Have You Heard The News...

Sketch N Scrap is turning 8 and we will be celebrating the whole month of May with an online crop!

Our celebration kicks off on May 2nd - which just also happens to be National Scrapbook Day - so double the celebration! Our online crop will feature our Top 8 sketches - 4 layout sketches and 4 card sketches - picked by members of the design team posted throughout the month, and we will also have an exclusive layout sketch to celebrate our 8th birthday. There will be lots of fun prizes up for grabs, so come on over and join the fun! You can find Sketch N Scrap's 8th Birthday Online Crop here - https://www.facebook.com/events/3520345171325473/

Sketch N Scrap is also teaming up with Cookin' Up Creations for the month of May for their "Mad About Sketches" Challenges. They will be featuring a Sketch N Scrap sketch every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday in their forums and we will also be sharing them in our online crop and on the Sketch N Scrap Facebook page.

All of this means that with our regular monthly sketches - Sketch N Scrap will be posting a sketch just about every day of the month of May, so you will have plenty of chances to be inspired!

I hope to see you playing along with us!

Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #366

Hello, everyone! Happy Monday to you! I hope that you are all doing well.

Today I am sharing my take on this week's sketch challenge at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. Here is the fun sketch that Michelle has created for us:

I thought the cluster of hearts looked like it was meant to be either mixed media/stencil work or a cut file. Since I am not much into mixed media/stencil work, I used the "Love You Lots" metal die that I recently received from Elle's Studio. I thought that it would work perfectly for this sketch.

All of the papers on this card were in my scrap box. The sentiment is from an Art C stamp set - Thinking of You. I felt like with everything going on in the world right now that a "sending lots of love" card was quite fitting.

Be sure to stop by Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge on Wednesday to see the full design team reveal and last week's Top 3. I do hope you have some time to play along with this week's sketch!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

BeYoutiful - Mixing up the Kits with The ScrapRoom

Hello, again! I am back with another project to share with you. Today I am sharing my layout for the Mixing up the Kits series at The ScrapRoom.

The ScrapRoom offers a great variety of kits each and every month. For April, I am using pieces of the Shots of Life Kit, the Patterned Paper Add-on kit, and the Embellishment kit. Here is a look at the kits:

March/April Shots of Life Kit

April Patterned Paper Add-on Kit

April Embellishment Kit

For my layout, I have used the Simple Stories "I Am" papers from the Patterned Paper Add-on kit, one of the cut apart cards from the Shots of Life kit for my title piece and fussy cut flowers from a couple of the other cards, and stickers from the sticker sheet that comes in the Embellishment kit. The only thing I added from my stash was black cardstock, cream cardstock, a scrap of pink paper, and a scrap of green paper, and a few sequins.

I took this photo of Ada on Thanksgiving day last year before we headed to our big Thanksgiving lunch. You can't tell it too well in the photo but she had her hair in pigtails that day and just looked so cute!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I just love this little swan sticker from the sticker sheet - it is so cute! I wasn't sure when else I would use it, so I made sure to add it to my layout.

These are the flowers that I fussy cut from one of the cut apart cards - another great way to add to the embellishments and to use up cards that might not get used otherwise.

Be sure to check out The ScrapRoom to see all of the kits that they offer - and other scrappy supplies, too, and head on over to The ScrapRoom Blog for inspiration from the design team all month long!

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

Sweet Girl - Scrap Our Stash April Sketch Challenge

Hello, hello! Happy Tuesday to you! I am so happy that you have stopped by today!

Today I am sharing the layout that I created for this month's sketch challenge at Scrap Our Stash. Along with the fun sketch, we are to use floral patterned paper and add a butterfly. Here's a look at the sketch:

And this is my layout:

These papers are from Photo Play - Tulla & Norbert - and I received these in my March kits from The ScrapRoom. I loved these pretty papers and I was so excited to use them! Ada was wearing a bright pink shirt in the photos and it really clashed with the paper so I turned the photos to black and white. I have gone for such a long time not working with black and white photos and the past few weeks that seems to be all that I am using!

