A mini mini...

I am not much of a mini album maker, but when I got the "Party Animal" line by KaiserCraft from Your Scrapbook Stash store, I just had to cut out the animals to make a little album for Charlotte.

She knows her farm animals and other dometicated animals well, so I am glad this paper had things like a seal and a turtle.....she need to get to know them, too!  :)

The covers are two chipboard pieces that I covered with paper and then I bound the album with my Bind It All.

The format is very simple. I cut 14 4x4 pieces of patterned paper (there were 14 different animals on the paper).  Then in a Word document, I created a page that was 12x12 and made a whole bunch of 3.5x3.5" boxes and put the animals name in there.  I printed them out and traced each square with a black pen.  I also cut some plain squares of white CS 3.5x3.5" and added the cut out animal to each one.  I arranged them in alphabetical order and voila!

She LOVED looking through the pages!  :)

What I'm into right now....

I wanted to share a page that I did based on the June sketch at Sassafras Lass using the Sunshine Broadcast line that I got from Your Scrapbook Stash.  I pretty much stayed close to the sketch.

I have decided that I love ledge, text, and graph prints, and that they make great background papers! I am so into that...

There was a challenge at Scrapdango to NOT use pink on a girly page, and I think this does it!  I used a yellow and blue combo instead.

The blue flower on the top left was made from one of the border stickers, and the yellow one in the middle was made by pleating a border strip from the botttom of one of the pieces of SL paper.  The flower on the bottom I actually cut out from a "foldie" cause I only wanted one flower.

Another thing I have been doing lately is stamping on my layouts.  It is very subtle, but I have some circle and flower stamps that scatter the page.  I have a TON of stamps and I am glad that I am getting back into using them.

TFL!

Once Upon a Sketch and My Scraps...

I saw a layout a few months ago in Scrapbooks Etc. documenting a childs "22 things" they could do at 22 months, so I decided to take that idea and do a page of 24 things for Charlotte at 24 months!  (2 things at 2 years was kinda lame, so I did the 24 instead....:)  )

I had this photo for a few weeks intending to use it for this page, and when I saw the challenge this month at Once Upon a Sketch, it totally got me inspired!

Here is the sketch from Once Upon a Sketch.  The journaling challenge was to journal about a female, and that wasn't hard for me to do!

The other thing that really got me inspired was the new stuff I got from Your Scrapbook Stash!  Erica sent me some of the new Sassafras Lass Sunshine Broadcast papers and I LOVE them! 

I got to use the "Foldies" for the first time and I have to admit they are quite fun!  I did have to add some pop dots behind them, though to make them stand a bit better.

I also played around with some misting, stamping, and stitching.  I really liked the geometric pattern of the background paper, so instead of covering it up in the middle, I just misted it with some blue mists.  Then I added some Sass Lass borders on the top and bottom.  I also used a Jenni Bowlin butterfly stamp in three place on the page, and some Maya Road kraft journaling spots. 

My sewing machine is about 20 years old, and I had these disks you can put in to make decorative stitches.  So I played around with some and LOVE how these stitches came out!  You will definetly see more decorative stitching on my upcoming pages! 

And I don't usually share my journaling (other than what you can see on a layout)  but here are Charlotte's 24 things:
You know most of your colors (except red)
You still LOVE Froggie n’ Dolly
You are sleeping great in a big girl bed
You like to sit on the potty, but haven’t really gone yet
You think every animal says “moo”
When you spill something, you say “oops” and grab a towel to clean it up
You call yourself “Sha-Sha”
You can sing and hum the tunes to many songs
You can count to 6, but sometimes skip 3
You love beads
Your new favorite show is Thomas the Tank Engine
You walk up and down the steps without holding the railings (sometimes)
You can swim across the pool with your arm floaties on
You try and put on your own clothes
You said a 5 words sentence “Momma, I want more grapes”
You love mommy’s perfume, necklaces, and shoes
When you don’t want to go somewhere, your legs become “noodles” and you sit on the floor
You don’t stop running when I tell you to stop
You say please and thank you
You bring your stool over to the sink to brush your teeth
You help me empty the dishwasher and know exactly where everything goes
You still take a 2-3 hour nap most days
You pull my hand and say “show” when you want me to see something
Your hair goes to the middle of your back


This next page I did both for a challenge at My Scraps and More and the Crate Paper color challenge this month.  There is a summer long contest going on at My Scraps called the "Got Talent" contest.  It is not an elimination contest....anyone can play.  You just earn points for things that you complete. 

Anyways, I used some of the Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe papers to do this Mother's Day page.

