Scrap Your Story - Spring

At Scrap Your Story this week we're challenging you to embrace spring. We want to see your flowers, spring color, spring pics, Easter, whatever makes you think "spring."

I pulled out some photos from March 2012 - we went on a road trip with friends the weekend before Spring Break and their college-aged daughter took these photos while we were enjoying unseasonably warm weather.

When I started playing around with the page it sort of morphed from my original idea and I realized I'd scraplifted myself. But as much as I liked that layout, I LOVE the way this one turned out.  

I created a mask using a shape from the Silhouette Studio software.

I used October Afternoon Sprinklers and American Crafts Mister Huey's. 

Patterned papers are Pink Paislee's Prairie Hill, plus a few Glitz Designs and Echo ParkScraps.

Grey Cardstock is American Crafts.

Embossing folder from Lifestyle Crafts.

Embellishments include: Prima flowers, Girl's Paperie brads, Glitz Designs dimensional stickers, My Mind's Eye stickers and twine, WRMK eyelets and twine.

Machine stitching and lots of inking with Distress Ink in Walnut Stain.

Krafty snow

Remember those snow storms that hit the midwest the end of February? Well, I managed to take some pics in the early morning light to document our back to back snowyness this winter after spring type weather. The journaling is on the snowflake border card tucked between the photos and the snowflake. 

I used MME Kraft Funday as the backgrounds and for the snowflakes so that I can enter the Scrap Your Stash challenge. Included in the Kraft challenge was to use 3 metal pieces, I have 4 if you don't include the brads holding them on! 

The sketch inspiration for this one came from Kerys over at Scrapbooksteals. The Amber 6 MWM will be her last one, but I can't wait to see what she'll be up to around the interwebs.

In addition to Kraft Funday I used:

Studio G glitter glue, Ranger Enamel Accents, MME Washi, Girl's Paperie and Recollections ribbon, Jenni Bowlin alphas, the metal is from Paper Studios, American Crafts Christmas Knock out punch, Ranger Distress Ink Broken China, and Silhouette Cameo.

Scrap Your Story - sketch challenge

I love a good sketch challenge and boy did Christy cook up a good one for us this week at Scrap Your Story. 

Here's our sketch:

And my interpretation:

I used My Mind's Eye Kraft Funday - I like how the muted colors really make Rylan's shirt pop! There's also some Kiwi Lane Design templates, a bunch of WRMK wide sparkle eyelets, hand stitching with embroidery floss and some machine stitching, Ranger Distress paint, and Target and Love My Tapes Washi. 

I'm still working out the journaling for this, but I left the top of the chevron paper open so that I can tuck in a tabbed journaling card when I'm ready.

Thanks for stopping by, now don't forget to link up those challenges!

When Going Stops Going

The sun is finally shining here, after a dreary week and then getting a foot of snow in less than a day. Now, some of you truly northerners will say that's nothing for you, but we've been busting out spring wear since December so it was dramatic to say the least!

In those dark and dreary days I got a lot of scrapbooking done and all this sunshine means I can take some pictures and share them with you. 

This one is based on the Let's Get Sketchy Feb week 3 sketch.  

As soon as I saw the hexagons I wanted to play with MME Follow Your Heart. Then I had this feeling of being a little to copy cat because some of the design team used that line. So I busted out my Silhouette Cameo and made my own hexagon mask. I adhered it with my Repositionable Xyron. Misted, splattered, and removed the mask.  Then while all the bits were still on the carrier I misted those in another shade, and glued some back into the pattern. I hadn't used many of them so I stuck down some MME washi, and then piled up the tiny hexies and made "buttons" out of reverse side. The chevrons are the reverse side of that MME Follow Your Heart hexagon paper I was talking about. The heat embossed banner was stamped using Glitz Designs Love Games stamp set. More MME washi and a little heat embossing on the photo and I was pretty much done. 

Rockin' with my Dad

Ever start a project only to realize that now that you've picked papers that you have to abandon it to help the kiddos, make dinner, etc.? That's what happened with this layout. I'd set out to do it and realized that it was time to start dinner for company. When hubby's alarm woke me the next day I woke with a start! I had a crazy idea about what I wanted to do for this page. 

I have LOTS of pictures of my guys throwing these pebbles at our local park's lake and I wanted to take this two photo Paper Secrets sketch and give it a few more while maintaining the sketch. 

In addition to the sketch, Paper Secrets challenge included using a chevron. I accomplished this with some paper piecing that I then sewed together.

