Saturday, October 4, 2014

Cards -- for World Card Making Day

Here are some cards I made today or finished up today:

A birthday card for my aunt:






Used DCWV papers (some old ones and a PL card from Sweater Weather and the lace on sweater from the mat stack) and their new card sketch.

And then a couple blank, any occasion cards:


And some Halloween cards.  Love the Miss Kate Cuttable svgs (spider webs, witches shoes and EEK!)  The candy corns are from last year -- don't remember where I got them.  Either Miss Kate or SVG Cuts, I believe.








Saturday, September 20, 2014

Last graduation page.

Whew!  I'm done with the graduation album.  It was a fun project to do, but I'm glad it's done.  This is a layout of Ben and one of his friends, in front of the mural that his friend was involved in painting at their school.

Here's the sketch I used, from Let's Get Sketchy:


And I was inspired by the Graffiti challenge at Frosted Designs -- if you look closely, you'll see some misting peaking out from under the photos and embellishments there.  

Next I'm working on finishing the last few pages of our vacation from 2008!  We went on a Mexican cruise, did Disneyland and Universal Studios and visited family.  We had a great time  -- don't know why I haven't finished this up before.  The biggest problem I'm having?  I've grown and changed SO much as a scrapbooker since then.  There are a couple pages I'd like to rip apart and "fix".  And I'm trying to make these last few pages look like they go with the rest.  Ah well -- I'll probably end up adding some to a couple pages and leaving the ones I'm doing now pretty plain.  And then THAT album will be finished!



Thursday, September 11, 2014

Almost Done!

Just a couple more layouts to go and then Ben's graduation book will be done!  Here is my latest installment :-)




 I was inspired by several challenges on this one.  I had made the decision to make the whole album in a burgandy, white, and black with some accents color scheme.  But after a while, they start looking the same -- which is why I love challenges that push me outside my box!  Lasting Memories had an Asian theme challenge -- never would have considered this pattern paper without the inspiration:




It's on the left, bottom.  To go along with it, I used some old, old, ollllld mullberry paper.  It's hard to see in the photos, but there are flower/leaf bits in the paper.  The pages started to come together -- but it still wasn't done.  Love to Scrap Challenge Blog had a challenge themed "Let's Fly Away" -- so  I added the "Landed Here" card (with an old-time plane on it) and then added the arrow pointing to VAAS (the name of the high school).  Since a stamp of some sort was required for the LTSCB, the "Fine & Dandy" and "Simply the Best" stamps filled in some space that was looking a bit bare.  Although they don't really fly away, the pin wheels came from this inspiration also.  

Next cam a challenge that I thought I might have to pass on -- Scrapbook Circle's Gold Challenge.  Bling is just not my thing.  But then DCWV came out with their September Stackaholic sketch and I LOVED it.  As I was flipping through my DCWV stacks to decide what to use -- the gold foil accents from the Tradewinds stack popped out at me.  Love this stack.  But it is REALLY hard to photograph.  I added some washi tape and ribbon and that gorgeous bling swirl.  

Here's the sketch:

And here's my layout:



Oops, forgot my title.  Here's another look at each side:



And some details:


And my last layout (for now :-) -- is our dinner at Brent's.  I used the right side of this Let's Scrap sketch:


And here's the layout:


It's also for the Lasting Memories challenge, "Let's Celebrate".  After all the stress the last few weeks before graduation, we were definitely celebrating!



Friday, September 5, 2014

Another Blog Post? Already?