I have to say that I hate this photo of Charlotte and I, but my hubby has no patience behind the lens.  I probably would have take 20-30 shots of this scene, but he took 3 and said "that's good". 

I did some misting on the background with blue and black mists, and some random stitching here and there.  I totally screwed up the stitching on the bottom element, which I wanted to stich over, but it got caught under my machine foot and went around instead...oh well.

Thanks for stopping by today and I will have more posts over the weekend!!!!

Sketchy Thursdays reveal!

Another wonderful Thursday and another great sketch from Sketchy Thursdays!

When I arrived back from vaca on Monday, I had a ton of packages waiting for me, one of which was my "stash" from Your Scrapbook Stash.  Let me tell you....Erica sends a TON of stuff every month for us to work with and is so extremely generous!!  You could experience this yourself because YSS is having a Design Team Call!!!!  Check out all the details HERE.

Anyways, she sent me some of the new Kaiser Craft "Party Animal" line to play with.  Our favorite "animal" in this house (besides our dog and cat), is FROGGIE!!!!!

Charlotte doesn't go anywhere without Froggie.   He is quite the friend, so I did a little page about him...

The colors in these papers worked so so well with these photos. 

This line comes with a little tag book of journaling spots which are so adorable.  This one happened to have a monkey on it, but I covered it up with one of the chipboard pieces of a frog, of course! 

I also used some of the trims from Girl's Paperie, and letters from My Little Shoebox and American Crafts.

After being gone for a while, I REALLY need to get back into my scrap room!  I printed a ton of photos and have about 10 layouts planned...most of which I want to get done this weekend!  I am doing a crop all day on Saturday, so that should help!

I was just going through my file of all my pages so far this year, and I am at just about 100.  By the end of the month, I should be around 120, whjich puts me on track for 250 this year...although we have a baby coming soon, so that may put me a bit behind...:)

What does the cow say? and relaxin' on a hammock...more from NSD...

I just got the October Afternoon 5&Dime papers from Your Scrapbook Stash and when I saw the piece with the farm animals on it, a story came to mind which I journaled about on this page!  :)

I used this sketch from "The Scrappiest" and turned it to fit my photo.  I just got a new camera lens and was playing around with it the other day and snapped this photo of Charlotte to use on my page for this story.

My hubby is such a jokester....   anyways, I stitch around the main photo and journaling block and painted a chipboard frame with red paint and stitched that with the machine, too.  I love machine stitching on chipboard!  I need to do it more often....

Then I did this page using my April Cocoa Daisy kit, which I am still so in love with!!!!!http://www.cocoadaisy.com/forum/

Isn't it funny how you start a page with an idea in mind and it ends up nothing like you were thinking?  That's what happened with this page.  Even though it was based on a sketch, the colors and embellies I was thinking in my head just wasn't what the finished prodcut looked like.  That being said, I really love the way this came out, still!

sketch by Kristin at Memorable Seasons....

I used the packaging from the Jillibean Soup butterfly pins behind some embellies to make them stand out more.

Love the layered pop pieces from Basi Grey and the small doilies from Cosmo!

I have a mini album to share soon and as promised, some pics of my new scrap space!

Once Upon a Sketch, YSS, and MAGPIE CLUB REVEAL!!!

I am so excited to write this post today!  There is a lot going on during the 1st of the month!

This month, Your Scrapbook Stash is sponsoring Once Upon a...Sketch, challenge blog.  If you haven't visited this blog before, there are two challenges posted a month, one on the 1st and one on the 15th.  For each sketch, there is also a journaling requirement that differs every sketch.  It is a great way to make sure you get your memories down on your pages!!!

Not only do you have a chance to win at Once Upon a...Sketch, you also can link your page to YSS and win a prize there, too!  Here is the post to link at YSS.

Here is the May 1st sketch.  The journaling criteria is to use a journaling spot for your writing.

And here is my page.  My husband takes so much pride in his cooking, and he just beams when he has spent all day smoking a brisket and it comes out PERFECT!  :)  So here he is with his brisket, (and beer).

Now here's the great thing about my page: I made it with the May Magpie Club KIT!!!!! (and most of the items also happen to be available at YSS, too, individually.

Do you know what a Magpie is?  It is a bird related to a crow (but much prettier) that collects and hoards small bits and objects and shiny things.  Sound familiar?  My "nest" is overflowing with small scrappy bits and shiny things!  :)

This kit is absolutely gorgeous!  I am going to give you a few sneak peaks at a couple more pages I did, and then I will reveal them tomorrow!!!

PLEASE go visit the following sites.  You WON'T be disappointed!

Magpie Club
Once Upon a....Sketch
Your Scrapbook Stash