So I laid out what would go behind the multi-colored doily page and stitched the doily paper down on just one side to make a flap. I even decorated the back of the doily paper with another photo. 

The inside of my three page single page layout!

All the papers are My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, as are the dimensional stickers and clips. There's WRMK and MME washi. The alphas are a variety of American Crafts Thickers and October Afternoon alphas. In addition to machine stitching I used two WRMK Sew Stamper heads. And lastly, Kiwi Lane templates provided some of the shapes, and I used a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder.

Meeting Buzz

I just want to give a bit shout out to all of my new friends from Kiwi Lane that have joined errantscraps! I hope you all had a good time with the hop and that you stick around for a while so we can all get to know each other better. 

One of the advantages of knowing people when you go on vacation is they show you the sights from a different perspective. My sons will never know Disneyworld the same way as most other kids because my brother works for the Mouse. We planned trips to parks based on where he was working and often he'd have little surprises for us. 

This particular day? Let's just say that we're 99.99% certain that we are genetically related to everyone in the picture (there are days I still swear my bro was adopted) and he made that little boy's day by spending so much time with him. Naturally there were lots of pictures, many which never got scrapped while I was working on our trip album. So.Many.Pictures. Now I'm trying to finish some of those up. 

This page is for the Scrapbooksteals.com Jade 8 Mid Week Mojo challenge. Only two more weeks in this series, have you been playing along? There's the weekly challenge and then a separate drawing for those who complete all 10 in a series. Better get your scrap on!

Party Set Up - another Dec Daily post

I joked when I started my Dec Daily project that it might take me until February to finish that mini, and I might have been right. But here's one more for that project - Dec. 21. Vance's birthday, which we spent waiting for grandparents who were due in town at any moment, while we waited we decorated for his party.

My page was inspired by Let's Get Sketchy: January Week 3 Challenge.

I'm also linking this one up on: 

Use it Tuesday: Warm it up Red, Orange, Yellow. Hoarded items include Jenni Bowlin alphas and Imaginesce dotted ribbon are over a year old. The American Crafts Chap papers and yellow ribbon have been in my stash since last April. Paper clips are over 3 years old.

Paper Girls Challenge Blog: Wood/wood grain. I misted the wooden buttons to complement my page colors.

Off

Wooohooo! 2013. We made it. Now it's time to get back to life as normal. I sure wish someone could tell me what that is. ;)

Day glow. Neon. Florescent colors. Whatever you call them, I have a love/hate relationship. You see, I'm a child of the 80s. I owned a *lot* of clothing in these colors and through junior high hot pink was my *favorite* color.

That might be why I tend to scrap in traditional colors, but love when others use them. Thankfully, I still have some of my Amy Tangerine Sketchbook that I won awhile back because the Paper Girls Challenge was to use that particular color range.

I also incorporated Let's Get Sketchy's challenge for this week - to use a photo that is Not Picture Perfect. This one is out of focus. I like the softness it gave the photo, but I'd given up on using it because it wasn't challenge worthy!

Not while I'm eating!

So this week I have jury duty. Now in my county that means that the night before you have to call in to see if you go to the courthouse the next day. Monday and Tuesday, didn't have to go in, so I dedicated the day to getting ahead on some things (like blogging and Christmas present making)- just in case I get to spend a couple of days doing my civic duty.

Without further ado, I present my December week 2 Let's Get Sketchy interpretation! 

I started with two groupings, like in the sketch. The elements just sort of morphed themselves. They're still sort of there. Sort of.

I used a bunch of mismatched Fancy Pants Designs papers, American Crafts Thickers, Jenni Bowlin Designs mini alphas, several Kiwi Lane Designs templates, a Lifestyles Crafts embossing folder, my sewing machine, and of course some good ol' inking. 

Let's Get Sketchy Dec. wk 2 sketch

And don't forget to checkout the Christmas present (aka giveaway) I have for one of my followers. 

Perspective

Every day can't be a mountain top experience, and we all have some valleys. I've been in sort of a creative valley for a few weeks now, my adventure as Scrapbooksteals MWM guest sketcher being an oasis of light in that sea of despondency.

I was in email correspondence with Kristy Lee, seriously my guru when it comes to scrapbooking and definitely an inspiration as a mom, and she pointed out how far I've come in the past year and a half. With that in mind, I thought I'd share some of my pre-blogging adventures with you all.

Ready for this?

