Made of Awesome - Sketch N Scrap #245

 Hello, everyone! Happy St. Patrick's Day to you! Are you wearing your green today? It's supposed to be another beautiful day today and I am ready! The sun is shining, I can hear the birds singing, and I know I will be outside enjoying it a little later. 

Today I am sharing the layout that I created for the March 15th sketch at Sketch N Scrap. This is another fun sketch that will be going in my favorites folder! 

This is what I came up with:

I just want to start by saying - I love how this layout turned out! I used the Teen Spirit Boy 6x6 paper pad and embellishment pack that I had included in my Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash kit for this month. This sketch is great for 6x6 papers or paper scraps as the banner pieces do not have to be complete pieces since they are covered up by the photo. 

I don't know what is up with my trimmer blades here lately but I just changed the blade and it is still not giving me a clean cut - the edges still have a frayed look in places. Maybe it's the cardstock since it seemed to cut the patterned paper just fine.  Whatever the case, I went with it and distressed the edges of my cardstock and even tore some places a little deeper into the cardstock so I could add a bit of patterned paper behind for a little interest. I also splattered the background with watered-down acrylic paint so the background wasn't so plain.

This photo is of  Matthew when he was 15. You know how teenage boys can be - they really don't like to have their photo taken - so I was glad when I got this one! Now that he is 24, I can look at this photo and see glimpses of the young man that he was growing into. That's why I love scrapping some older photos after some time has passed - you have a different perspective on things than what you might have had at the time. I will be adding some hidden journaling, either behind the photo or maybe behind the plaid banner piece, with my thoughts of what I see in this photo nine years later. 

Here are a couple of close-ups:

All I have of this collection is the 6x6 paper pad and the frames and tags ephemera pack. No brads, no stickers, no enamel dots. But the paper pad and ephemera pack were all I needed. I cut the stars out of one of the papers and on the backside of that paper I found the "flair" type pieces. Shrunk down to the 6x6 size I thought they looked like some of the brads that can be found in Echo Park's brad packs. I got out my 3/4 inch punch and punched out all of the ones that I wanted to use. I love how they look. I also punched a few tiny stars to add around my layout to serve as my finishing touches. 

 

The "Made of Awesome" piece was in the ephemera pack and I am using it as my title. It is the perfect title and exactly how I feel about Matthew! Now don't get me wrong - I think all three of my kids are made of awesome! We definitely got lucky!

The #cool sticker is from a super old Simple Stories collection...So Rad, I think. I have had that clear sticker sheet in a little container on the top of my desk for ages and just happened to look up and see it sticking out. It fit perfectly in that empty space in the photo. I was going to use more from the sheet, but a few of them sparked ideas for future layouts and now I am waiting on a photo order to come in so I can get those layouts made! 

This is layout #3 of 9 that I wanted to get made this month with my Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash Kit. I am hoping to get at least a couple more made before the end of the month. 

Be sure to stop by Sketch N Scrap for more inspiration from the design team using this sketch. 

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

TN Time With Lisa & Lori Will Return In April!

Hello, everyone! Happy Tuesday to you! I just wanted to pop in here really quickly and let you know that there will not be a TN Time With Lisa & Lori Challenge for March. Lisa and I have both been super busy this month and instead of delaying the challenge any longer, we have decided to skip the March challenge and pick back up again in April.

We hope you join us next month when we will be back with a new sketch challenge from Lisa and a random stash challenge from me!

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

Finding Hearts - Sketch N Scrap's March Crop Challenge #3

 Hello, everyone! Happy Sunday to you! Today is the start of Daylight Saving Time and I am looking forward to having daylight a little longer!

Today I am sharing the layout that I created for Sketch N Scrap's March Crop Challenge #3 in our monthly challenges group on Facebook. Here is the sketch that I picked for the challenge - Sketch #206 from Aug. 1, 2020:

One of my favorite things about this sketch is all of the layers it has going on. This is what I came up with:

I used papers that I had included in my March kit for Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash. In fact, I think that I used mostly scraps on this layout. The only full sheet of paper that I cut into was the green paper. Even the red paper for the hearts was a scrap from one of the 6x6 paper pads.

