A Signal

Whew I made it.   only by a few hours.    I've been wanting to use the latest sketch at "My Scraps and More"   it came out on my first day of vacation and finally when I got home from work early afternoon today I got to use it.   I knew I wanted to use these pictures and had them printed for a few days now.     I went to my old stand by of My Minds Eye - Kraft Fun collection.   then just matted everything ins either black or brown so each pattern would stand out against each other and on my orange card stock.   I had these decorative brads/buttons from the collection and had only used one before so got to use some again,  then a couple of different Thickers for my title and used a white gel pen for my journaling against the kraft colors.
Check out the challenge HERE and see the sketch below.

My Reggie

We adopted Reggie the last day May at age 7 weeks.   He became my cat and is attached to me, there is not much I can do that I don't have him right by me.     So I've become pretty good at typing with him between me and the keyboard.   He has fallen asleep leaning against me and the bottom right small picture is when he fell asleep sitting up in front of the monitor just watching me work on a layout.   In fact hue just jumped out again and is leaning on me.

I used the July 18th sketch at Stuck on U Sketches for this layout.   I've been wanting to use this pink doily I have so picked paper to go with it.   I used the MME Kate & Co. Cambridge Court collection.
You still have time to enter the challenge so check it out HERE and see the sketch below.   So many ways to go with it.

It made me think of you card

This has been a card making month for me.   I was in a Christmas in July challenge on my yahoo group so most cards have been Christmas cards.   So this card was fun making as not Christmas and  I'm going to get to  enter into 2 challenges.   First I went with the Inspiration Challenge #191 at Hand Stamped Sentiments.   I went with using the colors of a teal blue that was in the 3 photos of the inspiration.  With my banner and its matting and then center pearl and the coloring on the flowers.
Check out the challenge HERE.

Then the 2nd challenge I'll be entering this card in is the one at Shopping Our Stash.
Challenge #162 is called Triple Threat and from the list of  ribbon, flowers, lace, pearls, sprays/mists, punched elements, die cut elements, rhinestones, doilies, dry embossing or scoring .  You had to use at least three items from the list or use three of one type of embellishment.    I chose 3 items, a doily, a stamped flower and 3 pearls on my banner.   Read more info on the challenge   HERE.

Flowers of Mackinac

I knew I would make a layout when I got home of all the beautiful flowers I saw on Mackinac Island.
Just had to find a sketch with room for lots of pictures.   The challenge today at Stick it Down blog is to use any of their sketches for a layout or a card, or to reuse a favorite.   Well this was a double page layout sketch in July that I never got around to entering because I was on vacation in Michigan.
So now with the challenge posted today I can enter this layout with the sketch that I really liked.
I had so many pictures I wanted to use, I ended up using the space on the sketch for the title for another picture and used little circle alphas and put the title right on the picture.
Check out the challenge HERE and see the sketch I used below.

Star Line Ferry

Getting in the groove for scrapping my vacation pictures.      We took the Star Line Ferry over to Mackinac Island, their docks were right by our hotel so it was so convenient.  
I used the sketch at "Stuck ?! Sketches"     I saved my ticket stub so that is what I used for my title.
I have a lot of memorabilia from this trip so I am going to try and use it on layouts.   I thought this sketch ended up being perfect to use my ticket.    There is still time to enter, you can check out the challenge HERE.    And below is the sketch.

New Friend

Back from vacation and ready to scrap some of the memories.    We were on the lake side of the hotel where we stayed had two bedrooms for the 4 of us and had a balcony.   It was great relaxing place when we had down time and back in the room.     Dad went out to look around and had some crackers with him and a gull came flying by.   He just put out his hand and the gull landed on the railing and he started feeding him.   I'm sure that was probably a hotel no-no but once he stopped feeding him the gulls went away and didn't bother anything.   So all good.     I used the Sketchy Friday Team B sketch at  "Scrap Much?"      I didn't want the papers to distract from the pictures so didn't want a lot of pattern.   I used papers from MME - Sunny Side collection and some  light blue card stock to go with the sky, water and Dads shirt and then a splash of yellow for the sun and brightness of the day.
Check out the challenge  HERE.    Plus I have the sketch below to see.

