Making A One Page Sketch Into A Two Pager

Good evening fellow crafters. I hope your week is going well. Today I decided to give the latest sketch at Let's Get Sketchy a try. Team A of our Design Team was up for this week's reveal, and I am on Team B. But I always try to create a layout with each week's sketch, even if it's not my turn. Here's the sketch:

May Week 3 Sketch

Sketch created by Ashley Horton

If you've followed me for awhile, you know I have talked about having a gazillion Disneyland photos that I want to scrap. Having said that, I have a hard time creating layouts for them for some reason. About a year ago, I decided to break the task of creating scrapbook layouts of our Disney adventures into small chunks. I started with an album for the photos we took during Disneyland's 50th Anniversary back in 2005. It's been going very slow, but I vow to keep working at it!

Anyway, back to this week's sketch. I decided to get brave and use the sketch as my jumping off point for the two page layout that I planned to create. Here's the first page created with the sketch:

The layout features the photo mosaics that were created from photos that guests had submitted of their visits to Disneyland over the last 50 years. They were so awesome! I have enough photos to make several pages, but I took my favorites from the pile and created a second page.

So, now there is another couple of pages done for my album. If I had anything that I wanted to do differently, I would have not had all my photos printed in the 4X6 format. And of course the majority of the photos are already cropped in really tight, so it's hard to crop them any further. But you sometimes have to work around what you have and make the best of it!

I hope you will try to join us at Let's Get Sketchy this week and create a layout of something you've been putting off. We'd love to have you.

Also, if you weren't aware of it, we are having a Design Team call at Let's Get Sketchy until May 24th. All the details are here!

New Sketchy Monday at Let's Get Sketchy

Hello dearies. I hope your Monday is treating you well. Today is a new sketch reveal at Let's Get Sketchy, and I really was hoping to get a layout completed with this week's sketch before I posted this blog post, but it just didn't happen. This week's sketch was created by our awesomely talented Sketch & Design Team member Ashley.  Team A was up to bat for the Design Team reveal. I'm on Team B.

May Week 3 Sketch

I will create a layout with this fabulous sketch before the week is over! In the meantime, I hope you will join us this week and create your own layout! We love to see your work. Come on over and inspire us!

And before I sign off, I want to share this photo of a little friend that has been hanging out in our back yard that has been preoccupying my time! 

There are at least three babies, but this one can't seem to get the hang of flying. He was stuck up on the fence this morning when I snapped this photo of the mama bird bringing him some food. In fact all three were hopping along the fence at one point. When he got brave enough to try to fly, he ended up in our tortoise pen. For now he's safe, but we have a lot of neighborhood cats that I fear may come to call. I'm keeping my eye out for these furry predators. Just trying to help him get ahead in his young life!

Have a wonderful day ya'll. Stay safe! Especially those of you that may be in the Oklahoma area. 

Playing With Only Three Colors And A Sketch!

Hello lovelies. I hope you are having a wonderful day thus far. I was able to work on a layout this morning and I would like to share it with you. I used the May Sketch #4 from Life.Paper.Scrapbook.

I also wanted to incorporate Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Challenge - Black & White + 1 into my layout. I chose pink as my third color. Here's what I came up with using both challenges:

I had fun putting this layout together. Such good memories of our middle granddaughter when she was just a little baby. 

The background patterned papers I used where from the Pebbles/Country Picnic collection and the Studio Calico/Classic Calico Vol. 3 collection. 

Hope you enjoy the rest of your Friday eve. 

Are You Challenged Enough???

Good afternoon dear friends. I have a layout I worked on today to share, as well as a heads up on two new challenge blog sites that have just started up! 

First of all, you may remember my layout from h-e-double hockey sticks last week. It seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong when I was creating it. I even redid it and I still was not too thrilled with it. But I vowed not to redo it again, as the products I used were from the May Scrapbook Circle kit "My Favorite", and I didn't want them to go to waste. But this morning I decided I wanted to give the sketch I used another try. The sketch is from the May Sketch Challenge at Scrapbook Circle. Here's a look at the sketch again.

I pulled out my remaining kit products, a few new photos, and went to town. I must say this time I was much happier with the result. 

I loved the background paper from the Elle's Studio/Serendipity collection. And there's some Lily Bee Design and Basic Grey mixed in. Everything except the wood veneers from Studio Calico and the Tiny Type letter stickers from Cosmo Cricket were included in the kit. 

Everything right up to the end went smoothly, until I went to use the larger letter stickers for my title. If you can believe it, they were not punched out. The entire sticker sheet of letters was all one big piece. Aaaargh!!!!!! How's that for luck??? But I was bound and determined to not let it get me down, and I just hand cut around each letter! 

I also had in mind when I created this layout, the About A Girl May 1st challenge. The challenge is to use "your girl's name" somewhere on the layout. I wrote about my little girl in the journaling. This is their first official challenge over there, so please come and join them in the fun!

