Practical Scrappers March Sketch

Today on the Practical Scrappers blog we have a sketch to share. It's by our very own Liz Chidester (VERY talented lady!!) and as you can see, we've taken it in very different directions. Here's the sketch and my interpretation of it.

These are photos of Greg and my two younger daughters as they played in the pool during Marley's recent 9th birthday party. I was too far away to get pictures of Marley and her friends playing but liked the idea of recording this story as a bit of an aside to the main party story. 

The blue and yellow colour scheme is a bit of a departure for me but the pictures just seemed to call for it. I fussy cut all those doily images from a sheet of Echo Park paper. The addition of hits of black and green keep the layout interesting by helping move your eye around the page.

My title is a long one (I'm really liking creating long titles right now - they're fun) and is made up of 4 different letter stickers. Partly because I didn't necessarily have all the letters I needed in one font, partly for space considerations but mostly because it is more interesting to break up a long title like this rather than have it all in the same lettering.

Another bonus of using long titles is that is act as a jump start to your journaling. Here, my journaling basically starts where my title leaves off.

Just a random close up of some of my embellishments. Layers of border stickers and washi in the corner with a grouping of a gem, enamel dot and coloured pearl. The large doily is popped up on foam adhesive to give more dimension to the page.

Thanks for stopping by today. At time of publication the corresponding post has not gone live yet on the Practical Scrappers site but keep checking back as there are some truly lovely layouts being shared by our designers. Meanwhile you can have fun seeing how our Technique Team finds new ways to show off their stamps.

On a personal note, I am in the middle of setting up a new on line home for my design work. It's still pretty messy right now but once the dust settles I'll post a link here and on Facebook. I hope all my followers will make the move with me and to help entice you across I will be giving away a free 12 week class. Hope to see you all there .... eventually!!! Thanks for your support over the years. It's because of you that I have the courage to make this leap from free Blog to hosted web site!! You rock!!

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.

Double Page Layouts

Do you make double page layouts? I admit to having made a ton in the past but lately I've focused on single pagers. Well today at Practical Scrappers we are sharing some of our recent double page layouts with you. Hopefully they'll inspire you to create more double page beauties! You can definitely tell a more in depth memory over those two pages (and, of course, include more pictures!)

I went back to our Disney trip for my inspiration and came up with this.

(click to make it larger)

One of the last pre-made pages I have from all the ones I started with was the base for this layout. I did add a couple more blocks of patterned paper - the one behind the title and the one the journaling is on. Actually opposite corners of the same piece of Teresa Collins paper. The journaling is worth a read. It tells the story of how we were literally steps away from meeting the Top Three princesses (Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty) but got Belle, Ariel and Tiana (who?!) instead. Sigh. An hour in line for the second stringers!! Hmmm, I think I'm still a little bitter about missing out on my  favourite Disney Princesses. The girls? Happy as clams!

Here is a close up of that journaling. 

I felt I could embellish with flowers since the subject matter is fairly girly.  I had one giant black one left from my Disney stash but it was too big and I really needed more than one. Digging through my flowers tin (see this post) I discovered a hole or two in my available colours. Yellow and black! I had one large yellow flower but that was it. What to do? Mists to the rescue! I took some old Stampin' Up paper daisies and sprayed a couple of the large ones black and three of the small ones yellow. 

You can see one of the large black flowers in the journaling close up above and the last detail shot below. In this close up of the title you can see the small yellow one as well as the other colours I used. 

Another thing that's quite fun to do - and will help with the ol' memory many years from now - is to use letter stickers to put the names of princesses we saw on their pictures. It adds detail without adding bulk or taking away from the pictures. In fact, that small bit of information enhances the layout as it adds to the memory/story being told.

Here's that close up of the black misted flower I was talking about as well as the one large yellow flower I managed to find in my stash. Oh, and the Mickey Mouse ears gem that I've been adding to all my Disney pages. It's little details like those that tie an album together. If you're wondering what spray I used to mist this black, it's Dyan Reavely's Dylusions in Black Marble.

Well thanks for coming by today. I value your visit. If you liked what you saw today please leave a comment, I certainly do appreciate them and would love your feedback. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday. Have fun scrapping!

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.

LOAD213 Day 27 - Learn Something New

I can hardly believe it is the second to last day of LOAD213 today! My prompt for today was to "learn something new". My techniques and my story are both about learning something new!

When Marley was 4 we signed her up for Blast Ball - a pre T-ball type sport that Ladner was running for 4 year olds. One of the parents at her preschool was heading up the program and a lot of her preschool friends were signing up so we thought " what the heck". Neither Greg nor I particularly like baseball (except for that period in first and second year university I alluded to here :)) but we felt it was important for our outgoing, active little girl to try a variety of things to see if any of them "stuck". Thankfully, Blast Ball did not stick! She had fun and sort of asked about it the following year but that was also her first year of soccer so she never really bugged us about it to the point of us caving!

So that was the "try something new" in the story. As far as the layout goes, I was going through a phase of trying out new multimedia techniques and threw several at this layout to see what would happen. I have several sheets of super bright card stock in my stash (no doubt purchased on sale or something!) and one technique I discovered in LOAD1012 was covering them in white paint to mute the intensity. For this one I used gesso as I wanted to be able to easily add other mediums on top without getting any sort of reaction from the base coat. 

When the gesso was still wet I laid a piece of bubble wrap onto it. This happened to be super sized bubble wrap so the result was a back ground of dots that almost look like soft balls. How serendipitous!

Next I wanted to see if I could create a look of grass along the bottom of my page. I took several shades of green Gelatos and coloured the bottom edge of the card stock. Then I flipped it over and sprayed it liberally with water until the Gelatos dripped down the page. I stopped the drips when I had reached the effect I wanted and dried them with my heat gun. I love the way it looks!

I'll leave you with a couple of close up shots of my title clusters. 

This first one shows you the different layers - paper, journaling tags, stickers on pop dots ... it all adds up to interest and texture.

Here you can see that I added a couple of cute pennants from Pebbles. They seemed to fit the theme!

Well, there you have it. My last layout for LOAD213 (unless by some miracle I find time tomorrow to scrap something other than a DT assignment!!) It has been such a blast creating these layouts for Lain, then seeing them on the videos and hearing my words coming out of Lain's mouth. I did not think she was going to read them verbatim and if I am ever asked to contribute to a future LOAD will definitely chose my words more carefully!! I'd proof read better too!! LOL!

Thank you Lain for giving me this opportunity to showcase my work. It means more to me than words can say! Thank you to all who have stopped by to view my work and were kind enough to leave comments. I appreciate every one of you!!

And now off to figure out Marley's goody bags!! Her birthday party is on Saturday and  am trying to make owls out of paper bags. Yikes!