Favorite Quote Card

Another great card sketch #30 at "Sketch-n-Scrap" was used here for this all occasion card.    I love big flowers and haven't used any lately.   I usually have them on my layout but looking at this sketch I immediately thought of using a large flower and knew the quote I wanted to use too.    This is my go to stamp it seems on all occasion cards.   There is still time to enter the 2 card challenges and the 2 layout challenges for July at Sketch-n-Scrap so check out the details for this card challenge   HERE and you can also see the sketch below.    So many ways to go with it.    I had the light green striped paper in my scrap drawer and cut it for the card and inked the edges in orange to go with the flower.
I had a strip of the paper left so decided to stamp my quote on it too.   At first I tried it with orange ink but just didn't look right so luckily I had enough of the paper scrap to stamp another time in black and then I just inked the edges again in orange.   My flower center is attached to the card with a brad so I just used pop dots to put the quote sentiment on top of the flower.

Birthday Card

I'm catching up on all the great challenges at Sketch-n-Scrap today that I never got finished before my vacation.   I did a layout first and now the first July card challenge.   Challenge #29.    I decided to make a birthday card from this sketch.   I had this piece of scrap star paper in my stash and it says birthday to me.   So I pulled the star colors and used card stock for my center design, blue, green and yellow and to also the red stars, I inked all edges with red pigment ink.    The I added a touch of adhesive to some o the stars and a fine mist on the card stock and sprinkled with silver glitter to give it a sparkle.     The yahoo scrapping group I'm in has a 52 week card challenge going on and this weeks challenge was to use glitter on your card so I will enter this card also there.   You have to have a little glitter on your birthday.   Check out the challenge details HERE and see the sketch below.

Lincoln's Tomb

We just got back from a vacation road trip on Friday night.   Our last stop on Friday before we came home was Springfield, IL.    The "Land of Lincoln"   these pics were taken at Lincoln's Tomb.   It was a drizzly day so we were a little wet but still ready to get out and see everything.    I used sketch #69 at "Sketch-n-Scrap"    I chose the My Minds Eye - Signature Series - Suite as the papers to use because I thought the muted colors matched to locale of a tomb and the overcast damp day.
Check out the details on this challenge  HERE.      Plus I've included the sketch below.

Christmas in July ---- 3 in one

I was on vacation last week so I had a lot of challenge sketches to go thru yesterday when I got home and I really liked this one I found at "Nacho Average Challenges"   I don't know that I've ever used a triangle on a card before plus I rarely think to add ribbon to a card but here it is.    I'm also in a Christmas in July card challenge on a yahoo group and one of the prompts was to use ribbon so this sketch worked fantastic for this prompt too.     Here is the sketch I used below and check out all the details of the challenge  HERE.

Also this week at "Craft Your Passions Challenges" challenge #223 is Christmas in July so I will b entering this card there also.    Read all about this challenge   HERE.    Kind of double duty, my passion is scrapping and tied for my biggest passion is Christmas.

I get to enter this card in one more challenge.    "Pause Dream Enjoy" challenge #15 is to use 3 or more patterned papers.    I tried to coordinate my papers with holly on everything and I found 3 different patterns to use.   The back ground paper which was all greens with  little gold, then my triangle with beiges and the green and red of holly and then red background paper with green holly leaf that I matted my sentiment in.    Check out the challenge  HERE.

Candy Cane card

I'm in a yahoo scrapping group and we are doing a Christmas in July card challenge with a prompt for what to make for each day.    One prompt was Candy Canes and I had all these Candy Cane stickers.
So next problem how to use them and make a great card.   So I was looking thru card challenge blogs and saw this great sketch #186 on My Favorite Things.    I thought it would be fun to just put a big group of the candy canes in the center of the circle from the sketch.    Check out the challenge HERE, there is still time to enter  and below is the sketch.   I'm sure I'll use it again.

Girls of COMO

My daughter was in town for a wedding the end of May for a great friend that she met her first year in college at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO    (COMO).   Leslie went on after one year and moved to Toronto and graduated from college there but always remained friends with Kendra and a lot of other girls she met that first year and then thru Kendra on visits back home.     One of the girls posted this picture on FB and I thought Leslie would like it made into a layout for her scrapbook that I have ongoing for her.    When I saw this sketch (see below) at Sketch-n-Scrap I thought of this picture because I thought the banner would be perfect to make the title.     I used card stock and then just one piece of October Afternoon paper.   One side had these great letters just in solid rows covering the whole side and then the B side was the muted yellow print.   So I was able to cut out the letters I needed to spell out the title and then kept one strip to make a border punch with and then just turned it over for the background paper behind the picture area.    I really never thought I would use the letter side of this paper but so glad I got to, because its a whole new look from what I usually make.     This is the Inspired By Sketch #7.   Check out all the challenges for July  HERE.

