Just one more week...

until the Use Your Stuff design team is back with challenges for you! We have taken the summer off to enjoy more time with our family and friends, but we will be back next Monday, September 7 with a brand new challenge for you!

Be sure to check back in next week!

Lasting Memories #256 - Aim High

Hello, hello! I hope you all are having a fantastic Sunday! We have been enjoying some beautiful weather around here. You can't ask for any better than 70's to low 80's in August. Usually this is when we are seeing temps in the 100's!

Lasting Memories has a new challenge posted today, and it's another fun one. The theme for August is "Sky High" and this weeks challenge is to use one of the following titles on your layout -  "Reach For The Stars", "Aim High", or "You Are My Sunshine".

I chose to use the title "Aim High" on this layout about my daughter.

 

When Abby was younger she told us that since she wasn't very good at sports that she was going to be the best in her class. She was going to work hard and study and make all A's. Now we're talking this started out in elementary school! She stayed true to her word and all throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school, she made all A's. Her hard work paid off and she was valedictorian of her class. She received several awards and scholarships - one being a half ride scholarship to MSU - her university of choice. Her hard work and dedication to her studies paid off, and she got what she wanted! She kept up with the good grades in college, keeping a 4.0 grade point average and graduated Summa Cum Laude, but that will be another layout! If you're going to aim, aim high - the sky's the limit!

 

I used this older sketch from Sketch N Scrap for my layout. It was one of my favorites and I'd never gotten around to using it.  

 

 

After I had finished my layout, I realized I didn't have enough room for my journaling, and I'd already adhered the photos so good that they weren't coming up! So, I decided to create a pocket to slide my journaling down into at the top of the page.

 

 

This is the last challenge for this month. Pick a title and make your layout! You have until the 28th to join any or all of our challenges. Be sure to check out the Lasting Memories blog and see which title the other team members chose.

I am also linking this up to the Paper Issues - You Rule the School link party.  (8/31/15)

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

 



Sketch N Scrap Card Sketch #56

Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope that you all are having a good week! I have a quick card to share with you today.

The new card sketch is up over at Sketch N Scrap today, and Lisa has created a great sketch for us to work with! Here's a look at the sketch:

 

And here is the card that I created:

 



I needed a card for my daughter and son-in-law's anniversary this month and thought this sketch would be great for that. I just switched out the circles for hearts, and other than that I stayed true to the sketch. I loved the paint splatters on the sketch and thought it would be a good time to try my hand at smooshing some ink around on my card.

Be sure to check out the Sketch N Scrap blog to see the beautiful cards from the rest of the design team. You have until August 31st if you want to play along! I look forward to seeing your creations.

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

Sketches In Thyme #161

Hello and welcome to my blog! Today is the 18th and that means it's my day to be featured on the Sketches In Thyme blog!

Here is the fun sketch from Shawn that I got to work with:

 

 

Don't you just love those triangle accents?! Here is my take on it:

 



I used the Harvest Lane collection from Simple Stories. This is one of my most favorite fall collections and I have been holding on to it since it came out. I'm so happy to finally use some of it up. I am also happy to finally get these photos of my daughter and son-in-law from 2012 scrapped. They are just so cute together!

Be sure to check out the Sketches In Thyme blog and see what the rest of the design team has created with this sketch. While you're there be sure to look at the week 1 and week 2 sketches, too.

This is the prize up for grabs. All you have to do is create a layout for any or all of the sketches this month and you have a chance to win it!

 

 

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

Lasting Memories #255 - Just "Plane" Fun

Hello everyone! There is a fun new challenge up at Lasting Memories today! The theme for this month is Sky High, and today's challenge is to create a layout with a starburst or sunburst.

 

 

These photos are of my three boys - yes, Scott is included in that. He can be the biggest kid of them all sometimes! All three of them had so much fun throwing this Styrofoam plane around. They spent all afternoon outside, taking turns with it, seeing who could get it to go the farthest or make the best loop.

 

I used Crate Paper's Boy's Rule collection for my sunburst. I had a hard time embellishing this page. For starters the sunburst already makes it seem busy to me, and the photos take up the rest of the page, so I didn't have a whole lot of area to embellish. Add to that the fact that the stickers and wood pieces in this collection didn't really seem to fit the feel I was going for. So, I wound up fussy cutting some ticket pieces to add a border and to stick behind the photos. I guess my thought process was more about family fun and less about actual planes!

 

Head on over to the Lasting Memories blog and see how the rest of the design team interpreted this challenge. There are so many different takes on it, and I'm sure you will be inspired. I can't wait to see what you create!

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a fantastic day!

Feeling Sketchy #127 - Sweet Treat

Hello and Happy Saturday! We've got the first two days of school over with and now the weekends seem a little sweeter again!

Today is the 15th and that means a new sketch is up over on the Feeling Sketchy blog! Our sponsor this time around is Bugaboo Stamps, and I am using one of their digital stamps on my layout today.

First, here is the sketch:

 

And here is my take on it:

 

I used the ice cream digital stamp from Bugaboo and paper pieced it together to make my ice cream cone. I did this by printing off the image on a piece of Kraft cardstock for the cone, and two printed papers for the ice cream. It did have a cherry on top, but I really didn't want that, so just left it off. I love that you can use digital images in more ways than just coloring them in!

 

This is a layout about my youngest son and discovering just how much he loves ice cream - as long as it is in a cone! When you live with a child that is pretty much nonverbal, it's pretty hard sometimes to figure things out. I can't remember now (this photo is 10 years old!) if we offered him a bite or if he came over and wanted it, but it didn't take us long to figure out that he would eat Sundae Nut Cones, if the chocolate and nuts were taken off the top, and he would only eat to the cone and then he was done. 10 years later he still only eats ice cream if it's in a cone, and when he reaches the cone he is done!