I haven't added any journaling - for one thing, I feel like it would need to be hidden, otherwise, it might throw off the overall design, and secondly, there's not a lot to say - Ada was "modeling" her new shirt. I will keep thinking about it and see how much it bothers me to not have something written on it!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

The title is made from a Thicker word sticker for "sweet" and "girl" is made using some alpha stickers from Simple Stories. I added a wood veneer butterfly to the title area - and a few other places around the layout. I only had these four wood pieces left and decided to try and get them all on the layout.

For the circular element on the sketch, I added a sticker to the inside of a doily and I think it looks cute - even if it looks like an egg from a distance!

Be sure to stop by the Scrap Our Stash blog to see how the rest of the design team took on the sketch challenge. 

I hope you have some time to play along with us! 

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! I will be back soon with another project to share with you!

Week 34/2018 - The ScrapRoom Shots of Life Kit

Hello again! I am back with my second post of the day. If you are looking for my Sketch N Scrap reveal, please scroll on down.

Today I am up on The ScrapRoom blog with my layout using the April portion of the Shots of Life Kit. Here is a look at the kit:

The Fancy Pants and Pink Fresh cut apart cards in the April portion of the Shots of Life kit were perfect for my Week 34 spread for 2018. Yes, you read that right - 2018 - I am that far behind on my Project Life albums! 
The Pink Fresh cut apart sheet had so many great quotes that went perfectly with my photos for this week, and the same can be said about the Fancy Pants cut apart sheet. The colors were similar enough to mix and match throughout my spread.

I had so many photos from this week that it was hard to narrow it down to a manageable amount. It always seems to be feast or famine with my photos - way too many or not enough to fill the spread! I picked out the photos that best told the stories of the week that I wanted to tell. 

Here's a look at the left side of the spread:

This was the second full week of Ada coming back to the house while Abby worked and we were finally settling back into a routine. We made chocolate chip cookies and watched Finding Nemo one afternoon, made a trip to town for groceries and McDonalds, and this is the week that one Scott called me on the way to work telling me that one of the houses that I lived in for a while was on fire.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

Here is the right side of the layout:

Ada and Shane were getting along so well this week! They generally tend to mind their own business and give each other space, but this week not only found them watching Finding Nemo together, but Ada was also enjoying watching Shane play video games - and he was pretty happy about that! I also captured an awesome photo of the sun rays on our walk one evening and at this time the neighbors had moved some cattle into the field next to us. That always brings back memories of living on the farm as a kid!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

This Fancy Pants cut apart card was perfect for this photo of Ada enjoying her ice cream cone while watching tv.

Everything I used on this spread was from the kit - with the exception of a doily, wood veneer hearts and arrow, and some Elle's Studio stamps. 

Be sure to check out The ScrapRoom for an assortment of great kits each and every month!

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

Sketch N Scrap Card Sketch #168

Hello, everyone! Happy Monday to you! I hope you all had a good weekend.

It is time for the last sketch of the month at Sketch N Scrap today. Sketch Artist Lisa has created a great card sketch for us to play with. Here's a look at the sketch:

This sketch is full of possibilities and I can see myself using it for a lot of different occasions. Here is my card:

I was in need of something bright and cheery - something that I can pass on to someone else to hopefully brighten their day, too - and when I found this pretty, bright yellow floral paper - I knew I would use it for my card. 

The paper is from a Jen Hadfield 6x6 paper pad called - Every day - and the sentiment is from one of the papers in the pad. I just used my 1 inch circle punch and then layered it up with a couple more circles and added some foam tape to the back for a bit of dimension. I inked all of the edges of the papers with walnut stain distress ink.

I think this card fits the bill of "bright and cheery" - and I am ready to send it on to someone special!

Be sure to stop by Sketch N Scrap to see how the rest of the design team took on the sketch. I can't wait to see what you create, too!

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

Hello Sunshine - The Studio Challenges

Hello, everyone! Good Sunday morning to you! After a few really cool days, and a few nights with freeze warnings, the weather is finally starting to warm back up. Hopefully, the warm weather is here to stay now. 

It's time for a new challenge at The Studio Challenges today. This week's challenge is - Florals - to celebrate spring, we want you to use floral papers and flowers on your layout.

