I Love This Man

I have been doing the Thanks Living challenge at Club CK this year.  It's designed to teach you to live a live of thankfulness and gratitude.  No matter how bad the day, you can always find something you can be thankful for!  The challenge is also being used to teach principles of design.

February's lesson was about giving weight to the things that are most important.  For me, February is the month that reminds me of how thankful I am of my husband, so I wanted to make sure the photo I had of him was the one with the most weight.  I also used a L♥VE tag a fellow scrapper made for me.  This sentiment also has weight to it.  My love for this man outweighs everything else I could want to say.

The Layout

Watch a Movie With Me

The Challenge:
Create a layout either about the movies you enjoy watching with your loved one or an activity you enjoy doing together.

I decided to do the movies that John and I like to watch together.  They are mostly action/spy type movies, but John recently discovered Leap Year and liked it.  Probably because he is a lot like Declan, lol.

I had some ideas that I wanted to do, like the marquee, but I struggled with how to display the movies without just having them sitting there.  I remembered a sketch by Page Maps that used photos hung on a clothes line and thought this might work as a way to have my movies grounded to the page.  I found these cute papers by Authentique that had the tickets on them and thought they would be perfect.  The line also included sticker tickets too.  Then I went online and searched for popcorn and movie tickets.  I had no trouble finding a popcorn box, but could not find anything I liked for the popcorn.  I ended up just drawing them and then cutting them out.   I love how cute and fat they turned out.  Finally, I found a site where you could personalize a movie marquee so I made this into my title and rimmed it with yellow gems.  When  I took the photo, the sun was shining off the gems, making them look lit up!

The layout

I'm a Princess - Lil Laura

Another fun challenge at CSI this week!  I wait until the case goes up and then peruse my photos and pick out something to scrap.  I decided to go retro this time and scrap a couple of childhood photos of me.  I had a couple of fun retro lines of paper from October Afternoon and Crate Paper that I thought went well with these era photos.

For my evidence, I did major distressing, made use of metals and mixed straight lines with organic shapes.  For my testimony, I wrote the roots of the matter.

I was pretty excited about my metal piece, the sub-title!  I just got a set of metal stamps.  I have had these metal tags forever and really didn't know what to do with them.  I hammered my sub-title right on with my new stamps and then worked some black ink into the crevices.  I like how it turned out and feel I will be using them a lot!

The layout

Daddy Time

Another layout for my nephew's first year.  I pulled some photos of him and daddy and used manly colors and patterns.

I used the Fab Friday prompt at Frosted Designs to use brads and/or eyelets.  I actually used both!  I used eyelets to sting my twine through and create the illusion of it holding down the vertical strips.  Then, I placed two groups of 3 circle brads to add interest on the brown vertical strip and used blue, square brads on the skinny plaid strip to add interest and shape.  I turned the square at a different angle to add even more interest and some contrast.  I used a Page Maps sketch for inspiration in the design.

The layout

1st Bath

The Challenge:
Use your stickers an enhanced way.

I decided the first bath photos I had of my nephew would be great for this challenge.  I knew I had some splash stickers and thought adding dimensional glaze to them would make them stand out and look wet.  They were a little light in color, so I added them to some darker cardstock and cut them out first.  I then used some foam tape to give them a little lift.  Finally, I added the dimensional glaze on top of the water parts of the stickers.  I have found dimensional glaze to be very helpful in giving flat embellishments a more finished look.  I use it a lot when I add stamping to layouts too.

The layout

Born This Day

The Challenge
Use a calendar on a layout

This was the perfect challenge for a layout documenting the birth of a baby!  I have the Stampin' Up Full Calendar stamp set and found it to be the perfect embellishment.  I used the February stamp that comes with the set and used my Smash date stamp to add the dates on the days.  I then cut out a heart frame on my Cricut and used it to circle the day my nephew was born.  I added the year in the month box too with the date stamp too.  I used a sketch from one of my Scrapbook Generations sketch books.  I pulled the colors from the polka dots on the main horizontal strip.  He sure looks a little put out about having to be born!  LOL.

The layout

Butterfly

I got right on my project for this week's CSI case file.  The colors are so happy and sunny.  Nice at this time of year when things are bleak and dark.  I am also playing along with the Frosted Designs sketch challenge.  Jenny Evans had an awesome sketch for this round and I love it!

I pulled out some photos I took last summer on a trip to my mom's house in Missouri.  We went on a hike one afternoon (not used to doing that in such high humidity,lol) along this pretty little trail.  There were these cute little yellow flowers and as I came up to one, I saw a pretty little butterfly sipping nectar.  The butterfly was so nice and let me take a photo of him.