Be sure to head on over to the Feeling Sketchy blog to read more about our sponsor and to see the rest of the design team's creations. You have until the end of the month to play along with this sketch.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Lasting Memories #254 - Miss Independent

Say it isn't so! This is our last weekend before another school year starts. That can't be possible, it seems like summer just started! So long sleepin' in! It's been a good summer and I guess it'll be good to get back into a routine.

There's a new challenge up over on the Lasting Memories blog. This week our challenge is a sketch challenge, and we are to use anything with wings on our page.

Here is the sketch:

 

And my layout:

 

 

Do you ever struggle with a layout to make it look just right, and no matter what you do, you can't get it to look right? That's what happened with this layout. I had envisioned it to look one way, but I just couldn't get it to look like I wanted on paper.

 

I think my problem started when I thought I had the perfect paper for these photos, but when I dug it out, it did not go with them at all. So, it was a search through my paper stash for something that would work. I probably should have just set these pictures aside and found something else to work with.

 

But then I found these lace butterfly stickers and knew I wanted to use them with these photos of Miss Ada because they matched the lace in her outfit perfectly. So, I tried to make it work.

Still not what I had envisioned... but it's done. I'm not completely happy with this layout and I'm not saying that I won't scrap these pictures again someday!

 

Be sure to check out the Lasting Memories blog to see the layouts from the rest of the design team. You have until the end of the month to join any or all of our challenges.

 

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope your day is blessed!





Sketch N Scrap Card Sketch #55

Good Morning and Happy Hump Day! We are half way through the week and the weekend will be here before you know it!

I have the latest card sketch from Kelly at Sketch N Scrap to share with you today.

Isn't that a fun sketch?

And here is my card based on the sketch:

I used the Fancy Pants - Park Bench 6x6 paper pad for my card, and since my sister has a birthday coming up, I decided to make it for her. A pretty quick and easy card!

Be sure to stop by the Sketch N Scrap blog to see the rest of the design team's take on the sketch. I hope that you are inspired to play along - you have until the end of the month to link up to any of our challenges!

That's it for today. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Lasting Memories #253 - High Flyin' Fun

Happy Sunday, everyone! I hope that you are all enjoying the weekend. We've had a fun weekend filled with going to the pool, celebrating my hubby's birthday, and visiting with family. Today we are ready to relax before starting the new work week.

It's the start of a new month and that means a new theme and a new set of challenges over at Lasting Memories. This month's theme is "Sky High" and the first challenge is to scrap the theme.

I had lot's of ideas for this challenge - photos my hubby took from an airplane window, my son's throwing their Styrofoam airplane around, my husband and daughter on an amusement park ride, but in the end I chose to scrap these photos of my kiddos flying a kite when they were little.

It's hard to believe that 11 years have passed since I took these photos. Time just goes by so quickly, but I am so happy that I can preserve these special memories on a scrapbook page.

I used to take so many photos when my kids were little. Mostly because it was pre digital days and I took more photos than necessary to make sure I got a good shot! Thank goodness for digital cameras and the opportunity to delete those not so great photos before having them printed!

Anyway - I had quite a few photos from this day and wanted to include them all on my layout. When I have a lot of photos from one event that I want to scrap, I always go to my Scrapbook Generation sketch books first. They make it so easy to use a lot of photos on a double page spread. For my layout I used a sketch from their Sketches For Scrapbooking - Volume 6 book. I was able to use some scraps for my strips and I fussy cut the kites out of one of the patterned papers to use as embellishments.

Head on over to the Lasting Memories blog and check out the rest of the design team's layouts. I look forward to seeing your sky high creations this month!

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you have a wonderful day!

Sketch N Scrap #86 - Silly Girl

This is my second post of the day. If you're looking for my Feeling Sketchy post, please scroll down or go here.

Hello again! I am back with my second post of the day and the latest layout sketch from Sketch N Scrap. Lisa has provided us with a super fun sketch to work with.

 



 

This was such a great sketch that I didn't change it much. About the only change I made was moving the title above the photos and adding in a little bit of journaling in the upper left corner.

I used some papers and embellishments from Pink Paislee's  Pen Pals collection. I had bought the 6x6 paper pad, but never got around to buying any of the 12x12 papers. My friend, Sandi, sent me an rak earlier in the summer, and it was the 12x12 papers of this collection! She is just such a wonderful person and friend!

These are photos of my sweet granddaughter, Ada. We were visiting with my Aunt Kay - whose name is actually Ada Katherine, but she goes by Kay. She feels a special connection with this little girlie since they share the same first name! Ada was showing off and acting silly since she was the center of attention. Little Miss Ada definitely keeps life interesting and fun, and I am so glad that she loves her Great Grand Aunt Kay!

Head on over to the Sketch N Scrap blog and see the beautiful layouts by the other design team members. I'm sure you'll be inspired and want to play along!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Feeling Sketchy #126

Hello everyone! Can you believe that it is August 1st? This summer has gone by way too fast! My boys start back to school on the 13th, so our vacation is almost over.

Since it is the 1st day of the month, I have a new sketch to share with you from Feeling Sketchy.

I have been in the mood to work on some Christmas cards lately, just so I have a good head start before the holiday season. I don't make tall and skinny cards very often, but I liked the look of it on the sketch and thought I'd give it a try.  I used papers from the Echo Park - Tis The Season 6x6 paper pad. I wanted to keep my card pretty simple, so I just add a line around the edge of the card and around the circles.

Our sponsor for this sketch is Lacy Sunshine. Be sure to stop by the Feeling Sketchy blog to read more about our prize and sponsor and to see the rest of the design teams creations.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. I will be back soon with a layout to share with you.

Have a great day!