I have been really working hard at finishing up Ben's graduation photos.  And then I can move on to older ones.  LOL.  I've been tempted by Shutterfly's 99 for 99 cent prints, but holy moly, I've got tons of photos still to scrap.  And they'll do it again :-)

So today -- inspired by several challenges again, I have two double page layouts.  Here's the first one:



 Pictures of Ben with two of his BFFs (who graduated the year before) - along with some teachers, administrators and staff -- including the Police Officer on Campus (Officer Flores).  Ben was never in trouble with Flores, but he got to know him over the years.  Neither of my boys are intimidated by cops -- and often talk to them when they run into them here and there.  The left page was inspired by this sketch from Pretty Little Studio:

I pulled out the folder tab from my stash from ages ago and sorta turned the sketch sideways.  Then I did the companion page (right side) to go along with.  Both pages were also inspired by this color challenge at Let's Capture our Memories:
I used the red and black and light yellow -- with some tan but not quite the same shade.  I had been sticking with black, white and a more burgandy, but these photos look great with these colors -- and it made a little change from the stark white.  The background is from a Recollections stack and all the rest is scraps and bits and bobs -- love using up leftovers.

Here's the next spread:


These were for different challenges.  The left side (the Tynis) is based on a sketch from Sketches in Thyme (newly returned and with a new DT)


And the right side is based on a sketch from Let's Capture Our Memories:




Did you notice I even added bling?  I am so not bling-y.  But I added a few pops on the journaling card and the ribbon across the right top.

There's so much inspiration out there -- and I'm loving being able to spend some time scrapping while my guys are working.  Thanks for checking out what I've been doing.



Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Seriously? More Graduation?

More graduation -- and more challenges.  I've really been getting back into the swing of scrapping after a long time of not doing much.  AND I've done some organizing/sorting/getting rid of.  Yay me!  I can't believe some of the little bits and bobs I've kept.

I also made a "Happy Fall Y'all" banner for my mantle.  DH and DS came home late (they work 'til midnight) and didn't say anything.  This morning, DH had been up for hours, was talking to me, stopped mid-sentence to stare at the fire place.  "What's that?"   sigh.  Yes, well, it makes me happy.

So -- here is the first 2-page layout.  The right side is based on a sketch from Paper Secrets:


Here's my take on it:


I especially like the font (cut from my silhouette) on the newspaper print.  Here's the 2 page spread:

I love the font (Gilligan's Island) for the Seriously?  You don't notice that I sent the "e" through my Xyron X the wrong way and so it's backwards.  Oops.  And somehow I lost the dot under the question mark -- so I thought I'd just add it with a white chalk marker, right?  Only then it blurped.  So I added a hole punched circle.  "Seriously" is all about the shoes -- and my journaling explains that Ben DOES have nicer shoes and we even offered to buy him new ones if he wanted/needed them.  But he insisted on wearing old, blown out, slip on sneakers.  But at least he had a shirt, tie and pants on.  As a parent, you pick your battles.  sigh.

This next layout is a twofer -- I used a Let's Scrap sketch (from their new blog, woo hoo!) and a challenge over at Scrap Our Stash (I love how they inspire me to use up stuff  -- like the pencils in that border, had them for years -- and the school doilies/chalboard label?  Got those in an RAK two or three years ago).  Here's the sketch:

And the Scrap our Stash challenge gave you two lists -- you need to include at least one from List A and at least 3 from List B.  I included Lined or Ruled paper (the grid paper) and Chalboard paper (my title label) from List A.  From List B, I included Pencil or Pen (the pencil border), Alphas (background paper with lettering), Numbers (one of the doilies with the flashcards), Apple (apple doily).  Such a fun challenge.
Here's my layout "High School Hijinks" (Ben and his friend Corey messing around with Mr. Harris, one of his favorite teachers):

I love that I caught Mr. Harris adjusting his glasses, LOL.  I think I was talking to Dana about the bicycle paper -- the red on the right is the reverse of the blue on the left.  the title is on the chalkboard circle.  I had fun with this one.  

Thanks for checking in!




Sunday, August 31, 2014

Last minute August submissions

The first layout I want to share is another from Ben's graduation, "Hat's Off".  I used the DCWV sketch for august and the Tradewinds stack.  I love the colors in it.  I fussy cut around the butterfly so that it could pop over the photo.