I've been trying to go back through some of my older photos of Ada and get them scrapped. This photo is from May of 2016 and we were on a walk. We took a lot of walks when the weather warmed up - Ada enjoyed being outside and she always had a lot of energy (she still does!) - so we would go for walks in hopes of wearing off some of that energy! She always seemed to find a treasure - usually a stick, or a rock, or a flower - to bring home with her. On this particular day, she found the perfect stick and a daisy. The stick made it all the way home with us, sadly, the daisy did not! Good thing there are a lot more of those where that one came from! I just love her looking at - and probably trying to smell - the daisy in this picture.

I used papers from my April Great Stash Bash kit. I just love this floral paper from an old Imaginisce collection. The flowers that I used were actually in my...February - I think - Great Stash Bash kit and I never used them. After using some on this layout, I only have 2 flower stickers left!

Here is a close-up of the title area:

I have had these wood veneer words in my stash for a long time. I got them at Michaels and they were stuck to the backing sheet with double-sided tape. Neither word came off cleanly, but at least the breaks were clean and easy to put the words back together. I still have 3 words left and I hope I can get them on a project before the end of the month!

Head on over to The Studio Challenges to see the beautiful layouts from the rest of the design team. I hope you get a chance to play along with us!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

Sketch N Scrap #199 - Hello Frosty

Hello, hello! Happy Wednesday to you! Can you believe that it is already the middle of April? Lately, I feel myself going back and forth between feeling like time is standing still and then like it's flying by. 

It's time for the mid-month sketch at Sketch N Scrap today and Heather has created a fun sketch for us to play with:

I changed a few things up from the sketch. The papers are all in the same place, but I only had two photos that I wanted to use and they were a bit bigger than the square photos on the sketch. By using only two photos it gave me more room to create a larger cluster. I also added my journaling below the title. 

I have used Echo Park's "All Bundled Up" collection. I picked this collection up at Tuesday Morning right before Christmas. I don't have a lot of need for snowy collections - our winters around here have been pretty light on snow the last few years - but I couldn't resist this collection, and as luck would have it, we got a little bit of snow that was perfect to build a snowman.

Since the only kiddo left at home is Shane - and he wants nothing to do with the cold wet snow - it was left up to me to build a snowman. This little guy came together in just a few minutes and kept me company all afternoon from the front deck. He definitely brought a smile to my face every time that I looked out the window!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I die cut the letters for the title using my Close To My Heart metal alpha dies and then ran them through my Cuttlebug with my swiss dot embossing folder.

Head on over to Sketch N Scrap to see the beautiful layouts from the rest of the design team. I hope you have a chance to play along with us. I would love to see your take on the sketch, too.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #364

Hello, everyone! I hope you are having a good evening. I just wanted to pop in here really quickly to share my take on this week's sketch challenge at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge.

Here is a look at the sketch:

And here is my card for this week:

The papers that I used for this card are from Echo Park's "Just Be You" collection and were still out on my desk from a layout I made a few days ago. I have been doing so much better about using my scraps right away instead of putting them in my scrap box - which makes me happy. My scrap pile might not be getting too much smaller - but at least it's not getting any bigger!

I am in need of a few thank you cards so I decided to make this one just that. I used a sentiment from an older Close To My Heart Stamp set - Card Captions (S1901).

Be sure to stop by Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge tomorrow to see the beautiful cards from the rest of the design team and last week's Top 3. I hope you have some time to play along!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great night!

Girl Boss - Counterfeit Kit Challenge #1 - Scraplift

Hello, everyone! Happy Sunday to you! I hope that you are all doing well.

It is time for the first challenge of the month at Counterfeit Kit Challenge. Master Forger Clair is challenging us to pick a layout from her scrap board on Pinterest and scraplift that layout.

I found this layout by Sheree Forcier on Clair's Pinterest board and really liked it. I follow Sheree's work and love just about everything that she creates. I really liked the overall design of the layout below and the strips of paper that run on each side of the photo. I also liked that Sheree did a little bit of stamping on her layout and her journaling strips.

