Cupcakes from Carol! My Scraps Sketch...

Friday is sketch day on the My Scraps & More Sketch Blog and the first sketch is up for April!  

Hubby's step-mom was in town and stopped by for dinner. She NEVER comes empty handed and brought the kids some adorable cupcakes (and use a fruit tart!  Yum!).  They had so much fun eating them, but there was a LOT of frosting!  They loved it!

When I saw this weeks sketch, I immediately thought of the thin Amy Tan washi tape from the Plus One collection, so I started with that to make the blue and pink lines in the center of my page.

On the four squares, three are photos and the fourth I decided to use an an embellished area with this cupcake from Crate Paper Party Day collection and silver glitter pennants from Studio Calico Lemonlush. On the cupcake, the yellow was a bit dark, and if you look closely, you can see that I used some of the thin yellow washi tape to create a bright cupcake wrapper.  Also, for the "faux" tag where my journaling is, I traced a tag, punched the hole for the twine, and then cut a thin slit on the edge to pull the twine through.  It almost looks as if it is a real tag!

Just a few splatters of black paint, some enamel dots from MME, rub on arrows from the AT Plus One, and a chipboard heart from Studio Calico (and those awesome black thickers, too!)

Hope you can find some time to play along this month with the sketches on the My Scraps Sketch Blog!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Scraplifting Myself for Scrapbook Circle-"I Love You Froggy"

I love lifting myself! If you have a certain page that you love, why not recreate it over and over again??

Every year I do a photo of my daughter right before her birthday and use the same page design/layout from year to year, but just change up the papers. You can see them HERE.

Anyways, when going back through my Scrapbook Circle layouts (of which I have a TON), I finally narrowed it down to one of my favorites, with a page design that I thought was a bit different. I created this page last August (2012) when I was a guest designer at SBC for the month! My page used a lot of American Crafts Shoreline collection:





I recreated this page by going with a bit larger strips and centering the design on the page. I just started by cutting papers in this months kit that had similar hues, and ironically, they are very similar to the colors on my original page!

On my first page, I used a stencil and some modeling paste to give some texture, so I did the same on the background here with the exclusive SBC stencil.





I distressed the edges of my strips and stitched in between them, added a few mist splatters, my photos, and then spent some time cross stitching this heart from the Amy Tan Cut & Paste collection.







I love how you can tell my page is a lift, yet it still has different look and feel than the first! Hope you are inspired to lift yourself!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Love morning....another from SBC....

Yup, been doing a lot of "ME" scrapping time: just because I want to!  Been trying to dig in and use my kits more!!  Here's another with the June kit from Scrapbook Circle!  This is for the "Hipster" theme challenge.

In the mornings, Kyler gets up before Charlotte most of the time.  It is so nice to have a little one on one time before the fighting for mommy's attention and morning toy ruckus ensues!  As I was checking my email, Kyler got up on my lap and we snapped a few selfies!  :)

I love how all the colors went together so well this month, so to get a lot of papers on the page I went with a grid design and used a bit of everything!

I placed my title on the burlap ribbon, stitched it, and added a button (from my stash).

 A little distressed banner, stitched, also with a button from my stash.  And I LOVE LOVE the flocked bright orange rub ons!!  They add just the right amount of bright color.

Added lots of depth to my stickers...

And finally, I stuck my journaling in a little pocket on the top.  There are a few splatters on the background, and cluster of distressed strips on the top left that I stitched in place.

I'm gonna try and get another one done with this kit this week!!

Stay scrappy my friends!

Mother's Day and Reelin'

I lost my mojo these past few weeks.  I have been so busy with other things around the house, and even outside the house now that the weather is nice!  So I  just let my slump take it course until I felt the urge to scrap again.  And there's nothin' better to get me out of a rut then a few great challenges!

First, as a huge fan of Diana's sketches, I tackled the sketch for Scrapbook Circle and Lily Bee this month!  I dug into my April and May Scrapbook Circle kits, and mixed them up a bit to scrap these photos that have been laying in my "to do" pile for almost a year!  Charlotte is going to be quite the fisherwoman....she gets it from her grandma and me!  :)

I started by giving a whitewash on the background with gesso, then using a splatter stencil and some blue mist.  The blue came out a bit too dark, so I went over again with some white gesso and I like the way it turned out!   I stuck pretty closely to the sketch, but added one more large circle on the bottom right to balance out my page.  The circles are stitched with yellow thread.

The tulle ribbon in the kit reminded me a bit of fit netting, so I used a bit of it under my photo and held it down with the Maggie Holmes washi paper.  The title alphas are some AC mistables ones from my stash that I misted in navy to match the papers.

And the sketch by Diana:

A few weeks ago I won the new "Find Your Wings and Fly" collection from MME on their blog during their release announcement.  They are VERY generous with their prizes.  While on their blog recently, I came across the sketch challenge for May with a sketch by Ronda Pallizari.  I LOVE this sketch!

These photos of Mother's Day were on my to do list, and I thought the floral prints of the papers were perfect for the theme!

We actually had Charlotte's birthday party on Mother's Day.  I had been in such a tizzy trying to get everything ready for the party, that I forgot it was even Mother's Day.  When my mom arrived, she looked at me and said "Happy Mother's Day!  But I feel so bad...I didn't get you anything!".  I said, "I MUST be your daughter, because I didn't get you anything, either!".  But she did teach me to be a great mom, and I gave her an awesome granddaughter, so we're even!

I love the grid design of the sketch, but I wanted to use two photos, so I changed it up a bit to accommodate my photos and a journaling area.

I had fun using lots of bits of paper, washi tape, chipboard elements, buttons, and enamel dots!  I added a few splatters of white paint in the background, too.

And the sketch from Ronda:

SOOO glad my mojo is back!!  I have a ton of projects to share that I haven't posted over the last month, so this blog is going to get busy the end of this month!

Stay scrappy my friends!