Paper Secrets Sketch Challenge - Sunshine Skyway Bridge

This is the Sunshine Skyway bridge that spans Tampa Bay in Florida.  I have always felt it is one of the most beautiful bridges and even Travel Channel agreed by rating it #3 in the world!  I created this layout for Paper Secrets sketch challenge and used the color palette from the Sketches 4 All color challenge.

Ingredients:

• Paper:  Pink Paislee Portfolio
• Flair Button - Fancy Pants Park Bench
• Tag - Recollections
• Star - American Crafts Everyday
• Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye The Sweetest Thing
• Tiny alphas - American Crafts Everyday
• Title:  Thickers Roster
• Tiny tag under polaroid - My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose
• Blue swirly border - My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose
• Sketch - Liz Chidester via Paper Secrets

Rockstar

 

I know - you're thinking WOAH!  That's bright!   Yup!  AND its a lot of pink.  AND it has GLITTER!  Have aliens invaded my body?  No - just changing it up a bit.  The yellow in the photo was not working well with mre muted papers so I said "go for it!"  And yes, I have been using pink a lot more lately.  It is really growing on me, especially when paired with teal.  So that leaves the supper-glittered title without an explanation.  There isn't one - you just have to get out of your comfort zone now and then and this photo was the perfect opportunity.

Lots of inspiration this week with NSD challenges, new monthly challenges, and all kinds of other great stuff!  First to mention was a scraplift challenge at A Cherry On Top where paper crafters had to scrap a digital layout.  I chose one with a bold star burst pattern in the background to lift.  The next inspiration was from 2 Broke Girls who have awesome sketches.  I used the sketch for NSD Sketch #6 challenge.  And finally, I can't leave out the scrappy Friends including Kristi B.  Her challenge this month is to include a logo.  Given how wonderful we look, I chose The X Factor.

Ingredients:

• Paper:  
• Echo Park Style Essentials
• Echo Park Everyday Eclectic 
• MME Stella and Rose
• Close to My Heart Dotty for You
• Stickers:
• Pink Chevron Border stickers (cut to smaller pieces) - Pebbles
• Little flowers - Happy Pear jelly stickers
• Alphas - Thickers Hooray
• Other embellishments:
• Elle's Studio Sweet Life Cutouts (love these for the variety and great value)
• SMASH page tabs
• Star stick pin - Maya Road

Scraplifted this digital design from A Cherry on Top gallery

 

Used this sketch from 2 Broke Girls

Horseplay

 

I have been really enjoying National Scrapbook Day as so many saites are having extra challegnes contests, and games all week long.  This is one of several layouts I have made for it.  The sketch came from 2 Broke Girls (NSD Challenge #8) and the "ingredients were inspired by a recipe challenge at A Cherry on Top and another recipe challenge at Sketches 4 All.

Ingredients:

• Setch - 2 Broke Girls (NSD CHallenge #8)
• Cardstock - kraft wrinkled paper from Wasau variety cardstock pack (Target); copper paper from DCWV Glimmer stack; SEI Desrt Springs fil accented paper; sea foam green paper from stash
• Doily - SVG Cuts cutting file cut on my Silhouette Cameo
• Wood veneer pieces - Close To My Heart
• Glass Mosaic Tiles
• Chipboard tag - Close to My Heart; painted with copper paint from Folk Art
• Alphas - Thickers and American Crafts Everyday Set 2

 

You Are My Sunshine

I love using sketches and 2 Broke Girls has some great ones!  This one is for their May challenge (Sketch #4) - it worked perfectly for a photo I have been waiting to scrap.  I also knew I wanted to use some pink and a piece of felt flower ribbon for Cheryl's May challenge at Sketches4All .

Ingredients:

• Paper:  Simple Stories Snap; Amy Tangerine Yes Please; Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go; Echo Park Photo Freedom
• Cardstock:  Bazzill
• Embossing folder on yellow cardstock:  Cuttlebug
• Letters:  October Afternoon Sticky Keys Key Caps; Thickers Regards
• "Sweet" and "Happy" Banners:  American Crafts Everyday
• Brad:  American Crafts
• "Smile" tag:  Elle's Studio Sweet Life Cutouts 
• Polka Dot tag:  back of brad packaging Ribbon (chevron):  May Arts
• Flower ribbon:  Target dollar bin
• Sketch:  2 Broke Girls

This Ain't No Recital

Soccer is a permanent fixture in my house, with my daughter on two teams (Texans select team plus her middle school team), my husband on two teams, season tickets for FC Dallas professional team, and non-stop English Premiership games on TV on Saturdays.  This layout is from her middle school team where she plays forward.

