Use Your Stuff #181 - April Showers

Happy Monday! The countdown for the last day of school has officially begun in our house. Just 20 more school days and the boys will be free for the summer! We are all excited about that.

The new challenge is up over on the Use Your Stuff blog today. The challenge for this week is - April Showers - anything that has water on it.

I have made a layout about a big rain that we got several years ago. So much rain that it flooded the road below our house. That almost never happens!

Shane was in heaven! He loves water and one of his favorite pastimes has always been throwing rocks into puddles, ponds or creeks! You can just tell by the pictures that he is in awe of so much water in the road.

I used a couple of different Echo Park paper collections - A Boy's Life and That's My Boy - for my paper strips, and I used an old downloadable sketch from Scrapbook Generation.

I will be linking this up over at Crash Your Stash - round 2 of 50 Projects - #7/50.

Be sure to check out the Use Your Stuff blog and see the fun projects the rest of the team created. There are so many different interpretations of this challenge that you're sure to be inspired!

Thanks so much for stopping by - I'll be back soon!

Lasting Memories #239 - Gratitude

Good Sunday morning everyone! It's the start of a new set of challenges over at Lasting Memories  this week. The theme for May (we're getting a head start!) is Life Affirmations and this week's challenge is Gratitude - someone or something you have gratitude for.

Now it was really hard for me to pick just one thing that I am grateful for - there are so many - but in the end I chose to make a layout about my daughter and granddaughter. I am so grateful to have these two beauties in my life. They make every day just a little more special! I am planning on doing some more personal journaling and adding later.

I used the April single page sketch from Stick It Down:

 

I am also linking this up over at Crash Your Stash - Round 2 - Project #6/50.

 

Be sure to check out the Lasting Memories blog and see what the rest of the team is grateful for. I hope you have some time to play along with our challenges this time around!

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today and have a blessed day!



Use Your Stuff #180 - Anything Goes

Good Monday morning! It's the start of a new week and a new challenge at Use Your Stuff. Anne's challenge for this week is an easy one - anything goes!

I made a birthday card for my sister who celebrated her birthday this past weekend.

 

 

I used the April sketch from Stick It Down:

I am always a sucker for fish tail banners and this sketch has plenty of them!

I will be linking this up over at Crash Your Stash. This is Project #5/50.

Be sure to check out the Use Your Stuff blog and see what the rest of the team created for the anything goes challenge. I hope you find some time this week to play along with our challenge.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fantastic day!

Sketches In Thyme #145

Hello, everyone! Happy Saturday! I hope your weekend is getting off to a great start. It's supposed to be rainy all weekend for us and that sounds like a good excuse to stay inside and scrap!

 

I am up today on the Sketches In Thyme blog with my first reveal since joining the design team. Here is the Week 3 sketch:

 

 

And my layout:

 

 

I bought this Styrofoam plane for Shane thinking he would think it was pretty cool - and he did - but I had no idea how much Matt would like it, too. All the boys - Scott included - spent almost all day outside flying this plane. We wound up stopping and getting another one later that evening.

 

I used Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection for my patterned paper. I thought the paper airplane paper worked well...Styrofoam planes - paper planes - they're kind of the same, right?!

 

 

The prize this month is a $25 gift card to Michaels and it's really easy to have a chance to win. All you have to do to win is follow the Sketches In Thyme blog and play along! Each week you enter is another chance you have at winning! You will have until April 30 to link up to all 4 of your challenges!

 

I'll be linking this up over at Crash Your Stash. This is project #4/50.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by today and happy scrapping!

Feeling Sketchy #119

Hello everyone and happy hump day! We are half way through the week and getting ever closer to the weekend. That's always something to look forward to around here.

It's time for a new sketch from Feeling Sketchy!

As soon as I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to make a layout with it. In fact, I had a hard time deciding on whether to use just one big panel or the three panels like I did here. There were so many possibilities with this sketch.

Lacy Sunshine is our sponsor this time around and they provided some images for us to work with. I thought this cute little stork would be the perfect accent for a page about my granddaughter. 

Be sure to check out the Feeling Sketchy blog and see what the rest of the design team created with the sketch. I hope you find some time to play along with the sketch.

I am also linking this up at Crash Your Stash - Project 3/50 (round 2).

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

 

Use Your Stuff's Spring Is Sprung Blog Hop

 

Welcome to our Spring is Sprung Blog hop.  The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and (hopefully) the cold spell is over! The Use Your Stuff Design Team are showing their spring fever by creating some great spring themed  projects for you.

You should have arrived here from Julia's beautiful blog.  If you get lost along the way you can always go back to the Use Your Stuff blog or I have the complete list at the bottom of this post.

 Today I have created a spring themed card for you.

