Sketch N Scrap is Turning 10!!

 

Hello, everyone! I hope you are having a good day! 

I just wanted to pop in here really quickly to let you know that Sketch N Scrap is turning 10 in May! Can you believe it?! They have been providing us with beautiful - and free - sketches for 10 years and I am so happy that I have been a part of the design team since 2015.

Join us all month long as we celebrate with our four regular blog sketches, an exclusive sketch for interNational Scrapbooking Day, three exclusive Birthday Bash Sketches, and 10 challenges from the design team throughout the month. There will be two prizes up for grabs - a $25 gift certificate to The ScrapRoom and a $25 gift certificate to an online store of choice.

It's going to be a busy and fun month! I hope you join us and play along! Here is the link to the Sketch N Scrap Monthly Challenges Facebook Group: - https://www.facebook.com/groups/SNSmonthlychallenges

Have a great day!

Birthday Cupcakes - Heart's Quest Challenge Blog - Color Heart Challenge #3

 Hello, everyone! Happy Thursday to you! We are getting oh-so-close to the weekend - are you ready for it? We have so many outdoor projects that need to be done and I am hoping that the weather is nice enough to get out and work!

I have some exciting news to share today. My friend, Becca, has started up a new challenge blog called Heart's Quest Challenge Blog and I am the guest designer for their Color Heart Challenge #3! Heart's Quest Challenge Blog - or HQCB - offers two main types of bi-weekly challenges for paper-crafting artist bloggers to participate for bragging rights as a Top 3 Pursuit Achiever.

Color Heart Challenge #3 is to use the required color of orange and you must have at least one orange heart on your project. Neutrals and small spots of other colors are okay, but your project must be mostly orange.

This is what I came up with for the challenge:

I am back to working on my 2018 Favorite Photos of Ada Traveler's Notebook. I would love to have this TN done by the end of the summer. I am right at the halfway point and if I just concentrate on it, I am sure I could have it done by June. But, we are so busy with outdoor projects right now - at least when we have dry days - that it doesn't leave much time for me to get into my scrap room. So, I am setting my goal to finish this TN by Labor Day!

For my layout, I used all Elle's Studio goodies - except for the alpha stickers for my title - which are from Bella Blvd, and the puffy hearts - from Pink Fresh. I tried to stick with all orange on my layout, but I really wanted to use the heart patterned paper and it does have a few red and yellow hearts on it. I think I did a pretty good job at using mostly all orange on my layout, and I have not one orange heart, but seven orange hearts on my layout. Eight if you count the mixing bowl with a heart on it!

The photo is of Abby and Ada when they came over on my birthday and made me my favorite orange kool-aid cupcakes. I love seeing their smiling faces behind the mixing bowl! I don't know why I didn't think to take a photo of the finished product - probably too busy eating them!

I based my layout on this sketch from Journals For Life. This is the April 24th sketch:

Be sure to check out the Journals For Life shop. They offer a monthly traveler's notebook subscription kit along with a lot of other great products.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I used several stamp sets from Elle's Studio on this layout. Too many to really remember which sets they came from. I do know that the mixing bowl, whisk, and spoon came from the Holiday Baking Set - and it is on sale right now! I used first and second generation stamping to get the dark and light orange look on my layout.  Along with stamp sets from Elle's Studio, I used a few die-cuts, as well:

I love how this turned out! I have said it before - I have got to start using my stamps more on my projects! They are so fun to use!

Be sure to stop by Becca's - Heart's Quest Challenge Blog - and play along! This challenge runs unti  May 13th at 12:30 AM Central Time. Any type of paper crafting project can be used - cards, scrapbook layouts, traveler's notebooks, ATCs, bookmarks, tags, or journals.

Becca also has started another challenge blog - FarmQuest Challenge Blog. It has a new challenge going live today, as well. Being raised on a farm and still living the country life - I need to make time to play along with these challenges, too!

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

Sketch N Scrap #216

Hello, everyone! Happy Sunday to you! I hope that you are having a good day. 

