Sketchy Thursdays reveal and some Echo Park papers!

I am so in love with this week's sketch at Sketchy Thursdays, and I was SOOO happy to see it!

I have had these circle coasters sitting on my desk waiting to be put on a page about a special dinner that hubby and I went out for.  Them are from a Brazilian steakhouse restaurant called Fogo De Chao. 

The have 15 different kinds of meats that they roast on spits.  When you want to try some meat, your turn your card to the "green" side and the waiters will rush to your table with the entire skewer and slice the meat right onto your plate!!!!!  It was so funny becaue as soon as you turn your card, all these waiters start running to your table.  Keith was trying to be funny and would flip the card, then flip it back to the red side quickly to trick the staff.  It was funny the first time, but not the next 10 times. 

Anyway, we had a great dinner because it was a special "Thank You" from his work for his accomplishments, and it was on them.  So of course even though we were completely stuffed, we ordered dessert, too!  :)

I used some fo the gorgeous Echo Park For the Record papers and stickers.  I thought the colors and some of the cards fit the page perfectly! I used the border strip page from the collection, and instead of separating the strips, I just cut out a whole chuck and used them just as they were.  I machine stitched between each strip and around the outside edge.

Since my journaling was so long, I decided to mount my photos so that they would open and expose the writing beneath.  I simply added some more length to the photo mats and creased it so that they would open.  The middle photo is glued to the top photo so they both open together.  I loved this little trick and will definetly use it again on other pages!!!

Here is another page I did using the Playground line from Echo Park. Believe it or not, I didn't use any of the patterned papers from this line!  I just used the sticker sheet, the border strip sheet, and the elements sheet!!  I also used my Sew Easy tool and did some hand stitching around the edge.

I saw this idea of using a banner pennant as the base for an ice cream cone in a magazine, so I wanted to use that idea on my page about ICE CREAM!   The ice cream itself is actually a journaling block from the elements sheet of paper.  I thought it looked exactly like a big hunk of vanilla.

Whenever I use stickers on my page, I always mount them to cardstock first and then cut them out.  That way, I can arrange them on my page to see where I like them best!  And then I can use pop dots to pop them up if I want!

TFL today!!!