Loved Beyond Measure

This week was a busy one, with a road trip to visit family and friends at the opposite end of the state.  I came home to a mountain of laundry but still managed to work on my mid-week-mojo challenge from Scrapbook Steals.  After an 11 photo layout last week, I was thrilled to see a one photo layout that I could put together quickly.  This is the amazing sketch by Kristy Lee:

And here's what I threw together, in between six loads of laundry:

I started with a piece of woodgrain paper from K and Company, then added other patterned paper from Simply Stories, the Paper Studio, and My Mind's Eye.   I cut some letters from patterned paper and added other letters from Echo Park.  This photo was taken during one of our summer adventures to Marengo Cave.  I love seeing photos of my boys when they enjoy being together.  One of them always has their arm around the other.  Occasionally that arm is used to put a brother in a headlock, but for the most part they love one another and are really good brothers.  They tend to pick on each other when they are bored, so outings like this are usually good for all of us.  It was great fun to escape the June heat and put on sweatshirts to head underground where we explored the caves that I had been in so many times before.  It was the first cave trip for the boys and my husband and I'm so glad we worked it into our plans. 

Bounce

This week's sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals was one of my favorite kind-  a two pager with tons of pictures.  While it's certainly easier scrapping one photo layouts, I have a terrible time narrowing down photos or "telling my story" without multiple pictures.  Here is the sketch challenge for this week, including 11 photos!

I decided to create a bright fun layout about our trip to Bremen Bounce, an inflatable wonderland where my kids could play for hours days at a time.  It was a great day and they had lots of fun.  My favorite part was that adults could even go into the bounce houses and slides.  Before the place got too crowded, I joined them to take pictures and even had a ride down the big slide.  Thank goodness there were no photos of that!

I used a combinations of papers from Echo Park's Little Boy and Playground collections.  I stuck with sunny fun colors because they matched the mood of our day.  The only problem with scrapping this layout was that it reminded my boys of that great day and now they're begging to go back to the bounce place.  Hmmmm, they did have big tables for parents to use to sit and watch their kids...I wonder if I could scrapbook there while my kiddos play.  Maybe we should go back!

November Imaginisce Challenge

This month's sketch challenge at Imaginisce is by Cari Locken and looks something like this:

A few months back, I was lucky enough to win a Geek is Chic prize package from Imaginisce.  I loved the fun colors and the whimsical designs.  When my son pulled out a pair of silly glasses, I knew I had to snap some photos just so I'd have a good excuse to use some of this collection.  I snapped photos of my sons and husband as they tried on the silly glasses, and before long, we were all laughing and snorting.  Of course, they had no idea that I planned to use these photos on a layout and post them for all of the scrappy world to see! 

This title says it all!  Being a self proclaimed nerd, I relish my days participating in marching band, orchestra, academic quiz bowl, spell bowl, and otherwise "nerdy" activities.  I embraced my nerdiness, was Salutatorian of my class, and was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by my high school classmates.  No matter what I do, I always try to do my best.  If that makes me a nerd, then so be it! 

football

This week my scrappy pal Cathryn Hanson was the lucky guest sketcher at Scrapbook Steals.  She created two beautiful sketches this week and I was so excited to play along.  This is the sketch I worked from:

I decided to create a layout for my son's first season of football.  I flipped the sketch to make it work better with my paper and created this:

I matted my main photo with a piece of textured paper that had dimples just like a real football.  Then for my journaling spot, I hand cut a football shape out of another piece of textured paper and added the white stripe across the top.  The word FOOTBALL was already printed on the background paper, but it didn't stand out as much as I liked, so I outlined the letters with a sharpie and added some dimension with Glossy Accents.  I added some football ribbon and a few die cut embellishments.  Maybe this week the random.org drawing will be in my favor.  If not, I still have a great new sketch to work with and another layout completed!

One month in

A little over one month ago I threw my hat into the crafty ring and applied for a position as a temporary design team member at Practical Scrappers.  I have "met" a lot of crafty friends online who were very supportive and encouraging.  They see my work every week and always give such great feedback.  I decided I'd like to try showing my work to even more people, so the fresh face design team was calling my name. I had submitted projects to Practical Scrappers as a "fan" and had several of my layouts featured on their blog.  I love the way they use "practical" themes and ordinary products while challenging readers and designers to look at things in a different light.  At the beginning of October, I got an email telling me I was going to be part of the team through the end of January.  I was beyond excited to be chosen and I started right in, working on projects for the month of October.  In this first month, these are my projects that have been featured:

The requirement for this layout was to use "print" from either book, music, etc.  I didn't have any music note paper handy, so I photocopied parts of a hymnal and used them to highlight these pictures of my youngest playing his keyboard.  I printed a 6 inch strip of piano keys off of Google images and cut it to go across as a border strip.  Since the color of my son's shirt didn't really match the rest of my layout, I had my photos printed in black and white.  He was so excited to see himself on the blog feature!