These photos are of Matthew from 2013. We had gone to Bennett Springs over Memorial Day weekend to walk the trails. Matthew was pretty lucky at finding hearts in nature on this day! He found a leaf with a heart shape and a rock that had a hole in the middle and when he picked it up it did look like a wonky heart. Grandma Kay always had a knack for finding hearts in the most random things and it looks like Matthew has it, too. 

Here is a close-up of my main cluster:

I die-cut three different-sized hearts for my embellishment clusters and then added a piece of wood veneer and enamel dots to each cluster. For my main cluster above, I added a label (which I meant to write our location on) and a puffy sticker. The puffy sticker had a yellow heart on it and since I didn't have yellow anywhere else on my layout, I covered it up with a wood veneer arrow that is pointing to my photos.

This is layout #2 of the nine that I had planned with my boy-themed stash bash kit this month. I'm excited to see how many I do get done this month!

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

Sketch N Scrap's Card Sketch #213

Hello, everyone! Happy Monday to you! Are you ready for the new week? I think I am! I guess I'd better be because it is here!

Today I am sharing the card that I created using the March 5th sketch from Sketch N Scrap. Here is the fun sketch that Lisa created for us to use:

Another great sketch that will be going into my favorites folder! This is the card that I created with the sketch:

A few days ago a posted about how I had gotten rid of all my scraps at some point last year and have since started saving them again. In that post - that you can read here - I told you that while organizing my scraps I had pulled out a few coordinating scraps to try to use over the next month or two - either on cards or on layouts. Here are the four groups of scraps that I pulled:

Quite a variety of colors there! I am excited to see what I can use these specific scraps on and when they are gone - or mostly gone - I think I'll go through my scraps again and do it all over again. That would be a great way for me to keep up with my scraps.

Here are the "red" papers that I used on this card:

I used up all of one of the solid reds on this card and the polka dot paper on the right. I still have a bit of the floral paper left and I cut into the pink grid, thinking I would use it for the sentiment, but I just didn't care for it, so all of those pieces are still in this little "kit." There is plenty left over for another card or maybe I'll use it all on a layout.

For my card, I layered all of the papers to try to help separate them from the busyness of all of the polka dots. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of ledger-type paper and I did have to pull out a piece of green from my scraps for the flower leaves but everything else was from the scraps for this mini kit.

It was fun to go through my scraps and pull out coordinating papers and put them to use. I can tell that I may be mixing and matching between a few of my mini kits before it's all said and done!

Be sure to stop by Sketch N Scrap for more inspiration using this fun sketch. I hope you have a chance to play along with us this month!

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

Such A Cutie - Sketch N Scrap #244

Hello, everyone! Happy Friday to you! We have made it round to the weekend once again and I am so ready for it! We have had a beautiful springlike week and there's more of the same - at least for a couple more days. I am sure we will take advantage of it and get some work done outside.

Today I am sharing the layout that I created using the March 1st sketch at Sketch N Scrap. Here's a look at the sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

I used one horizontal photo instead of the two vertical photos. I started looking for two vertical photos, but I really want to get as many of the photos of my boys scrapped this month, so I decided to make it work with what I had already pulled out. The one horizontal photo fits just as well in the space!

Everything on this layout came from my Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash kit for March and it came together so quickly! I even managed to use one of my border punches on two of the papers.

This photo is of Matthew when he was 2. I can't believe that was 22 years ago! He loved playing with his Little People farm and could spend a lot of time on the floor - just like in the photo - just playing away.  I am so happy that I have finally gotten this sweet photo of my boy scrapped!

I don't have a lot of journaling for this layout but I do plan to add a few lines on the yellow paper. If I decide I have more to say I can always journal on the tag at the bottom of the photo.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I almost didn't add a title - I was going to let the "so much awesome" die-cut serve as my title, but I decided to go ahead and add one.

You can see the border punch up close in this photo. This is a new to me punch, and to be honest, I thought it was little hearts! Turns out it is little tiny arrows! I think it could pass as both! Either way - I love it!

That's it for today! This little cutie is coming over today - on his day off - for a visit - a much-needed visit for this mama after not seeing him for a few weeks!

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

Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash March Kit

Hello, everyone! Happy March 1st to you! Can you believe that it is already March? I am so happy and ready for the days to be a little warmer!

March 1st means that it is time to reveal the new Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash kit challenge!