My.First.Page.Ever. I was trying to find something to fill time while hubs was in class and I wasn't at work. I seriously felt that paper crafting was not for me (and quite lame!). My mom had started a book about me, I had all my pictures, and a less than half filled book. It's still not full...

in reality, it's not a horrible way to start, but it sure isn't an interesting or pretty page!

First layout of Vance, August 2008. It may not have been the first first, but it was definitely one of the earliest ones! I didn't date or photograph my pages back in those days so I really don't know. But you get the point.

Look! same sketch on each side. And lots o stickers. FUN!

My first Mid Week Mojo, August 2011, Topaz 5, but even though I started mid-series I did go back and catch up.

Better structure, colors, etc., but man oh man, this picture is worth a thousand words.

The page I made today. You know, I'm glad I stuck with this whole scrapbooking thing.

Beautiful moments 

I'm entering this page into the Paper Girls Challenge Blog. This week's challenge was to have a multi-photo layout (3-4 being minimum for a single page). I just love how Amy Tangerine Sketchbook matches my mom's energy and shirt! And my Kiwi Lane templates made it a snap to create during naptime. YAY!

And don't forget to check back tomorrow for information about that Giveaway that I have coming!

Wishes

Vance hasn't taken a nap since around the time Rylan was born - so for a little over two years now. And I can sense that I'm losing that time with Rylan now too. Which is so not fun! Today I barely got started working on my My Mind's Eye December Challenge - Wish List when the napper started playing which set the quiet player into full playtime mode.

I was thinking about doing something along the lines of the song "Grown Up Christmas Wish" but losing that time today made me realize how ::sacred:: it is to me. I'm going to have to figure out a new way to get "me" time in if this no/low napping business continues. So on my wish list this year I have one request: that my kids take naps. If you look closely you'll see that I actually wrote things and changed them, I was going for humor - changing "taking longer naps" to just "taking naps" and the like.

This page is Day 5 in my December Daily and will eventually include a picture of my scrap space which is of course a hot mess right now since we have several projects going at once! Part of what's on my desk is a Giveaway I'm working on, check back next week for more information. ;)

Christmas tags

I've never made my own tags before, but when this week's Scrapbooksteals.com Monday Craft Madness was to use embossing powder I knew that I really wanted to make tags for one particular set of gifts. These gifts are getting packaged into fabric bags that held the boys' twin sheet sets. So they'll look like little blue and grey Santa bags with tags. I'm fairly excited about the prospect!

Here's the tags. I simply "inked" the tags with the embossing powder. It is quite possibly my favorite way to use the powders.

The family has a couple of duplicated first initials so I just wrote their full name in my scribbly scrawl on the backs.

MME gratitude challenge

It's been a while since I played along with My Mind's Eye's blog challenges. Mostly because I didn't have the right stuff for the last couple. But the second challenge for November is to create something showing gratitude. I wrote a little message on this layout, thanking my guys for their genuine passion for life and joy of everyday moments.

All of the papers and embellishments are from Follow Your Heart. When it showed up on Scrapbooksteals.com again recently, well I just couldn't help myself! I had to get more ! I adore this kit and it was an awesome price. 

You are my sunshine

I often talk about the connection that my sons have with my father. In reality, they love both sets of grandparents, I just happen to photograph them playing with my dad more frequently. Part of that is that my mom loathes, hates, is passionately against being photographed. 

I happened to catch her hugging Vance one day and snuck a pic. She has seen it and of course hates it, but she's part of his story too so I wanted to document it. Hopefully she thinks the page is cute at least. 

I used the November week 2 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for this page. I also got inspiration from last week's Practical Scrappers about using embossing powders - Charity had "inked" with it and I thought it gave a nice touch to this layout. 

Speaking of my mom, I was at her house over the weekend and "stole" back my Kiwi Lane Design templates. I've kind of missed them. See how cute they can be?! Especially when paired with Amy Tangerine Sketchbook!

Partay time

While in Utah for the Scrapbooksteals Retreat I had the honor of sitting with Kerys for two days and watching her scrap and while I'd followed her blog for a while I hadn't realized that she has her own challenge! I am hooked. A couple of her friends are part of it too and you can combine elements of all four blog challenges into one for bonus entries. This is the page I did for the November challenge.

So here we are:

I used Kerys' colors, the provided sketch, a pocket (I ended up journaling around the edge of the page so the pocket has extra photos behind each playing card), chevron (formed from two layers of washi under the library pocket and photo), a metal element, and a shape outline created from embellishments.