Sizzlin' Summer Sketch #4

OK, so don't let this design freak you out! It was a little intimidating I will admit but after working with it, I really love how it looks!

I've used some 'Hey You' Basic Grey paper and some stickers and bits from the My Mind's Eye 'find your wings and fly' once again...I'm really liking using this paper right now...great colours!

Now you'll have to excuse my photos...it's super late or super early depending on what you consider 1:00AM and I've used my iPhone to take these photos in my workshop...so lighting, not so great!!!

My new favourite CTMH stamp set is our E size 'Framework Alphabet'...I love it actually and I'm so glad that CTMH has made their E size sets the same 6x6 size as all the other stamp set packaging!

I've used our new Alcohol Markers to colour in the letters (Honey)...they are so fantastic...I never knew Alcohol ink markers were so awesome!!!

These fun arrow shapes and stamps are in our new Artbooking Cricut bundle! Love this stamp set and it was super easy to cut these shapes out and stamp (in Ruby) my own custom, colour coordinating embellishment! I LOVE Close To My Heart when it comes to matching things up!

Thanks for checking in today! I hope you are enjoying all these great sketches!

Sizzlin' Summer Sketch #3

Hello Again!

I was busy working on a couple more of these fantastic Sizzlin' Summer sketches over at Scrapbook Challenges! I even dug into my stash for this journalling page...I think this pad of journalling bits has got to be at least 6 yrs old! 

Glad to have the colours work so well with these new papers!

I had this photo from three years ago, sitting there waiting to be scrapped...super simple design and I just stuck it down...rather proud of myself that I actually kept it simple this time around :) I wanted to use the Kraft CS base as the other layouts in my daughter's travel album have similar colours and I wanted to have it all work well enough together...and I love Kraft too!!!

Popped up the title and a couple of circles, dropped some Dylusions Ink spray here and there and that was it!

Have fun with this new sketch everyone and thanks so much for stoppin' by!

Use your own stash...

Well some of you remember the layouts I've posted previously from a class I took called 'Use Your Own Stash', a 20 Layouts Workshop...I am just plugging away on putting the finishing touches and photos on some of these layouts.

The mastermind behind this class is Jennifer Edwardson, she owns a Scrapbook Store on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada...for those International followers out there...and she comes to events and other stores and teaches her class.

It is action packed, by this I mean you need to be organized (she sends you a class kit list) and ready to get things done! Now at a super-charged pace of about 20-30 minutes per layout, I only ever get the 'guts' as I like to refer to it, of a layout done. So that means I get the base papers done, photo matting if needed and photos down. All of the embellishing and title and journalling work gets done after or much later on my own time. Seeing as the embellishing is where I like to take my time to ponder placement, for those of you that know me {wink}, and those of you that don't know me so well...I've been known to take a minute or 10 or...just to put a brad or button in its final resting place! So this class really gets me stickin' er down and movin' on!!!

Now she is teaching this fun 20 layout class at a Fundraising Event here to benefit BC Children's Hospital, click here to see the details of this worthy event on May 5, 2012.

The wonderful thing about this class is you build your kits from your own stash of papers and embellishments. So each person ends up having their own individual layout based off her sketch. 

The colour in these photos aren't the greatest, but you get the idea :) I wanted to make sure to include a photo of my Mom and my daughter as well as the beautiful gift she bought her for her 16th Birthday. A friend of my Moms' makes these lovely reclaimed silver teaspoons into bracelets! Such clever people in the world :)

Yeah! another layout finished and more of my stash used up! Mission Complete!

Monochromatic Challenge anyone???

Well, I'm trying to do a Monochromatic Challenge over at Let's Scrap for their month long challenge...click on Elizna Parsons Month long challenge here for rules etc.


Basically you need to use this sketch:

and you also need to:

• choose one colour (varying shades are good)
• use a large title
• use a stamp
• use a handmade embellishment (made by you) that matches your papers/layout/style
• use your STASH, no new items

Anyways...I started one layout and I got a little side tracked because as I was trimming my photos and looking for paper I got on a roll...and in the end I can up with this:

Love how this turned out in the end even if I failed at the challenge :)
I still got 2 pages scrapped!!!

I added 3D foam to every other letter to add dimension and also to be able to fit this huge title on the right page :)

These were stickers I purchased to match this paper...I wanted to pop these off as well so I mounted them onto some patterned paper and inked the edges in Brown Bag ink

I wanted to add this title but it was lost on this patterned paper, so I chose another sticker from my sticker sheets and mounted these great alphabet letters to it :) 

More stickers...so glad to be using this old stash up! 

As you can see, I have one large title (check) and the basic sketch design is there...the papers are not Monochromatic (oops) and I used papers and embellies from my stash (check)...kinda made my own embellishments...I layered the stickers onto cardstock...not really handmade as per the challenge BUT this is a perfect example of how I got a double page layout completed using this challenge as a starting point...because in the end it really only matters that you are getting something done and using up your STASH :)

Let's Scrap Sketch for Wednesday!

Good Morning! 

It's another Let's Scrap Sketch Wednesday today and here's what the ever talented Cheri O'Neill has created for us to play with for this week!

This was a fun one to work on...after seeing the gears I thought, wait a minute...I have actual metal gears from Tim Holtz and what better photos then the ones I took of my kids in our friend's old cars...

I cut the black die cut from the new Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge from CTMH...when I saw this paper I thought it would be perfect because it reminds me of asphalt and also rubber tires...the sketch said 'a very large and fun title' so I thought it would fun to use the white chipboard Enmarc 'discover' word and inked it with some metallic silver ink...tried to make it look like the chrome in the cars...

While diggin' through my stash for embellishments I came across these Stock tickets...perfect!

I tucked some journalling in behind the photo on the left...inked the street sign in the same silver metallic ink...hard to see the shine...when I purchased this Imaginisce Scooter's Vacation paper pack, I, of course HAD to also get the epoxy stickers with it because they were so cute and I put some everywhere! 

Thanks so much for visiting today, make sure you click on over to Let's Scrap for more inspirational layouts from more of the Design Team and make sure you have fun with this sketch too!

Busy little CHOPPING beaver

That's the title of my latest layout using another one of Let's Scrap sketches! This one looks nice and easy but it did take me some time :) You know how I labour over the placement of brads and buttons...well this one has hand gathered grosgrain ribbon (CTMH), felt machine stitched onto the LO and strategically placed embellies, do-dads and what-nots...tee hee

I can tell you one thing...it was super fun to use up this paper and chipboard bits from years ago! Scrappin' with old stash really gives you a sense of accomplishment...this stash was a MUST buy a couple years ago from Micheal's...luckily I split the stash with my friend so I only have one sheet of each PP from an extremely large Stack and some of the chipboard embellies.

Here's the Let's Scrap sketch for this week:

and here's my Cabin'ing LO...I call it Cabin'ing because we used to camp (the traditional version with tents) but luckily we all prefer Cabin'ing now ;) here my daughter is showing us that you can still look gorgeous while chopping wood and making a fire...she's a natural...look at that FAB fire :)

take some time to head on over to Let's Scrap for this week's sketch challenge, my fellow Close To My Heart consultant, Andrea Green, is supplying the prize! Stop by her Blog for some more inspiration...