Looking for a Few Good Sketchers!

Thought I'd share this post with my followers. Brenshevia of Let's Get Sketchy is looking for new sketch artists. If this sounds like you I highly recommend joining the team. We are a fun loving, chatty, supportive group of  creative women!

Good luck to all!!

Design Team Call - Sketch Designers
I am looking for at least 2 new Sketch Designers to supplement our Design Team.

Requirements:

·                     create a minimum of 1-2 sketches per month

·                     create 2 layouts a month for Lets Get Sketchy

·                     you must have a blog

·                     promote Lets Get Sketchy through your blog

·                     must commit to a 3 month term

Compensation:

At this time I am unable to compensate you with product or any form of financial payment.  This will be for the fun and love of the hobby!

How to Apply:

Please send me an email to letsgetsketchy@gmail.com containing the following information:

·                     Your full name and email address

·                     A link to your blog

·                     A list of any design teams you may belong to.

·                     3 sketches that best displays your sketching style

·                     A little intro telling me why you would like to be a part of Lets Get Sketchy Sketch Team.

Please send your application to: letsgetsketchy@gmail.com

Please put: "Sketch DT" in the subject line.

Applications due: April 9, 2013

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!

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.

Past Time to Pick a Winner, Don't You Think?

Um ... oops? My apologies for forgetting to pick a Birthday Bash Blog Hop winner!! First off, a big thank you to all my commenters (is that even a word?) I really appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts on my little crafty efforts.

As per random.org, the winner is comment #16 ...

Buffy EsserMarch 1, 2013 at 9:58 AM

Oh My Goodness this is the cutest thing! I really love the colors you used for the feathers!

CONGRATULATIONS BUFFY!

Please email your mailing address to alisonday at eastlink dot ca and I'll get those goodies out to you.

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!

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!

Let's Get Sketchy Monday Reveal

Is it really Monday again?! Must be because there is another sketch up at Let's Get Sketchy. It's Team A's turn to share our layouts. Please be sure to stop by the blog to see all the beautiful examples from my team.

Before I get to my layout I wanted to let you know about our sponsor this month. We are pleased that Moments of Tranquility is donating a prize pack full of paper and Dusty Attic chipboard and flowers - read all about it here. Remember that in order to be eligible to win you need to complete 3 of the 4 sketches this month. Don't panic though as you have all month to get them in!

Here is this week's sketch 

Don't you just love those hexagons?! I was inspired to get a little artsy with my layout.

I have a template with hexagons so I slapped it down and added some gel medium to the page. 

I have created a layout using school pictures for each LGS sketch this month - feels so good to cross that task off my to do list! Today is Marley's turn again. I took my colour cues from her dress and then went digging in my scrap drawer. The square sheet behind the photo is actually a Christmas paper from Stampin' Up but since the pattern is subtle, it completely works for a non Christmas project.

And now my details.

These are super old Martha Stewart tag stickers which I dressed up with some 1" circles of the papers I'd used already. It makes a fun alternative to more traditional triangular or pennant banners.

My title was a little lop sided but I couldn't move the letters once I'd stuck them down so to fix things I added that little 'photograph' banner sticker to the right side and now everything looks intentional. Easy peasy!

There was some residual ink on it from another project on my stencil but I liked how it added shading to some of the hexagons. To further emphasize the pattern I used my trusty Gelatos in silver and a deep red. Gelatos are super easy to use. Here I just added a few swipes of colour where I wanted it and then used my finger to rub it in and spread it around.

Thanks for stopping by today. Remember to check out the layouts by my other talented team mates and then  go and make your own layout using this sketch. Hope to see you in the links!!

Playing Along With Let's Get Sketchy - February Week 2

Welcome to another Monday morning and another Let's Get Sketchy challenge. This is the second sketch for February and it seems like a great time to remind you all that to be eligible to win each month's prize you need to complete 3 of the 4 weekly sketches. You've got all month to get those sketches in so don't panic if you think you've already missed a week!

And now onto my contribution. 

I sort of switched the photo placements around but kept to rest of the sketch pretty much. This is Paige's Kindergarten pictures. She's still got those chubby little kid cheeks - so cute!! I liked the back ground texture in the sketch (below) so I used my Mister Huey's to create a similar feel. Then backed it with a full piece of Stampin' Up DSP. The blue totally matched the blue background in Paige's picture! Plus it meas I'm using 2 full sheets of 12x12 paper! Woo hoo!! Stash bustin' baby!!

Here's the sketch TeamB is using this week.

And some detail shots.

I am really loving digging through my stash and finding (and USING) the products in it. These may not be the most recent releases but I truly don't think that matters! I am compiling them in a way that is fresh and current so they feel fresh and current too.

Oh, and yes, the two hearts on this layout were leftovers from this layout. I always keep any extra shapes I've punched or die cut (and now I have a pretty little container to keep them in - see here) so when a layout calls for a little something, I have a stash at hand to dig through.

The journaling is on this little tag that I tucked behind the photos at the bottom of the layout. I liked that the card was a yellow grid because the colour matched Paige's shirt and it felt "school-like". Like a yellow legal pad or something. It's the littlest details sometimes!

Thanks for coming to visit today. I've got several wonderful posts lined up this week and on Thursday I will also have an exciting announcement to make. Hope you come back for it!!

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you have a great week!!

Let's Get Sketchy Monday Reveal

Can you believe it's February already? As I type this I am watching my nephews while my sister and brother-in-law celebrate their 9th Wedding Anniversary. We are all staying at a resort in Neuvo Vallarta enjoying a break from the cold of BC! Seems appropriate then (and completely by accident!) that the subject of my layout for today's Let's Get Sketchy reveal is Marley. Nine years ago today she wasn't quite born yet. What a lot of changes in those 9 years!

But I digress, I hope you've checked out the rest of Team A's examples for this week. This is the sketch we are all working with.

Another gorgeous one from our fearless leader, Brenshevia!

I came up with this.

I finally found pictures to go with some of the Teresa Collins line I bought last summer!

Here are some detail shots.

Well, I guess I don't have too much to say today. Must be the sunshine addling my brain! Thanks for stopping by though and don't forget to go to the LGS blog and see what my fellow designers have made for you. Hope to see your layouts entered this month!