Today I am sharing the card that I created using Sketch N Scrap's Card Sketch #216s that went live on April 20th. Here is a look at the sketch that Heather created for us:

This is such a fun sketch to work with! That floral border area can be absolutely anything - stars, hearts, circles, and even though I love the thought of a floral border, I chose to use banner pieces for my border:

I dug into my hoarded stash of Basic Grey 6x6 paper pads and used papers from the Fact paper pad, the Fiction paper pad, and the Prism paper pad. I love that floral paper. The orange and pink with a bit of green is such a pretty color combo. I stamped the sentiment (Close To My Heart's Card Captions Stamp of the Month S1901)  and matted it with a piece of orange paper. I die cut a pink flower to add to the top left corner of the sentiment for a little something extra. 

This card came together so quickly - the thing that took the longest was cutting and arranging those banner pieces!

It felt good to put some old paper pads to work on this card. I have so many older 6x6 paper pads that I need to use up. I have told myself that I am not going to buy any more until I show some of my older 6x6 pads some love. I've been thinking of ways to incorporate more of my 6x6 paper pads into my scrapping...I will let you know if what I have planned actually works for me!

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

I Love Llamas - LM #595 - Shape challenge - Hearts

Hello, everyone! Happy Easter to you! Do you have any fun plans for today? All the kids are coming over and I'm sure there will be an Easter egg hunt - if the rain holds off!

It's time for a new challenge at Lasting Memories today. The theme for April is - shapes - and this week's challenge is to use hearts on your layout. Here is my layout for the challenge:

 

This layout of Miss Ada is going in my 2022 Life Crafted album. All of a sudden, Ada has decided that llamas are now her favorite animal and she is obsessed with getting all of the llama things. She couldn't believe that her mom had a paif of llama sleep shorts and she did not, so we went online and found a pair of llama pjs that she was happy with and ordered. She was happy to try them on and pose for a couple of photos for me. This set even came with a pair of sleep shorts, so she is good to go!

I used papers from my April - Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash kit. For the Lasting Memories challenge to use hearts - I stamped hearts down the side of my layout in all of the colors in the striped paper. I love how it turned out, and, once again, wonder why I don't use my stamps more on my layouts. I punched out different sizes of hearts from the patterned paper and scattered them about the layout. It kind of looks like sticker sneeze but there was just too much white space for my liking! 

Here are a couple of close-ups: 

Even though I had the rainbow row of hearts, I wanted to bring in a bit of the striped paper that is on the right page to the left page of the layout so I added a strip under the title to give a bit of separation between the title and journaling.

Here is a close-up of the right page:

This cute little llama and the title are from a stamp set from Dollar Tree. I just happened to go in there this last week and saw this cute little stamp set, and since Ada is all about the llamas right now, I figure I will get lots of use out of it! I'm pretty sure I've already got my $1.25 out of with this layout. I really did not expect them to stamp so good! The only thing is the stamp that I used for my title actually says  - I love llama - so I had to find a stamp with an "S" that was the same size and close to the same style font to make it plural. All in all, I am very pleased with my purchase.

Here is a close-up of the llama:

Pretty stinkin' cute!

Be sure to stop by the Lasting Memories blog to see how the rest of the design team took on this challenge. 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!

Strike A Pose - Sketch N Scrap #246

 Hello, everyone! Happy Thursday to you! I hope that you are doing well. Hubby has today off so that means we have a nice long holiday weekend ahead of us. 

Today I am sharing the layout that I created using Sketch N Scrap's Sketch #246 that was posted on April 1st. This sketch was created by Lisa and it is another favorite of mine! Here's a look at the sketch:

I love the big block of paper and the three banner pieces. Of course, you could always leave those banner pieces as just paper strips, but I am still loving the banner look so I left them as-is:

I used Echo Park's fun new Play All Day - Girl collection for this layout. The colors are perfect and there are so many fun patterns in this collection. I kept it pretty simple on the embellishing and just added one main cluster at the bottom right of the photos and I also added a flower cluster under my title. I felt like it was a bit of an awkward space without having something there - like the word "strike" was about to fall off of the page! 