Here is my layout:

I stuck really close to the original layout - I just made a bigger border at the bottom of the layout. Sheree is also known to do a lot of stitching on her layouts. I am not that great at machine stitching so I opted to do an outline around all of the edges of my layout and the papers with a marker. Everything on this layout came from my April counterfeit kit - and I even managed to use a few of my faux chipboard forgeries on this layout. I fussy cut the "Girl Boss" title piece, camera, and heart that were all on the backside of one of the papers.

I just scrapped this photo earlier this week in my 52 Favorites TN, but I love the picture and had another story I wanted to tell about it. These times and this "stay-at-home" order is hard on this Nana who is used to seeing her girls every week! Abby called the week before the order went into effect and asked if we could watch Ada while she went to the school and got homework packets made up for her students for the rest of the month. We jumped at the chance and so enjoyed getting to spend a few hours with our sweet girls.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I am so happy that I finally had the chance to use some of these enamel stars that I put in my kit this month. I have had them for years - stuck in a drawer and forgotten about - and I found them while looking for embellishments for my kit. I hope to be able to use a few more before the end of the month.

I even did a little stamping directly on my layout. In the photo above it looks a little blurry, but it's really not, and those faux chipboard pieces were so fun to use! I need to remember to make these more often!

Be sure to check out the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog to see the beautiful layouts from the rest of the design team. I hope you can find some time to play along with us!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

TN Time With Lisa & Lori April 2020

Hello, everyone! Happy Friday to you! The weather has turned a bit cooler for a few days. I was sure liking those 80 degree days, but it is a little early to be that hot around here. 

It is time for the April 2020 TN Time With Lisa & Lori Challenge today! Are you ready for it? Here's how it works - this is a monthly challenge that starts on the 10th of each month and ends on the 9th of the following month at midnight CST. If you complete my random challenge for the month - link your TN, bullet journal, or planner spread below. If you combine my challenge with Lisa's sketch challenge - link up here and on Lisa's blog  - My Creative Endeavors - and you will have two chances to win a prize. You can find the full list of rules here. 

Here is my challenge for April:

(April 10th - May 9th)

Just use your favorite color combo AND your favorite embellishment on your TN, Bullet Journal, or Planner Spread.

Here is the great sketch that Lisa has created for April:

And here is my spread:

For my favorite color combo, I have used an oldie but a goodie - red, white, and turquoise. This used to be a popular color combo a few years ago, but it's kind of fallen by the wayside lately. I just used this color combo for this layout here earlier this week and remembered how much I liked it, so while I had the red/pink polka dot paper scrap still on my desk, I thought I would use it again as my favorite color combo here. I went in search of a turquoise paper and found a scrap in my February Great Stash Bash kit that I have not put away yet! So this Traveler's Notebook Spread helped me to use up two scraps without them ever going into my scrap box!

My favorite embellishment - right now - are these cute - tiny - enamel hearts from Doodlebug Designs! I got a few of these in a kit from The ScrapRoom a few months ago and fell in love with them. I may have bought a few different packs to have on hand since then! 

So, here we are already on Week 15 of 2020 and I only have two weeks done in my 52 Favorites of 2020 so far. I'd better get it in gear so I am not so far behind! This photo was taken last week when we had to watch Ada while Abby went to the school to get homework packets made for her students for the rest of the month. We just found out today that they have canceled school for the rest of the year and will do virtual learning until their last day in May. I don't know what this is going to mean for Ada's Kindergarten graduation...it makes me so sad to think she's going to miss that, but they may do something at a later date. Here's hoping! 

Anyway, when she came in I told how much I liked her unicorn shirt and she was all ready to strike a pose for me to take her picture! It was so good to get to spend some time with Ada and Abby - just the little distraction that we were needing in this crazy time. 

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I love the Elle's Studio metal heart dies and the coordinating stamp set. I finally ordered them and I am so happy that I did - they will pay for themselves in no time at all!

Now, on to the prize - first of all, thank you to Anna and Sandi for playing along with us in March. With everything that is going on in the world, we are going to suspend prizes for right now so we don't have to get out any more than we have to. So, what I am going to do is carry over the linky from last month and combine the entries with this month's entries. Hopefully, things will be returning to somewhat of a normal situation by May 9th and I will draw a prize from our March and April entries. If things are still crazy, we will roll it over for the May challenge, too, we will just wait and see. So be sure to link up - I will be giving away a prize - regardless of how many different participants I have - when things settle down!

