thankfully I've got approximately a million alphabet stickers to help me with that! I also had fun finding word stickers in colours and phrases that would work (I've maybe got only a half million of those! Hee, hee!!)

My journaling.

The flower and scalloped circle die cuts are also from the Spring Fling line - the brad is an old Basic Grey one from my stash.

I really felt like the page needed even more texture so I grabbed my Stampin' Up Linen Thread and started wrapping.

I showed the layout to Marley at a point that I was happy with and she said it needed misting. I can't remember what colour she suggested but I knew it wasn't right for this layout. Some Mister Huey Opaque White though? Yes, please!! I think I may have a scrapper in the making!!

You may be wondering what happened to the circular element from the sketch. Well, I had originally placed a sun shaped die cut on the page (an old Little Yellow Bicycle one) and while I loved that it supported my story, the colour was too glaringly off from the rest of the layout. So what's a girl to do? Trace around it with brown ink!! Problem solved!

The last picture I have for you today is a picture of what you can win if you play along with this weeks drill.  Check out these goodies! Worth playing for? I think so!!

You've got until February 25th to link up your entry to be eligible to win this prize. And don't forget about Drill #1. We are still taking entries for the All About You challenge and there's a pretty sweet prize for that one too. So, get moving Scrapper!