The photos are of Miss Ada just a couple of weeks ago. We sat down and made out a list of her current favorites at 8 - a layout about this will be in the very near future - and I wanted a picture of her specifically for that layout. I did get a couple of really good ones and then I asked her if she wanted to do some poses. She is always ready and willing to take pictures when she can pose any way that she likes! I know that the older she gets, she may not be as willing to "pose" for me so I will take all of these poses that I can get!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I used alpha stickers from Bella Blvd for my title. They were a perfect match to the dark pink in the papers. I layered up several flower stickers to cover up the space between the title and the papers.

I thought the "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" sticker was fitting for these photos. I layered another floral sticker on top and finished off the cluster with a few enamel dots. 

Be sure to check out Sketch N Scrap tomorrow for our mid-month sketch. I hope that you have some time to play along with us!

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

Sketch N Scrap Card Sketch #215

 Hello, hello! Happy Wednesday to you! 

I am popping on here really quickly today to share the card that I made using Sketch #215 at Sketch N Scrap. This sketch was created by Lisa and it is a fun one! Here's a look at the sketch:

And here is my card:

For my card, I used 6x6 papers from Close To My Hearts Bright Stack pack. This 6x6 pack has so many great papers in it. I embossed my background paper with a swiss dot embossing folder to give the white background a bit of interest. The flower is from the Craft-on Cardmaking stamp and thin cuts set and I believe it actually was from the same collection as the floral paper that I used. 

This card came together so quickly once I decided on what papers I wanted to use!

I hope you have some time to play along with us at Sketch N Scrap this month. I would love to see your take on the sketches, too!

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

Sketch N Scrap April Crop Challenge #4

 Hello, everyone! Happy Monday to you! I hope that you are ready to get this new week started! We had a lovely weekend - most of it being spent outside in the beautiful spring air!

Today I am sharing the card that I created for Sketch N Scrap's April Crop Challenge #4 that is going on now in their private Facebook group. I chose card sketch #124 for us to use for this challenge. Here is a look at the sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

My sister's birthday is next weekend and I thought I would use this sketch to make her birthday card. I used scraps from Pink Paislee's And Many More collection. All I have left of this collection are a few scraps and I managed to use a good chunk of them up on this card. 

It took me forever trying to figure out which papers I wanted to use where. I finally settled on this arrangement. I typed up the sentiment on the computer and once cut out I added foam tape to the back of it and the back of the present for some dimension. 

Have you had a chance to check out our April Crop Challenges yet? I would love to see your take on them and you have until the end of the month to play along. Just follow this link - https://www.facebook.com/groups/SNSmonthlychallenges.

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

TN Time With Lisa & Lori April Challenge

 Hello, everyone! I am back with my second post of the day! Here I haven't posted anything new since the 1st and now you are getting two posts from me today!

It is time for the TN Time With Lisa & Lori April Challenge! We had to skip last month so it is good to get back on track! If you are new here and you don't know what it's all about - here is how it works - this is a just-for-fun 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 complete just Lisa's sketch challenge, link up over on her blog - My Creative Endeavors. If you combine both challenges - be sure to link up on both Lisa's blog and here on my blog.

Here is my challenge for April:

All you need to do is add a sticker - or stickers - to your spread. Easy peasy!

Here is the awesome sketch that Lisa has created for us to use:

And this is what I came up with:

I am back to working in my February 2022 TN - which I have changed to Ada's February 2022 TN - since I have enough photos of her from February to fill it up! I can always make another one of our family happenings, right?! I mean that is the fun of creating!

This photo is from our sleepover in February. We still had a little bit of ice and snow on the ground and Ada, Pops, and I had to get out and have a little fun in it! There were snowball fights, walking on the ice since the creek was still frozen over, and a bit of sledding down the creek bank. It's not a big hill and we didn't have a sled so we had to make do with a hillbilly sled, but Ada had so much fun that it didn't even matter. I snapped this photo of her, and guys, that smile is so genuine! She was loving every minute of it.

I did something a little different for this layout and used a spring/Easter line from Simple Stories (Bunnies & Blooms) for a snow layout. I took a cue from her outfit and used pink, purple, and light blue for my colors. When I saw the photo, my first thought was - what a cute little snow bunny - and that brought it all together.

To satisfy my challenge to use stickers on my spread, I used a bunny head sticker that I popped up on some low profile foam tape, lots of puffy stickers - mostly from Bunnies & Blooms, but I also used some snowflake puffy stickers from Feelin Frosty - and alpha stickers to spell out "snow bunny."

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I love those little blue alpha letters! I have the upper and lowercase alphabet metal dies from Impression Obsession and they are perfect for my TNs and Project Life albums. I also pulled out some stamps to add around my layout.

I think this little bunny puffy sticker is the cutest! I added some dots with a black marker instead of adding enamel dots around my spread. 

Now, even though this is a just-for-fun challenge we do have a few rules:

1. Create a TRAVELER'S NOTEBOOK, PLANNER, OR BULLET JOURNAL spread based on the CHALLENGE THEME and/or our sketch. 
2. Create a new, not previously posted project.
3. You are welcome to combine with other challenges.
4. If you have a blog please include the challenge graphic & a link to our challenge in your post.
5. You can link to social media if you don't have a blog. If you show your project on Instagram, please make sure to use #TNtimewithLisaandLori 
6. You can submit multiple projects but they must be posted to InLinkz or social media separately.
7. Most importantly have FUN!

Be sure to stop by Lisa's blog and check out her beautiful spread for this month's challenge. I hope you have some time to play along with us!

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

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Spring Vibes - Sketch N Scrap Crop Challenge #3

Hello, hello! Happy Sunday to you! I hope that you are having a good weekend. It has been a pretty decent weekend - weatherwise - and that means we have been spending most of our time outside clearing brush from the creek bank. It is looking so good and I can't wait to have it all done!

Today I am sharing the layout that I created for Sketch N Scrap's April Crop Challenge #3 over in our private Facebook group. I chose to use Sketch #198 from April 1, 2020, for my layout. Here is a look at the sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

For this layout I have used my Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash kit that I put together to use this month, I could not wait to use those Away We Go papers from Echo Park and the stamps from Studio Calico that I had included in my kit. I generally tend to shy away from those busier papers - like the hot air balloons paper - especially when they are filled with icons that I normally don't use. But I thought that this paper was perfect for a sunny spring day with Ada having fun on her swing. I just need to stop thinking of these papers so literally!

Here are a couple of close- ups:

I used the Studion Calico stamps to make my own sort of background paper. I tried to get ink colors that were similar to the ones in the Away We Go papers. I love how this turned out and will be sure to pull my stamps out more often. I even stamped the word "Spring" from one of the stamp sets. My stamping may not be perfect but it sure is fun!

I did leave a bit of space between some of the stamps to the right of the title where I will add a couple of lines of journaling. 

Be sure to stop by our Sketch N Scrap Monthly Challenges group on Facebook and join our April Crop. I would love to see your take on all of the challenges!

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

Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash April Kit

 Hello, hello! Happy 1st day of April to you! I am so happy to see the calendar roll over to April - maybe now we will be seeing more spring-like weather! March came in like a lamb for us and definitely went out like a lion yesterday! Our high was only 37 degrees and it actually snowed for a bit. That's not uncommon for this time of year, but c'mon! I am so done with the cold and snow - bring on that sunshine and those warmer temps!

Enough about the weather! It is time for the April - Lisa & Lori's Great Stash Bash Challenge! Before I get to my kit I just wanted to give a quick update on my March kit. I made 3 of the 9 layouts that I wanted to get done with my mostly boy-themed kit. I even managed to make one layout with 6x6 papers. I still have my kit all together - I just ran out of scrappy mojo - big time! I would still like to get a few more layouts done with it before I break it back down and put it back in my stash. Now, on to my April kit.

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 April recipe:

Our "recipe" is to pull 10 patterned papers, 5-7 scraps, 3-4 embellishments, and our focus item for April is flowers.

I don't have a ton of flowers in my stash anymore, but you will see some of what I do have and how I plan on focusing on flowers this month.

For April, I have my main kit and then two layout kits. Now I could have just stuck with my main kit here and been fine, but a couple of the photos that I really want to scrap this month will definitely not go with my main kit, so I went ahead and made up two layout kits for them. 