We hiked down into a creek bed that was sort of dark and spooky and I found some tree roots that had cool designs in them.  I thought it would be perfect to add this photo since one of the evidence prompts was to use wood grain accents.  I also made a strip of wood grain using my Big Shot and made the grain stand out by applying a dark distress ink on the raised area.  I pleated some fabric to cover both the use of fabric and pleats.  And, finally, I added some painted, metal brads.  For my testimony, I used the tell three things prompt.

The layout

The sketch and case file

Fishy Face

When I saw the color scheme for this weeks CSI case, I thought this photo would go well with the challenge.   The photo was taken on our visit to the aquarium.  I crawled into one of those bubble windows in the piranha tank, not an easy feat!  This is my best fishy face.

I couldn't find a decorative fishing net, so I got some hemp twine and crocheted one.  I like how it turned out, but it was a bit painful as the twine is rough.  For my evidence, I cut some seaweed leaves out of green paper, in the challenge colors, and then distressed the edges, crinkled the face and then inked them.  For my other evidence, I used my die cutting machine to cut out the fish and the anchor from the eggplant color.  I also used the eggplant paper to make my little urchin.  My red is in the die cut paper and the flesh color is the background cardstock.

I loved this week's case!

The layout

The case

Showered With Love

This is another layout for my nephew's first year album.  When I read about Frosted Design's challenge to use ribbon or twine, I thought these photos would be perfect!  I immediately thought of balloons with twine for strings.  I found this cute die cut on my Hoot N' Holler Cricut cartridges and added the twine on the die cut string portion.  I must say I am loving using twine!  I used Creative Scrapper's sketch 192 for inspiration too.

The layout

The close up

The sketch

Baby Boy

This is another layout for my nephew's first year album.  I decided to use the sketch at lovejoypaper.com for this month's challenge.  I thought it would be a cute one for a baby page.  I had intended to use hearts in all the circle spots, but then I saw these clouds and changed my mind!  I did use hearts for the bottom circles.  I also flipped the sketch to give more weight to the clouds.  All the patterned paper is by MME and is a super cute line.

The layout

The sketch

And Baby Makes 3

I am doing an album of my nephew's first year.  I'm so excited!  I decided to start at the beginning and this will be the title page.  I used the current sketch over at Frosted Designs.  It is a fantastic sketch done by none other than my friend Ashley Horton!  She is used to me taking her sketches and turning them into a double, and believe me when I say that it will do that with this sketch, but I thought it was perfect for the opening page of the album.

The Layout.

The sketch

Valentine's Day Blog Hop

So glad you could join us for the Valentine's Day Blog Hop!  You should have come from Beth's blog.  If you didn't, you should go begin at the beginning at Amanda's blog to partake in all the fun.

For this hop Amanda sent each of us a little packet full of goodies to all of us to make a Valentine card.  It will be fun to see how differently we all use the supplies!

I think I used everything she sent me, lol.  I covered the little die cuts in the paper that was in the packet and tied the button hole with the twine given.  I used a piece of coordinating paper from my stash, that went well with what I received, as the background.  I also used a little glitter mist on the red, punched paper to tone it down and help it match the other papers.  Finally, I punched a couple of frames to hold my title which was a cute brad.

Thanks for stopping by.  You can continue to hop along over toSteffanie's blog to see what she has created

Fly

The Challenge:
Create a hybrid layout.  (one that uses digital and paper)

I did this layout for two challenges.  I did the Issue Challenge that calls for us to create a hybrid layout and I also used it for this week's CSI challenge.

My dad and I spent last Saturday out shooting photos.  We had a blast!  We intended to play with our macro lenses, but we ended up going back and forth between that and our telephoto lenses!  There was a ton of bird action out there.  It was a gorgeous day and I guess the birds wanted to enjoy it too.  We went to a nearby wildlife refuge and saw two huge groups of Canadian geese sitting in a field right by the road.  There were thousands.  They sat there all afternoon, flying from group to group.  On our way out of the park, we swung by to see if they might all take off since it was getting onto evening.  We watched for a while, taking photos of the smaller groups moving between the two groups and then photographed a couple of hundred geese, flying in to join their friends, from someplace else.  We had just decided to move on and my dad stopped to photograph a nice reflection that he saw when, all of a sudden, the largest group all took off!  They flew over and joined the smaller group and those geese flew into the air to meet their friends.  It was awesome!  Geese everywhere, flying every direction, right next to us!  I'll never forget the thrill.

I knew these would be great photos to use for the CSI challenge.  I used paint as my wet medium, black gems, striped paper and I used a digital frame around the photos.  I chose to journal about what the photo meant to me.  There is much more majesty in taking to the air than sitting around where it's safe.

The layout


































The case file