Inspiration came from a number of places, as always:

1. Sketch = Becky Fleck's Sketch #41 at A Cherry On Top
2. Dots and Strips = Scrap Our Stash #2 (though I'm not entering it in challenge as I omitted the twist to add a bird, butterfly or bee)
3. Title = inspired by A Cherry On Top musical challenge to use a musical term in your title.   It's a great kind of challenge as it really gets me to think rather than resort to typical titles.
4. Sketches4All Let's Get Cooking # 8 - Twine, 2+ Stamps, Recycled item (the ticket stamps were stamped onto the white card packaging from a set of American Craft tags )
5. Scrapbook.com Stamping on Your Layout

Ingredients:

1. Paper:  background = Jillibean Sup Atomic Soup; top stripe = Basic Grey :Lauderdale; tiny strip = Paper Studio; cardstock = Bazzill; all other pattern paper = Colorbok paper kit
2. Alphas = Thickers "Goodness" by Amy Tangerine; October Afternoon "Sticky Keys" Denim & Cream
3. Square brads = Paper Studio
4. Stamps - "Admit One" stamp by Lost Coast Designs; "You Rock" by Jilibean Soup Birthday Party; the tickets were stamped on the packaging from a set of tags I recently bought.
5. Twine = WeRMemory Keepers Sew easy

Family Moments

We have very few true family photos, and hardly any with my in-laws so I was happy to get these pictures when my husband visited them last summer.  Since it was just the three of them there is no single photo of all but I'll take what I can get!  As for the lack of smiles - they have always refused to smile in photos - it's hard enough to get the photo so again, I take what I can get - I just refer to it as my Welsh Gothic, a close relative to Grant Wood's American Gothic painting.

The sketch came from Brenda Ragsdale at Scrap Our Stash, though I did convert it from a 2-photo sketch to a 3-photo sketch.  I am also using this for Mary's A to Z challenge at Soul Scrappers (letter "F").

Ingredients:

1. Paper:  Union Square paper pack by Recollections; Script Cream by Recollections
2. Doily cut file - Ironwork Flower by SVGcuts.com
3. Title - Chocolate Box Decorative Fonts101.com.  The font is a little imperfect so I always find I have to edit some of it in MakeTheCut (or Design Studio) before cutting on my Silhouette but I really like the font so it's worth it
4. Scroll border punch - EK Success
5. Sketch - Brenda Ragsdale

Water Baby

I have fallen a bit behind with some of my favorite blogs and their challenges but I am determined to catch up!  One of the ones I try to follow regularly is Scrapping Everyday Miracles.  They have such great tips and ideas and fun challenges, a great sketch every month, and of course the inspirational messages. 

So with their sketch in hand, I went to work scrapping photos of my DD at a company picnic nearly 11 years ago!  Wow how time flies!  I went banner happy with individual banner stickers from Echo Park's Happy Summer collection and added a sun sticker from the same sticker sheet.  The striped paper is also from Echo Park - I added some pink polka dot washi tape to the top half.  The other two papers are from Close to My Heart.  And of course lots of mist (too much in hindsight) from Dylusions and October Afternoon.

Pajama Party Fun

This came together super quick last night.  I came across a photo my daughter was given from a birthday party back when she was in kindergarten.  It is always fun to see how much the girls have changed as all but one are still friends as of 7th grade. 

The design was based on a sketch by my fellow Texan Tabitha Trippet for 2 Broke Girls (I did rotate it 90 degrees) and the title was inspired by my dear friend Cheryl for one of her weekly word challenges at at Sketches4All - this time the word was "Fun".  And not to leave out Colorful Creations, a lot of the embellishments were inspired by their stash challeng:

• 4 papers - Coredinations cardstock, MME Follow Your Heart Be Happy ( 3 different papers), Bo Bunny Double Dot (A and B side of a paper)
• 3 of the same embellishments - 3 brads from Prima Lyric collection; 3 layered chevrons I made on my Silhouette
• 2 stickers - 3 clear epoxy word stickers from Bubble -a-Bilities; layered butterfly sticker from American Crafts
• 1 photo

Other ingredients include alphas by Thickers (Patchwork), edge punch by EK Success, tag by Chic Tags (I cut off the bottom and layered it at the top so as not to loose the fun word), ribbon below photo from may Arts, ribbon on tag recycled from a tag attached to a new blouse, "Smile" stamp by Unity Stamp Itty Bitty Echo Park line, and chipboard flower from AMerican Cratfs (its more pink in real life - photo makes it look orange.