Next is a two page layout, "So Proud" of Ben with family and his friend Darrin's family.  I used the sketch at Let's Scrap for this one.  When I first saw it, I thought it was too busy.  For that reason, I chose white background paper.  But I really like how it came out and don't think it looks too busy now.  



Here's the sketch:

My last layout has no photos lol.  I haven't gotten them yet.  I wanted to scrap photos from our trip to Parowan Gap Petroglyphs for the Flintstone challenge over at Child's Play.  I found a challenge over Let's Scrap -- a combination sketch, Bingo and tutorial challenge!  Whew!.  I used the tutorial that showed how to do the sunburst shapes.  I've seen them and wanted to try it, but just never got around to it.  The tutorial took the mystery out of it.  For the Bingo part, I used something shiny (the metal arrows), arrows (on the card and the metals), 3 or more photos (well, they're coming), and brads (holding the metal arrows in place).  Here's the sketch:

We were told to use one side or the other or the middle to create a one-page layout.  I used the right side:

And then added a companion page (I have too many photos for just one page :-):

The papers all come from a Close to My Heart kit that I received as an RAK.  Loved the papers in it.

To show why I thought this layout worked for the Flintstone challenge, here are a few of the photos:











Monday, August 25, 2014

Two New Layouts -- Tassel/Hassle and Great Outdoors

I spend some time cleaning out/up my scrappy area.  Still much more work to do.  I've been in a clean up and out mood though -- you'd think it was spring.  Worked out at the storage unit Sunday.  Still more to do there, too.   Ah well....

I used a lot of challenges for inspiration on these layouts.

The first one is another of Ben's graduation -- the part where their names get called and they get to walk across the stage and everybody shouts.  Most of Ben's close friends graduated the year before, so only a few got snapped on stage.  I love the photo of Ben with Mr. Harris.  Mr. Harris was his Leadership teacher/adviser for all three years he was at VAAS.  He was one of Ben's two favorite teachers.


The challenge that inspired this was a sketch + challenge over at ScrapStuffz "Inspired By" (my friend Stacia).  A friend, Adele, had created this sketch:

and the rest of the challenge was to use a handmade die cut.  I love this sketch, but needed two pages for all the photos.  So I turned it to create the second page.  And I made the title die cut -- love my Silhouette.  And all those circles were punched -- from a 6x6 pad that Merry sent me, if I'm not mistaken.  I love my online scrapping community!  

The next layout plays off several challenges:  


I used a DCWV sketch, but since I didn't use DCWV papers, I won't be submitting it there (shh!  don't tell)  But the sketch worked soooo well for the layering challenge over at  Scrapbook Circle.  But what to scrap?  Then I remembered that Scrap Our Stash had a Selfie (plus pre-made/packaged frame) challenge and SWAT had a summer  vacation challenge going..  I had to think about the Selfie -- just don't take many, honestly.  BUT -- David snapped this pic of us in Zion on our trip with Ben's friends.  The frame I've had for AGES -- just never seemed to go.  And honestly, I probably wouldn't have thought of it if it hadn't been for the challenge.    AND -- the frame covered up most of the stranger behind us that was (unintentionally) photo-bombing us LOL.

Thanks for stopping bye!


Thursday, August 21, 2014

Pomp.....and Circumstance

More layouts today from Ben's graduation.  The first is title "Pomp" and is based on a Let's Scrap sketch:


They had graduation in the quad/stage area.  The kids came down the stairs to the music.

Here's the sketch I started with:

My friend, Cathy, drew that up.  I loved it and thought it worked well for my photos.

The next layout is called "and Circumstance" and features pics of the speakers, band, and choir, along with lyrics to the song they sang. The right side is  based on a sketch from Let's Capture our Memories:


Here's my version, plus the left side companion page I created:


There's plenty more photos from graduation -- so I've got a few more layouts to do.  So happy to have an abundance of inspiration available online!