Be sure to stop by Lisa's blog to see her take on this month's challenge. I do hope you play along, too!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Just So Sleepy - Scrap Our Stash What's My Challenge - Feelings

Hello, hello! Happy Wednesday! This week is moving right along! Looking on the bright side of things lately, having hubby home all the time has meant we have been getting lots of little odd jobs done around the house and yard, and we are making plans on what else we can tackle in the days - and maybe weeks - to come.

Today I am here to share my take on the April - "What's My Challenge" - challenge at Scrap Our Stash - which is all about "Feelings". Our challenge is to pick an emoji from the chart below and create a layout inspired by that feeling.  And...you must use the word associated with that emoji in your title. Here's the emoji chart:

I was looking through the photos on my phone and found these photos of Ada falling asleep in the car after an afternoon at the Bennett Springs pool and thought they would be perfect for the "sleepy" emoji. And then while I was making my layout, I realized - I think I've already scrapped these photos! If not all of them then one or two of them! Oh, well! One of these days I need to look into a system of keeping track of what photos have already been scrapped!

Here is my layout for the challenge - and look at that - black and white photos two days in a row!

The main reason I turned these photos to black and white was to make it a little easier for me to use the papers that I wanted to use. The red and pink polka dot paper was in my Counterfeit Kit for this month and the turquoise border sticker has been floating around from spot to spot on my desk. I was ready to get it out of the way and on a layout - which led to me finding a few more things that have been on my desk - pulled out for previous layouts and not used. 

All of the buttons (which I rarely ever use anymore) and the chipboard arrow were from an embellishment pack that I pulled for my March Great Stash Bash kit and didn't use nearly all of. I am now happy to say that I only have 4 more chipboard pieces to use and that pack will be all used up! 

I think for a layout that came together using mostly just what I had laying around on my desk that it turned out pretty cute!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

The red chipboard heart with a turquoise outline actually had a little circle on it, I guess to look like a charm, but I just cut that off so I was left with just a cute little heart.

I think that the red gingham chipboard heart might just be my favorite thing on this layout - besides the photos, of course!

Be sure to check out the Scrap Our Stash blog to see how the rest of the design team took on this fun challenge. I hope you have a chance to play along with us this month, too!

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

Challenge YOUrself #76 - Black and White Photo

Hello, everyone! Happy Tuesday to you! 

It's time for a new challenge at Challenge YOUrself today! April's challenge is to use a black and white photo and, of course, use a photo of YOU on your layout!

I love to use black and white photos once in a while on my layouts, and it's actually been a while since I used one. Here is my layout:

 I have done a sort of "then and now" layout this time around. I've been wanting to do this type of layout of mine and Scott's story and just haven't ever taken the time to do it. We had taken a selfie just a couple of days ago and I have had the first photo on my desk for ages, so I thought now would be a good time to get it done.

The first photo is of us back in April of 1989. We had been dating for a little over 4 months and in this photo, we are on our way home from a Bon Jovi concert in Kansas City. This is the only photo I have of us while we were dating, so it is a treasure! 31+ years later (almost to the day) - here we are.  I am going to have a lot of journaling that will be added to the back of this layout telling the story of how we met and how we got to where we are today, but I did want to highlight a few things so that is what I added on the front in my journaling.

I based my layout on this PageMaps sketch:

I used papers from my February 2020 Flavors of the Month kit from The ScrapRoom. That month's kit had two Valentine's Day/Love collections - Simple Stories "My Valentine" and Photo Play "Be Mine" - that really worked well together, so I used bits and pieces of both on my layout.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I picked these word stickers up at Tuesday Morning recently and when I went to peel them off, the black...acetate...maybe - separated from the foam piece underneath so it was a little tricky getting them to adhere to the page. I used my Tombow Multi Mono Glue and then stapled them down in a couple of places to try and hold them on there. 

I am so happy to have this layout (almost) done! The journaling is going to take some time but I will get it done.

Head on over to Challenge YOUrself to see the fabulous layouts from the rest of the design team. I would love to see your take on this month's challenge, too!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great day!