Walking DC

It seems my scrapping goal this week has been to catch up on vacation photos.    Earlier I did some layouts from our Hawaii vacation in February and now today I'm working on some pictures of my sightseeing day in DC during my daughters wedding week.   I spent one day walking all over with my Dad, Brother and nephew.   All of us had been to DC together other times but this was Zack's first trip so was fun to walk to all the key sites with him.   Plus Leslie was spending the day with her girlfriends that had come in town for the wedding so it was a relaxing day for everyone just 2 days before the wedding.     I used the sketch at "Let's Get Sketchy" the one for week 2 in July.   It worked perfect for these pictures of Lincoln Memorial and then of Bruce and Zack pic on our walk up the mall to the memorial.    After all these trips I have made this was actually the first time I walked the length of the reflecting pool too.     Below is the sketch you can see and the go HERE to get all the details on this great challenge.

Week 27 PL pages

Going to show a lot more detail today than I usually do on my posts.   This is for the latest PL challenge at Stuck On You Sketches.     The new challenge is BUTTONS.   I had pretty well finished page one of my PL page for last week but hadn't started on the 2nd page although per usual I pretty well knew what I was going to do picture wise for the week.    One week a month I put a calendar on my weekly title page and luckily I already had it on this week and also lucky I had numbered the days with small numbers so I was able to add a small shaped button to each day of the week for this week.

We adopted a new kitten the end of May and "Reggie" is my buddy and is rarely away from me.
I had taken this picture the first part of the week of him on my desk, actually napping, then Saturday I attempted to take a nap, but it seems Reggie rested better than I did.   As I was taking selfies of how it usually looks every night when I sleep and now I can't even sneak in a nap by myself.
I added a heart button and two small buttons on my journal card and then I found this word button in my stash that I just had to add to the nap picture as I do love this kitten and he does love me.

This was also a big week for me and Pinterest, I spent a lot of time pinning new ideas on my boards so I decided to print a Pinterest logo for one pic this week and journal about it and then got to add another shaped button and also regular buttons to this part of my page.

This journaling card one on page one of my pages about the pictures there and I just added a button to it, to stay with the theme.

Check out all the details   HERE   and add your PL pages too.    Its a fun challenge to do.

Waiting for Fireworks

It's reveal day at "Stick it Down"  and I was lucky enough to be asked to be guest designer for this weeks sketch.    It was such a fun sketch to work with plus I had fun combining all of these great red, white and blue July 4th papers.    I got this picture of my grandkids off of Facebook and was so glad I got to use it right away.      I'll add the sketch at the end of the post here and then please go HERE to read all about the challenge, and of course check out my picture and bio.   :)

I have one more challenge I'm going to enter this layout in and that is "The Papers Girl Challenge"
Challenge #59 is Red, White and Blue and I covered that here for sure.   Check out the details
  HERE.

Family

I found this picture of my daughter-in-law and granddaughter taken a couple of years ago on a visit they took to California to visit her Mom and sister.    This is such a great picture of Susan I wanted to make a layout of it for the album for the grandkids.
I used sketch #80 at "Let's Capture Our Memories" the sketch showed  2 pics but I just used one full size 4x6.   I really liked being able to mat the picture in patterned papers too.    I used papers from the
Kate & Co. - Cambridge Court collection   I liked the pinks in it.   You can see the sketch below and check out all the details about the sketch HERE>

Ouch

I've had this series of pictures printed for over a week now and waiting to find a sketch I could use.
Today posted on "The Memory Nest"  was the perfect sketch.    My grandson, Kai broke his ankle last month and is in a cast now for 4 weeks.   The colors aren't true in my photo, but he is getting an orange cast put on and I used orange card stock as my base for the layout.    Everything else was scraps, the long strips are front and back for one piece of paper and I had just enough to cut 4 strips, then I matted everything in black.  Black Thickers for my title and a little journaling on the bottom circle and its made.  You can see the sketch I used below and check out the challenge  HERE.