Tabitha's sketch:

Heaven at Manchester City

First a confession - I admit to going a little nuts on the embellishments with this page.  This is what happens when you don't clear off your scrap desk and there are just tons of things around that attract your eye.  I can now proudly say that I have a lot less chipboard pieces to put away!  Ha Ha!

So the theme for this page was my husband's love (if not obsession) with Manchester City Football Club.  He lives and breathes everything City and I even got him a personalized license plate with "MANCTY" for him (he actually teared up - seriously!).  So when I came across this photo he took last year of Man City's hollowed ground I had to give it a home along with the rest of our treasured memories.  And what better way to start than with another great Pagemaps sketch courtesy of Paper Secrets April 15 challenge?

Ingredients:

• Sketch:  Paper Secrets April 15 challenge
• Paper:  Jilibean Soup Blossom Soup; Bazzill cardstock; Echo Park For the Record 2
• Wooden pieces:  Studio Calico
• Twine:  SewEasy by WeRMemoryKeepers
• Cardboard arrow:  Close To My Heart, painted and inked
• Ribbon:  Yellow Chevron by May Arts; Polka Dot by JoAnn's
• Chipboard:
• Yellow hearts: Close to My Heart painted with acrylic and covered with CTMH Liquid Glass
•  Blue hearts:  Maya Road misted with October Afternoon Twilight mist and covered with CTMH Liquid Glass
• Stars:  Maya Road Microchips (Stars Brights)
• Buttons:  Jenni Bowlin misted with October Afternoon Twilight mist
• Alphas:  CTMH Irresistables painted with acrylic and inked with Pumice

Catching up...

Though I haven't been blogging a lot lately, I have indeed been busy so I have quite a few layouts to share.

The first layout I'm sharing is a result of a challenge to scrap one of God's many creatures at Scrapping Everyday Miracles.  I had the perfect photos for this from a trip to a local farm in Wales where we took my DD to feed the lambs.  The design is based on a scraplift challenge at Scrapbook.com where someone picks a layout for you from the gallery to lift.  I find scraplift challenges very difficult as I can never decide whether I should lift the design, the colors, the patterns, or the whole thing.  In this case, I lifted the design format but it took 4 attempts to find the right combination of papers to go with the photos. 

Ingredients:

• Paper:  Amy Tangerine Yes Please; Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go, Paper Studio, Bo Bunny Double Dots; My Minds Eye Nostalgia (?)
• Flowers: Recollections
• Quilled Butterflies:  Martha Stewart
• Alphas:  Thickers
• Tag:  Chic Tags
• Brads:  variety
• Flower Center:  Teresa Collins enamel dots
• Stitched Banner: American Crafts

The second is one I completed this morning using a sketch from Soul Scrappers and some Use Your Stash hints from 2 Broke Girls that included 10+ brads.  The photos are from Barmouth Wales from a trip my husband took last summer.

  Ingredients include:

• Paper:  MME Follow Your Heart; Echo Park This and That
• Ribbons:  Jillibean Soup Bean Stalks layered onto a hemp chevron ribbon from Ribbon Boutique (Hobby Lobby)
• Lots of brads including the brackets
• Pewter bookplate from Paper Studio
• Sticker from MME Miss Caroline Dilly Dally
• Title cut on my Silhouette Cameo
  

And the last one to share is a layout of silly photos of my DD and I back in 2004 when we were in Florida.

Ingredients:

• Paper:  MME Love Me, Good Day Sunshine
• Borders and corners:  MME Stella and Rose frames
• Stitched Layered Hearts:  American Crafts
• "Silly" Sticker and tag:  MME Stella and Rose
• The vellum behind the photos is embossed with a Fiskars texture plate using my Grand Calibur and then I added a bunch of tiny punched hearts plus some twine from Jillibean Soup