Also, another new challenge blog that is just getting off the ground is ScrapStuffz "Inspired by" Challenges. They are looking for some Design Team members, so if your interested, please check it out here. The first challenge looks very interesting!

And of course, don't forget the new sketch for this week at Let's Get Sketchy! We too are having a Design Team call for 2-4 new designers to join our team. Head on over here to check it out!

Have a wonderful rest of your week, and keep scrapping!

New Sketchy Monday At Let's Get Sketchy

Good morning my scrappy friends. Today is Monday, and that means it's time for a new sketch reveal at Let's Get Sketchy! 

May Week 2 Sketch

Sketch created by Ashley Horton

I love this sketch! I found three photos that would work well with the sketch, so then I headed for my patterned papers to see what jumped out at me. I found these gorgeous patterned papers and embellishments from the Basic Grey/Lucille & Serenade collections. I loved how the layout turned out.

We really would love if you would come on over to Let's Get Sketchy and play along with us! 7 Dots Studio is our awesome sponsor this month and they have donated a beautiful prize! All you have to do is create layouts for 3 out of our 4 challenges for the month to be in the running! Come on, let's get those photos scrapped. You know you want to!

Have a wonderful week!

Scraplifting An Awesome Layout!

If you read my last post, you know that I was having a terrible scrap day(s) with the last layout that I created. Well I got back up, dusted myself off, and moved forward. And I am super glad I did. 

I decided to give Challenge #45 at Challenge Me Happy a try. The challenge is to scraplift this layout by Marie Johansson. Her layout is gorgeous and I knew it would be fun to use it as a starting point and inspiration for my layout.

I used products from the May kit, "My Favorite",  from Scrapbook Circle. The background paper was from my own stash and is from the Studio Calico/Classic Calico 2 collection. The patterned papers were from the kit and are from the Basic Grey/Mint Julep collection. And the lovely washi paper, bows and other patterned paper are from the Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes collection.

As with my previous layout, I combined this layout with a couple of the NSD challenges from 2 Peas In A Bucket and Shimelle's blog. For 2 Peas In A Bucket, I used Challenge #5, (Use 2 Peas downloadable digital files), on my layout. The film strip and polaroid are from their new selections available. And for Shimelle's NSD Challenge #7, (Use unexpected supplies on your layout), I used a used Bounce fabric softener sheet as a mat for my photo. It is misted with Memories Mist in Cherry Smoothie. 

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will find some crafty time this weekend! 

The Page From H-E-Double Hockey Sticks!!!!!

Have you ever had one of those days? Or maybe two of them in a row??? I had the worst luck on my latest layout, but I am going to call it done and move on! Sheesh! It only took me two days, (off and on), and a complete background overhaul before I settled on the end product.

It all started when..... I decided to dive into my May kit, "My Favorite", from Scrapbook Circle. I wanted to play along with their May Sketch Challenge, so I found 4 photos that would work great for the sketch. Here's the sketch:

OK, so far, so good. It started coming together pretty well at first. I then decided that I wanted to mix it up a little and throw in a couple of more challenges to make things interesting......

2 Peas In A Bucket's NSD '13 Challenges are still going on until tomorrow night, so I wanted to give Challenge #7 a try. It is "Be inspired by a Garden Girl."  I chose this layout from Marcy Penner to draw some inspiration from. I loved the stitched arrows, the slim patterned paper borders on top and bottom of her layout, and her circle die cut title embellishment.

Well this is where my troubles started. I couldn't figure out the proper cutting depth on my die cutting machine to make the small intricate letters for my circle embellishments and for the cardstock I was using. I finally got an acceptable outcome, but they are definitely not perfect. Then my sewing machine decided to give me fits while I was trying to stitch the arrows and banner pieces. After several stops and starts, I finally tackled that hurdle.

I also had decided beforehand, that I would try Shimelle's 23rd NSD challenge from her blog, "Stretch Your Supplies."  I used both the A & B side of the patterned paper from the Fancy Pants/Trendsetter collection so I could stretch the patterns. I used stamps from the Pink Paislee/Nantucket collection that I had in my stash, but haven't been using. And I used my square punch to help create the banner pieces. 

After the layout was done, it was really bugging me. My original layout had a red background, and I finally decided that it was all wrong. (I should have taken a photo of it). So I ripped everything off of the red background, and pulled the Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes patterned paper out of the kit and used it as the foundation paper. 

I like the final product much better, but it took me long enough! I could have had two or three more layouts completed in the time it took me for this one! Arggggghh! It is one of my favorite memories of the girls, and I got the story down. That's what counts, right???

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend. And for you mothers', have an awesome Mother's Day tomorrow!

Keep scrapping......even if one layout could be the death of you!