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