I used the appropriately named "Spring" 6x6 paper pad from American Crafts. I just love the colors and patterns in this paper pad. In fact, I am wishing I had picked up two of them when I bought this one!

I based my card on this sketch I found on Pinterest:

The hop runs from  Monday April 13th until Saturday April 18th, so you have lots of time to play along. Make sure you leave a comment on each blog.  As always, if you would like to follow the blog, I'm sure the DT would love that as well :)  We have 5 spring themed prizes to give away from the commenters on the blogs.  You won't know which blogs we will be choosing so make sure you comment on each one.  

International participants are welcome. 

Here is the list for the blog hop

Use Your Stuff blog

Majo  

Anne

Tammy 

Martha 

Karrie

Michelle 

Renee  

Julia  

Lori  ---You are here

Shirley 

For an extra entry use the link on the Use Your Stuff blog to show us your own spring projects!

 

I am also linking this up at Crash Your Stash for #2/50 projects - round 2.

 



Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! I hope you have a fantastic day!



Lasting Memories #237 - Sunny Shores

Good morning, everyone! I hope you are all having a great weekend. I know that since we've been having warmer weather our weekends seem to go by in the blink of an eye!

 

The new challenge is up over on the Lasting Memories blog today. The month of April is a travel theme and this weeks challenge is "Sunny Shores". 

 



 

Sunny shores for us usually mean lake shores and we try to got to the lake as often as possible in the summer. The photos in this layout are from several years ago when we went camping for a few days at the lake. Shane has always loved water and he thought it was great to get to go swimming any time he wanted to - even at 6:30 in the morning!

 

When I started this layout, I intended to use Echo Park's Summer Bliss collection but I did not have enough of the colors I wanted to use, so I went in search of similar colors in my stash and found pretty close matches. And - since the word phrases in that collection weren't exactly what I wanted - I just made my own.

 

It's been a long time since I've done a double page layout, so I searched Pinterest for some 9 photo sketches and found this great sketch by Even More Scrapping.

 

With this layout I am starting round 2 of my 50 projects. I will be linking it up over at Crash Your Stash to help me keep track!

 



Thanks so much for visiting my blog today! Now head on over to Lasting Memories and see the beautiful layouts from the rest of the team. I hope you find some time to play along with our travel challenges this month!

 

See you soon!

 

Use Your Stuff #179 - Deep In Thought

 

Good Monday morning! I am so excited - this is my week to host the challenge over on the Use Your Stuff blog!

My challenge for you is to use some paper strips on your project. Thick strips or thin strips - a lot or a few - it's up to you.

I am all about using up my scraps and this challenge is perfect for doing just that. For my layout I used up some scrap pieces of paper that I had left over from this layout. These papers/colors are some of my favorites, so you better believe I'm using every last piece!

I used this older sketch from Let's Capture Our Memories:

I followed the sketch very closely - just flipping it so Ada wasn't looking off the page.

Head on over to the Use Your Stuff blog and see the great inspiration from the rest of the team.

I hope you get a chance to play along with my challenge - remember it can be a scrapbook layout, a card, or altered project and you have until April 11th to get your project linked up to the blog.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Whoo's The Cutest?

Happy Friday! The boys were supposed to have today off from school but with all the snow days we had, we had to use it for a make up day. No more vacation days until school is out now.

Back in February I participated in a swap called "Play or Pass" over at Inspired To Scrap.  It started with one person sending an envelope with 5 fairly flat scrappy items to the next person on the list. That person had to pick 3 things that they wanted to play with and then replace those 3 items with something from their stash. They then sent the 3 new items along with the 2 that they passed on to the next person. And of course when you received your items you had to use them on a project.

Here is a picture of the goodies that I received:

And here is my layout:

Out of the 5 items I chose the black and white floral paper, the trim, and the doily. I was able to use 2 of the 3 items, but just couldn't get the doily to work - too much white!

This is a photo of Ada on the night that she took her first steps back in December. She was so proud of herself! Her little sleeper even says "Whoo's the cutest?" on it and I thought it was the perfect title for this layout. I even found some owl die cuts in my stash that I thought made some cute embellishments.

This was such a fun swap and I hope we do something like this again soon!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Feeling Sketchy #118

Good morning! It's April 1st and that means it's my first reveal on the Feeling Sketchy Challenge Blog! Today I finally get to share the card that I made for my design team application.

They had posted this awesome sketch for their design team call:

And here is the card that I made:

 

 

I used the beautiful My Mind's Eye Market Street Nob Hill collection. I just love the colors in this collection and thought that they really stood out with the black background and matting.

Head on over to the Feeling Sketchy blog and check out the sketch and see what the rest of the design team has made for you. Remember, your project doesn't have to be a card, it can be a scrapbook page, too!

Thanks so much for stopping by!