 If you don't know what the Great Stash Bash is - it is a challenge that my good friend Lisa and I do every month. We pull items from our stash based on a "recipe" (which you will see below) and use those items throughout the month in an effort to get our scrappy stash used up!

Here is our March recipe:

Our "recipe" is to pull 10 patterned papers, 5-7 scraps, 3-4 embellishments, and our focus item for March is 6x6 paper pads.

Here is the (slightly) large kit that I have put together:

For the month of March, I have decided to go with a boy-themed kit. I have been going through older photos and I have so many of Matthew and Shane that I have never scrapped - especially of Matthew. I decided it was time for me to concentrate on getting a few of those photos scrapped and in albums. Since I have so many photos that I want to work on - I went a wee bit bigger with my kit. Do I really think I will kill this kit during the month? No - I rarely kill the smaller kits! But, now I have this kit - all ready to go - that I will keep together until I get tired of it or it is all used up.

Here's a look at the papers:

I went with 16 papers instead of the 10 called for in our "recipe."  Since the photos I have pulled out range from toddler to teen, I grabbed a variety of papers so I wouldn't have to go looking for anything else. If I need something more I can always go get it out of my stash. The majority of the papers are from Echo Park collections - Little Boy, A Boy's Life, and Little Dreamer boy. I also added in a few from Simple Stories' Bro and Co collection for those teenage years. 

Here are the scraps that I have pulled:

These scraps are mostly from the Simple Stories Bro & Co collection and the Echo Park Little Dreamer boy collection. I hope that I can't get quite a few of these scraps used up!

Here are a few cut apart papers:

These papers will be great for extra embellishments or layering pieces. 

I may have gone way overboard on my embellishments but I like to have a variety and lots of choices!

These are the main embellishments that I pulled to use - a couple of sticker books, ephemera packs, puffy stickers, and enamel dots. I know I will need more enamel dots but they are always within reach so I didn't pull more than what you see here.

I also added in my die-cut books:

I have a few "boy" die-cuts in these books and I have marked where they are so I can flip to them easily. I would love to some of these used.

Why stop there?! I have a ton of these old 12x12 sticker sheets that I still need to use so I threw in what I had - or what I could find!

These stickers are kind of getting like the old paper scraps that I talked about in yesterday's post - I'm getting tired of looking at them! I may have to decide if once I'm done working with this kit I want to keep them or pass them along.

Here are a few alphabet stickers that I have included:

I'm sure I will use other alphas, as well, but I am really going to try to use these up first. We'll see how that works out!

I tried out Janet at RTS Scrapbooking's idea of sticker books...I really like the idea of them being in color order but I did not have much luck with the stickers coming off of the sheet easily. I used everything that she did but they are really stuck to my sheets! 

I pulled these sheets out to see if I can't get them used. 

Since our focus item is 6x6 paper pads, I pulled all of the boy-themed pads that I could find and added them to my kit:

My original intention was to just include 12x12 papers for backgrounds and use the 6x6 paper pads for everything else, but I know me and I knew I'd better mix it up if I want to be successful this month!

I also added in a few border punches to use this month:

Out of all of the border punches that I have, I thought these four would work the best with my boy photos. I will keep them on my desk for the month to help me to remember to use them. 

I know that if I feel like all I can make is boy pages this month that all I will want to work on is girl pages. Does anyone else do that? Plan one thing and then end up doing the exact opposite? Maybe I'm just weird that way! To try to curb that thought - I added in a few more 6x6 paper pads that would good for girlie, spring, or even summer layouts:

Some of these papers will also work with my boy papers, too.

These are the photos that I have pulled out to work on this month:

I have nine layouts planned with these photos and I can't wait to see what I can get done this month! 

Phew! It was a long post this month! Thank you so much if you have stuck with me this far!

Now, be sure to stop by Lisa's blog to see the fun kit that she has pulled together for this month. This is a just-for-fun challenge, but if you do play along and put together your own stash bash kit - add it to the linky below and we will be sure to check it out and cheer you on! Here are the rules:

1. Follow the challenge prompt to create a kit to work with throughout the month. You may use other items, but please concentrate on using your kit. 

2. Create new, not previously posted projects using your stash kit.

3. If you have a blog - please include the challenge graphic and a link to our challenge in your posts. 

4. You may link to social media if you don't have a blog. If you share on Instagram, please make sure to use - #lisaandlorisgreatstashbash2022

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

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