Hawaii

I've gone back to finishing up layouts on our Hawaii vacation we took in February.   This was on our next to last day when we took a road trip to the other side of the island to these beautiful cliffs.
A beautiful walk down to the look out point and then just spectacular views.
I used the sketch at Scrap Much ?  I had this great single sheet of "beach type" paper and I got to use it and let it show up since only thing besides the pictures was this angled strip of card stock,  
You can see the sketch I used below and check out the challenge in depth by clicking   HERE.

Olympic Stadium

I went right to work this morning on the latest sketch posted at Creative Scrappers.   As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be great for a panoramic picture.   So I went to the album on my computer of my daughters honeymoon in Greece because I knew she had taken some pano pics (plus I need to get busy on that album for her).      This was a picture she took of the track at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Greece.    They loved Greece and even though the honeymoon was only 2 months ago they can't wait to go back.    I used a dotted swiss card stock base and then everything else is from the Bo Bunny Detour collection, it sure worked out well for this layout and other honeymoon layouts too.
Check out all the details of the challenge   HERE   and see below what the sketch was that I used.

Christmas in July card

It's Christmas in July in a yahoo scrapping group I'm in and we are making a card every day for the month.   For this card, with the prompt - Christmas lights somewhere on your card - I made this layout using the sketch #97 at Nacho Average Challenge.   I'll add the sketch below and then just click  HERE  and check out all the details of the challenge.

Go Snorkel

Sorry for the coloring everything has a purple tint when it should be a dark blue, but I still have my layout made.    I used this great sketch at My Scraps and More,  it's #86 and was posted on July 4.
I always love the sketches here and for the summer they are posting them every other Friday, so I have to wait another week for a new one.   :(            We are also having a nautical challenge at my yahoo scrapbooking group to make a nautical themed layout, so I was thrilled when I saw this anchor paper in Fancy Pants - Down by the Shore collection,   which I think I bought at MSAM store.
Check the sketch below and then check out all the challenge info  HERE

Granddaughter Mylan

I thought it was about time to make a layout with this picture which has been sitting around for about 4 months on my desk.  Printed and just waiting.   I used the first sketch in July at "The Memory Nest"    I will add the sketch at the end of the post and you can check out all details of the challenge HERE      I pulled out an old collection of papers.   Basic Grey - Oxford collection.   I got to use scraps that I had in the package left from other layouts and just used a yellow piece of card stock as the back paper.   Somehow I've ended up with a lot more shades of yellow card stock than any other colors.    Then I decided it was just to plain, since no title, no other embellishments, no journaling so I got out my watercolors and just "scribbled" with them on the card stock.

Beauty

I had such good intentions of no more scrapping today and just a major desk and crafty clean up.
I started the process and had my stackable drawer unit pulled out from under my desk to clean out some of my smaller scrap papers.  There on the floor behind it was this 1/2 piece of paper.    So since this sketch from Colorful Creations has been sitting on my desk for well over a week I decided to just stop and make the layout.     So simple to do.   Just fancy cut some of the chevron from the paper and found some great dotted swiss card stock that pretty well matched my flowers.   Then I did a double mat of the picture to make it stand out a bit and some green pale green Thickers for a simple title and I had my layout complete.     I didn't want to add any other embellishments because I just liked the simplicity when I got this far.    You can see the sketch below and then click   HERE   and check out all the details about this July challenge at Colorful Creations.

On The Way

This layout is going to make a SPLASH, thats right, doesn't look like a "splash" layout but it is because the letters of SPLASH had to be used on the layout.    Paper-Secrets is teaming up for this challenge with  Scrap & Play.   You had to use the layout that I have below here and then something from each letter.   Here is what I used.  S=Silver -my background paper is silver & white (picture looks gold at top but was just lighting and also sold silver paper flag banners left & right of pictures.
P=Pearls - I have a strip of pearl bling above the black stripped paper.   L=Lace - I have a piece of Lace trim running beneath the pictures.   A=Alphas - my title is green alphas  S=Stripes, the patterned paper behind the pictures is a made up of various black stripes.   H=Hearts - the different colored hearts above the pictures.     This was fun deciding on what to use on all the letters.   Why don't you give it a try too, plus you get to use a fun sketch.    And you get to enter the layout in two challenges.   Check them out  here    Paper-Secrets   and    Scrap & Play