This is the card I made for the fall/leaf card feature.  I used some scraps from my favorite Apple Cider collection from Imaginisce and fussy cut some stamped leaves.  I embossed the orange leaf for a little extra touch and added some torn kraft paper to make the card a little more rustic.

Following in the fall/leaf theme, I created this page for the layout feature.  I had this photo sitting around for almost two years and decided this was a good excuse to finally use it.  I combined pieces from Apple Cider and Happy Harvest collections, both from Imaginisce and I distressed the edges and made a grid pattern.  I had some flimsy leaf border paper that I snagged a while back and I cut it into strips to create a leaf mat behind my photo which I popped up using dimensional tape.  I added a leaf that I cut from my Cricut and threw in some baker's twine for good measure. 

This card was created for a "stitching on cards" feature.  I simply love my Sew Easy and couldn't resist making a sweet rainbow card for a dear friend recovering from surgery.  I traced some lines with pencil using a circle cutter as my guide.  Then I "drove" my sew easy right over the pencil lines to create my holes to stitch my rainbow.  I added some free form clouds that I edged with glue and dipped in glitter.  A little white ink around the edges and it was done.  Super fast and super easy. 

This layout combined two different projects.  I signed up to do a stitching layout for Practical Scrappers and was inspired by the weekly sketch challenge at Scrapbook Steals.  I used Kristy Lee's amazing sketch and created this layout.  I used papers from Echo Park's Splash collection and added some "waves" of stitching using my sew easy once again.  I tucked a cute little half circle at the top of my page and added more stitching to make a sun.
I love a good challenge and I'm a stickler for deadlines, so I am already working on my next projects to be featured at Practical Scrappers in November.  Thanks for looking and be sure to play along.  Go to the Practical Scrappers blog to see a list of the current calls and send in a photo of your project to practicalscrapperslayouts@gmail.com to see if your work will be featured on their blog.  That's exactly what I did to get started and now I'm thrilled to be part of the team! 

Halloween Happenings

We survived yet another hectic Halloween.  We crafted one homemade costume, recycled an old one, and are up to our armpits in candy.  Here's what we've been up to:

The boys (with lots of help from mom and dad) carved pumpkins on the eve of Halloween.  I put them on the porch complete with candles, and then we got busy wandering the neighborhood and never got them lit.  Oh well. 

Jacob settled for a rubic's cube costume.  Maybe one of the cheapest to make, but definitely a challenge to find a perfectly square box.  I used $2 worth of black spray paint and covered the box, then added 6x6 squares of scrapbook paper in a grid design.  That shows you just how much I love him.  I used (wasted) several sheets of scrapbook paper and didn't think twice about it.  He got tons of comments while we were out and even got some extra treats because his costume was just so cool.

Caleb recycled the spider costume that Jacob wore three years ago.  We started with a cheap hooded sweatshirt, stuffed black tube socks with polyfil and I sewed them on and tied them together with fishing line.  A couple pom poms and googly eyes glued to the hood and we've got ourselves a spider.  The best part, now that we're done with the costume, is that I can remove my stitches and Caleb will have a new sweatshirt he can wear the rest of the year.  He was a little disappointed that he didn't get as many ooohhs and aaahhs as his brother, so next year he wants to go back to the tried and true costume from a box.  Those always get the most attention.

The boys started off at Truck or Treat at our church.  Then they came home to empty their bags and start over in our neighborhood.  Mom and Dad both wanted to walk them around, so we kept our lights off and headed out with the masses to walk the neighborhood.  By the time we got home we were too tired to hand out our own candy, so we called it a night.  That means we had even more candy left over.  I let the boys keep one canister of candy for home, then we donated a big bag to each of their classrooms for the prize boxes and we're both taking a big bag of candy to work with us.  I'm proud of my little candy goblins, because they each only ate one piece of candy at the end of the night.  We generally ration the candy out pretty well.  When I cleaned out the candy canister to fill it with Halloween goodies, I threw away candy that was still in there from Easter and even some from Valentine's day!

Here are the treats I made for Caleb's classroom party.  I couldn't get out of work on the day of the actual party, so I found this cute mummy idea on Pinterest and headed to Sam's Club to buy a case of Hershey bars.  I wrapped them with white streamers and added some googly eyes.  I attached a little note that said Happy Halloween and Caleb took them for all of his classmates.  Jacob no longer has classroom parties, but he took some for his teachers and I had a few left over to hand out myself.

I already have the materials to make Jacob's box costume for next year, and Caleb will recycle an oldie but a goodie, so stay tuned......