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!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sketch N Scrap Card Sketch #212

Hello, hello! Happy Monday to you! And what a happy day it is! The ice that we got last week is almost completely gone, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we are supposed to reach 60 degrees today and 70 by mid-week - spring is on its way! 

I hope that you had a good weekend. We had a last-minute sleepover with Miss Ada and after not seeing her for two weeks - it was wonderful! She kept us busy wanting to do all the things and we all had so much fun! Lots of  "sledding" on the ice, lots of Yahtzee, Uno, and Guess Who, and lots of Spongebob! We definitely made up for those two weeks that we missed.

Today I am sharing the card that I created with the February 20th sketch from Sketch N Scrap. I had a lot of fun with this sketch and I think I'll see if I can't make another card or two from it. Here's a look at the sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

Back sometime last year I got rid of all of my scraps. I was tired of dealing with them and looking through the same ones over and over again. I guess I just wasn't inspired by them anymore. And it was so freeing! But - when it came to making a card or needing just a small piece of paper for a layer here and there - I kind of missed having those scraps to go through! Am I sorry I got rid of them? No. I do think I could have gone through them and picked out a few to keep, but it has been really nice to start over fresh!

Since then I am back to saving my scraps. I don't save every single teeny tiny piece of paper - I am much more selective these days in what stays and what goes - and most of the time I keep the scraps with the collection until the collection is gone or mostly gone. But - I do have one 12x12 page protector (that is all I will allow myself to have) that has random scraps in it. I went through it this weekend and put everything in rainbow order and I even pulled out a few coordinating scraps for some cards - and that is how this card came to be!

This card is made up completely of scraps - right down to the alpha stickers I used on it! I'm not sure why I had the alpha stickers in my scraps but they went well with these papers and instead of putting them back into my stash, I thought I would put them to use!

I matted all of the papers with navy cardstock scraps so each piece would stand out a bit more. I added foam tape to the sentiment and lined it up with the background paper. I did not add an embellishment to the top of the card like the sketch calls for - I just felt like everything I tried got lost on the busy paper - and that paper is pretty enough that it doesn't need anything more!

This was such a fun sketch to work with and I know I will be using it again!

Be sure to stop by the Sketch N Scrap blog for more inspiration using the February sketches. Today is the last day to enter the challenges, so don't delay!

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

 

Lasting Memories #588 - Stickers

 Hello, everyone! Happy Sunday to you! I hope that you are having a good weekend. Miss Ada spent the night last night and we had quite the adventures! I'm sure today will be more of the same until it's time for her to go home.

It's time for a new theme and a new set of challenges at Lasting Memories and since I am in charge of this month's challenges - I am also going to try to play along! For our March challenges, I went with something near and dear to me and chose the theme of "Love Your Stash." All of our challenges this month will help you put your stash to use and this week's challenge is - Stickers! Just use stickers on your layout. This can be cardstock stickers, chipboard stickers, puffy stickers, sticker books - if it is sticky on the back then use it on your layout. 

This is what I came up with:

I am working on my February 2022 traveler's notebook and these photos of Ada out in the snow that  Abby sent me paired perfectly with the Simple Stories Feelin' Frosty collection. I challenged myself to work only with the 12x12 sticker sheet for my embellishments and the only other things that were added were enamel dots and a bit of washi tape.

Abby snapped these photos of Ada after we'd gotten a bit of snow earlier this month and they were just too cute not to scrap! She wanted to wear her blue light glasses outside and they just add to the cuteness.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

There are a few cute critter stickers in the collections but I went with the cute little grey...fox - at least I think it's a fox or wolf...whatever it is, it is cute! I thought it brought a bit more grey over to the left side of the spread. 

I added some foam tape on the back of one of the word phrases and let that serve as my title. I love the look of the washi tape on the bottom of the photos.

I punched out a couple of tabs to layer at the bottom and added a phrase sticker on top. I also added a few little snowflake stickers around it to finish it out. 

Be sure to stop by the Lasting Memories blog to see how the rest of the design team took on this week's sticker challenge. I would love it if you played along, too!

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

The First Time - Sketch N Scrap #243

Hello, hello! Happy Saturday to you!  Do you have any fun plans for your weekend? Are you lucky enough to have a long weekend with President's Day being Monday? This is the first year that hubby's work has made it a paid holiday so we will be enjoying the extra day off. And Sunday and Monday are both supposed to be in the 60s, so you know we will be outside getting some work done. We love those warm February days and will take them any time we can get them!

Today I am sharing the layout I created using the February 15th sketch from Sketch N Scrap. This fun sketch was created by Heather and I had a lot of fun creating with it! Here's a look at the sketch:

I always love a sketch that features a big block of paper on it - that gives me a great excuse to play around with patterns! 

This is what I came up with:

I have been wanting to scrap these photos of Ada and the first time that she drew a person with a body instead of a stick figure. She was so proud of herself and I was proud of her, too! I used a paper from Bella Blvd's Mom Life collection for the background. It's quite busy but with the big block of paper on top of it, I feel like it helps to calm the busyness down a bit. I knew that this was probably the only time that I would have the chance to get that paper used.

I wanted to be sure to add the story to the layout so I added a journaling block to the right side of the photos. I tried adding it to labels and putting it in place of the banners at the bottom of the page, and I tried to add a tag that could be hidden - or partially hidden - around the cluster but they both seemed to get lost in that busy background paper, so a journaling block it is!

Here is a close-up of the cluster:

I really didn't know how I was going to embellish this layout - so I went with a large die-cut heart as my cluster base, added a couple of flowers that I found in my stash from an old My Mind's Eye collection, and I fussy cut a few of the drawings from the background paper to add to it. I finished it all off with a few enamel dots. 

And I just now realized that the little red heart that is supposed to be at the end of my journaling is about to fall off of the journaling block! That has now been fixed!

Have you had a chance to play along with the Sketch N Scrap sketches this month? I would love to see your take on them!

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

TN Time With Lisa & Lori - February Challenge

Hello, everyone! Happy Valentine's Day to you! I hope that you had a good weekend and that you are ready for the new week. 

It is time for the TN Time With Lisa & Lori February Challenge! 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 February:

It's an easy peasy one this month - just add a heart - or hearts - to your layout! This can be a heart embellishment or stamp or heart patterned paper.

Here is the fun sketch from Lisa:

And this is what I came up with:

For this spread, I used the Cocoa Vanilla papers and embellishments that I included in my February Stash Bash Kit. I am so happy that I finally got a few of these papers out of my stash and onto a layout or two this month. These are some of my favorites from the collection. When paired with my two favorite girls - well, I couldn't help but love how this spread turned out!

I have officially started my 52 Favorites of 2022 traveler's notebook and this is my favorite photo from Week 5! The girls were over for supper and we finally had a chance to watch Encanto with them. I snapped this photo of the two of them before Scott got home with the food - and I love it!

Here are a couple of close-ups:

I used one of the die-cut pieces for my title. I have some pretty thin foam tape that I added to the back of it. I don't tend to use a lot of dimension in my traveler's notebook but I really wanted to pop this title piece up and I will just make sure to not overload this notebook!

The little banner piece is from the cut apart paper and I added a few punched hearts and a phrase sticker for this little cluster.

The die-cut flowers in this collection are so pretty and I wish I had a bunch more of them in my stash!

I am excited to work in my 52 Favorites of 2022 TN this year - and hopefully, keep up with it!

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 my blog today! I hope you have a wonderful day!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter