Practical Scrappers - two page layouts

Today at Practical Scrappers we're taking on a beast - the two page layout. This beast can be intimidating, but as you can see if you head on over to the PS blog tackling it can yield some phenomenal results! 

Inspiration for this spread came from the Scrapbooksteals.com MWM Peridot 4. I took the sketch and sort of doubled it over, but because I wanted a long title and that sunburst I reduced the number of photos on the left-side. 

Close-up of one of the clusters. You'll see that I had a lot of fun using up some leftover stickers and scraps of paper. 

 The title was no less fun - a total of 7 fonts from two brands went into that bad boy!

Papers: MME Ooh La La, Andrea Victoria

Die Cuts: Authentique Blissful, MME Ooh La La

Alphas: AC Thickers, October Afternoon Mini Market and Sticky Keys

Embellishments: AC Amy Tangerine Sketchbook stickers, MME Lush 2 brad and ribbon, stash blue flowers, Echo Park This and That "brothers," MME Miss Caroline doily sticker

Other: WRMK straight stitch Sew Easy head, yellow floss

Let's Get Sketchy Guest Post - May week 2

I'm back again for another Let's Get Sketchy Guest Post. This one took me a minute to figure out, but I love how it turned out. 

The sketch this week:

And my interpretation:

I used MME Ooh La La for this one, plus some paper tearing and stitching and it not only used up most of what was left of the kit but it turned out pretty cute. There's also some clear glitter glue and Ranger Enamel Accents. The title was done using a variety of Girl's Paperie, Jenni Bowlin, October Afternoon and American Crafts Thickers.

Now, since most of you won't be able to read the journaling I'll tell you why I took these selfies of my Monkey. When he wakes from naps (my scrappy time) while I'm finishing projects he climbs up the back of the chair and digs his toes into my pants, holding onto my back. He clings so tight that I can actually carry him around the house that way. Definitely the cutest sort of "monkey on your back."

Scrap Your Story - Journaling

From day one of scrapping I've tried to at least include a caption with my pages - largely because I remember going through my parents' old photos and there's little to no context included with the stories pictures.

When Christy said that this week's challenge at Scrap Your Story was to include at least two sentences of journaling I sort of jumped up and down. So easy peasy. I was able to find quite a bit of additional inspiration for my page from the challenges I'm linking to below.

Don't forget that our challenges run for a week, following this order:

Week 1: Use it (you will be given an item you must incporporate).

Week 2: Theme (your layout and/or photos needs to show this theme).

Week 3: Sketch (flip it, rotate it, tweak it...as long as we can see the basics there).

Week 4: Technique (we will describe/show a technique you must include somewhere).

This week I pulled out some total eyerollers. There's the parent joke that kids only want to play with the box? Well, this Christmas my kids opened all the presents and ignored them in favor of the Buzz Lightyear's that we acquired this summer. Really?! Thanks kids.

Or maybe it's because mom was lame about put finger paint in their stockings... anyway.

To get my misting to show up nicely I had to darken the page a bit, making the images dark but you certainly get the idea. ;)

Scrap Our Stash
Use 1 polka dot and 1 stripe paper. Use 1 bird/bee/butterfly (I stamped it on the blue banner, but there's lots of rockets and those fly!)

Scrappy Friends
Kerys - use hand stitching, a punch, mixed alphas
Kristi B. - use something that flies
Rochelle - color scheme
Brenda - sketch

Products used:

Bazzill textured cardstock, yellow

AC Kraft and Classics collection (aqua)

Fancy Pants Rough and Tough (black dots and stripes)

Echo Park For the Record (red dots)

Amy Tangerine Sketchbook (blue banner)

MME All is Bright (tags)

Martha Stewart Rocket punch

Color Box pigment black ink

WRMK random stitch sew head

Ranger Enamel Accents, white and black

Ranger Glossy Accents

Jenni Bowlin mini alphas

October Afternoon mini market alphas

AC Thickers

Paper Studios circle paper clips

Unity Stamp Co. butterfly stamp

Studio Calico graph mask

October Afternoon Sprinklers Wheatfield

brown embroidery floss

Two Little Monkeys Hangin Around

Wow! After that (albeit inspiring) card class last week I am ready to get back to my normal page challenges. Though if you followed my posts last week and "learned" along with me you'll probably notice some of those techniques hanging around in the next couple of posts!

So without further delay I bring you Two Little Monkeys.

The title is very important because over at Scrapbooksteals the Monday Craft Madness challenge was to use the theme "Tea for Two" which could be interpreted literally as something regarding tea/picnics or with "two" in the sentiment/title as I have done.

The layout is based on a two page sketch by Gail Owens for Kiwi Lane's DT Doodles. I used Tags 6, Aspen Court 2A/2B mini, and Clara Lane 3B.

I'm also entering this in the S.W.A.T. Drill #4  which was based on this color scheme which I completed with the help of Echo Park's For the Record, Ranger Distress Fired Brick Ink, and a bunch of fussy cutting, foam dots, October Afternoon Black Keys and Mini Market alphas, AC Thickers, Ranger black Enamel Accents, and some Studio G glitter glue. I sort of skipped adding the cream as a paper since it was almost the same color as my boys' skin! 

Moment Like This - DT post

Our challenge at Scrap Your Story this week is to include an animal somehow in our layouts. Well, we don't have pets, and the boys are into rockets and cars with a superhero or two thrown in by the bigger kid. That means, no favorite animals currently in the picture... current. picture. Duh! All I had to do was dig back to less than current pictures, WTG me! 

At two, Vance adored the Mouse, he still even likes Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when we put it on for them. Pretty much every kid goes through a period of thinking Mickey is pretty much the coolest, and Vance was not one to disappoint so when my brother invited us to visit him at Disney World we knew that this moment was a must. 

I'm not a Kelly Clarkson fan, but for some reason this song popped into my head while I was looking at the pictures of our time with Mickey and I knew it was meant to be. I dug out some sheet music paper, some scraps and set to work using a sketch from Scrapbooksteals.com to put this together in a snap. 

I was working on it while talking to my mom, who went on the trip with us, and I about cried explaining how I was going to use that song as a title. So perfect "for a moment like this."