Here is my main kit:

I recently purchased a few papers from the Away We Go collection from Echo Park and I cannot wait to use them! When I first saw this collection I thought there was no way I would get a bit of it since we do not travel, but there are only a few papers that are heavily travel themed and even then the "B" side is usable. And when I found out it was designed by Traci Reed, I was sold! I have loved her work for a long time and should have known I would love even a travel collection from her! So, my kit is made up of the papers I picked out. I originally didn't get anything else from this collection but have since ordered the sticker book, it just hasn't gotten here yet. 

Let's take a closer look at the papers in this fun collection:

 I love that the colors in this collection are on th softer side. Note that floral paper. I haven't decided if it will be used as a paper layer or if I will fussy cut a few of the flowers out for embellishments. I added in a few solid papers from a couple of different Echo Park collections just in case I need them for making my own embellishments or for matting or layering.

Here's a closer look at the embellishments that I added to my kit:

Keep in mind that I will add in the sticker book whenever it finally gets here. One of the main reasons I pulled this collection for my kit this time is because of that Spring stamp set from Studio Calico. Whenever I got it in the mail last month, I could not wait to use it. I immediately thought of two sets of photos I wanted to use with that stamp set, so I am certain it will get quite a bit of use this month! I also added in a few label sticker sheets from Kelly Purkey and Freckled Fawn, those three rubber words from Amy Tangerine that I have been trying to use up for a while, a half sheet of enamel hearts that I believe are from Amy Tangerine, a couple of little bow paper clips from Bella Blvd - I promise they do match the papers I have pulled - another sticker book from Paper House Productions, a couple of stamp sets from Close To My Heart, and a few of the flowers that I still have left in my stash - they are from Michael's $1 spot from a long time ago.

Here are a few scraps that I pulled to go with this kit:

I stuck to the more solid colors or tone on tone papers for my scraps. 

Here is my first layout kit:

This kit looks kind of like a hot mess to me! When you see the photo I have pulled to go with the papers it will make better sense!

Here's a closer look at the papers:

The green paper is the only scrap that I have and it is from Simple Stories. The rest of the papers are from Close To My Heart. I couldn't decide between the white paper with the tiny black hearts and the white paper with black stripes so I threw them both in and I will decide when I get ready to make my TN spread. The green will only be used in a very minimal amount, if at all. 

Here is a look at the embellishments:

I didn't have much in the way of embellishments to go along with the papers I pulled. I did pull the Chantilly sticker sheet since it goes with the pink paper, but really only a few of the pink words and phrases will be used if I use anything on that sheet at all. I did go through some other sticker sheets that I had - looking for some pink flower stickers that might work - and settled on Pink Paislee, Maggie Holmes, and Shimelle sitcker sheets that have pink flowers or something pink that might go with my layout. I also pulled out a few Maggie Holmes sticker books in hope that they might have something in them I can use. I definitely have options here!

My second layout kit:

This kit has a couple of papers from Simple Stories' So Happy Together collection and a solid navy paper from Echo Park. 

Here's a closer look at the papers:

My first thought was to use the black and white floral stickers but then I went searching and found a few die cuts that might work, too. I pulled the stamp set from Close To My Heart because the flowers in that set match those flower stickers so well. I will be keeping those Maggie Holmes sticker books close since they have that same pinky coral color in them. 

Here are the scraps that I pulled for this kit - more scraps than what I have papers!

I pulled the floral paper scrap for fussy cutting - if I so choose to do that - and I thought I might cut the coral hearts strip out...we will just see what happens, Maybe I'll make a layout just from the scraps!

Since I don't have a lot of flower embellishments, I did pull a few of my favorite floral stamps to use this month. I also included a Pebbles stamp set and my Studio Calico stamp set in this photo. I would love to ink up all of these stamp sets this month.

Last month I spent some time organizing some of my papers and came across quite a few cut apart papers - mostly from Maggie Holmes - and decided to go ahead and cut them apart so they have a chance of getting used. I will keep this box of goodies on my desk in case I need something for a cluster base:

And that is it! Pulling papers for my April kit has got my scrappy mojo back and it has me excited about scrapping again this month. `

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!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter