Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Road trip to Chicago


While visiting my stepson over Mothers Day weekend he gave me these pictures (and some more) from when we went to Chicago with him to help him find an apartment while he was doing his last year of residency.   I came home and made this quick and easy layout and realized when looking at the  "Sketch-N-Scrap" 3rd birthday challenges that this one was perfect for the challenge from May 9th at  "Golden Goddess Designs"      Her challenge was to use 3 of the same embellishments.
All my embellishments are die-cuts,  the camera, car and road trip sign.    All totally about what we did on this trip.    Check out all the details   HERE.   

Ride the Rails



Once again I'm working on filling in my albums from old vacations.   This was from the last part of our trip to Mackinaw Island in July 2010, it was part work seminar and part vacation combined.
After we left the island we drove into Canada and Sault St. Marie and spent the night and then took the train ride to Agawa Canyon.

I'm going to enter this for another Sketch-N-Scrap 3rd birthday challenge.    Luckily I'm a very fast scrapper because I'm trying to catch up on some of the challenges that I didn't do when they first came out and since I'm going out of town tomorrow for 4 days I need to make this a busy scrapping couple of days.    This challenge was from May 8th at "Leah's Layouts"    Her challenge was to use the sketch that I have below and to use 3 Project Life cards.     That is why I decided to do a layout for an old vacation.    I have a collection of vintage travel PL cards and I knew there was one with a train on it, so I just looked back through my pictures from that trip and printed this one also in 3x4 PL size.   This was a view of the train we were on when we stopped before the return trip.
Check for yourself all the details    HERE  you have till midnight the 29th to enter.

For this I used the very last, except for some stickers from the 'Simple Stories - Harvest Lane' collection.   I love when I get to use the last of the collection.


Old Easter pictures



I made this layout last night and was having blogger problems so couldn't get it posted.   Last week I went through an old box of pictures and found these of Easter 1965.   We were at my Grandmothers and my brother and I were still dressed from church (I even had on a corsage) but we went skateboarding out in the street in front of the house when we got home from church.

I'm entering this layout for another 3rd birthday challenge at "Sketch-N-Scrap"   This one was posted on May 6th at  "Mandy Reedyk Happy Scrappin"   Her challenge was to creat a card or layout using the number 3.   On the background brown paper has numbers on it, so the #3 is there and then I used 3 pictures for my layout and 3 different patterned papers.   Check out all the details   HERE.

U R #1


I made this layout this morning, it went together so easily.   I'm entering it for the first  3rd birthday challenge at Sketch-N-Scrap.    I'm trying to catch up on a lot of them before the end of the month
This challenge was from Susan Renshaw.   The challenge was to use the sketch (I have it below)
and the twist of using only 3 colors, 3 different medias and sets of 3 things.

So here I what I did.   I used 3 colors grey, pink and blue   (I was trying to go with the colors in the picture - you can just barely see the blue of my Dad's shirt color)

3 different medias.   I used washi tape, (the blue horizontal strips,  ribbon (the pink polka dot) and the pink homemade netting  ( the biggest pink strip under picture).

My groups of 3 are 3 blue washi strips, 3 pink ribbon tips, my picture is matted 3 times and I have 3 groups of flowers (2 of them in groups of 3) and my title just uses 3 thickers (the # symbol is hand drawn)

You can get all the details on this great challenge from Susan    HERE.



Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Party with Primitive Soul


I've been holding onto this double page sketch from "Stick It Down" for just the right series of pictures.    We spent the afternoon this last Saturday out at a winery on a bluff top with family and friends watching my brothers band play.   We had a great time and I took lots and lots of pictures.
There were old friends there from my home town, my 91 year old Dad was up and dancing with the girls and we just all had a blast.      I'm going to enter this layout in 3 different challenges.

Starting with   "Stick It Down" double page May sketch below


Then the latest challenge #80 at "The Paper Girls" is - 'It's Party Time' and that is exactly what this layout is all about.   A Party with Primitive Soul   (the name of the band)   This day at the winery was so much fun and a great party so this is actually the 2nd layout I've made today for this challenge.

Then over at "Sketch N Scrap" they are having new challenges everyday for their 3rd birthday of the blog and the challenge for yesterday at "Surama's Blog" was to use 3 different alphas.   I really like mixing up alphas when I can.

Check out the details for each challenge  with their link.

"Stick It Down"

"The Paper Girls"

"Sketch N Scrap - Surama"

The Paper Players card sketch



I used the latest sketch at "The Paper Players"  to make this card.   I needed to make a card for a weekly challenge in my yahoo group using 3 buttons and when I saw this sketch I thought it would be perfect.

I'm sure you will have fun using this sketch too.   Check out the details    HERE.


Family &n Friends at the Winery


We did a little partying over the holiday weekend.  We went to my brothers for the 3 day weekend where my daughter, son-in-law and Dad were also there.   We started out Saturday afternoon at a nearby winery sitting on the bluffs above the Missouri River where my brothers band was going to be playing    I had called my best friend from High School just 40 miles away and said she and her husband should come out there and join us and they did.   Needless to say there was a lot of wine consumed by the group and we really had a great time.   Good music, perfect weather sitting outside, great friends and family, couldn't ask for anything better than that to start a holiday weekend.

For this layout I found the perfect sketch at "Let's Get Sketchy" week 4, that Bev Code made.   She always makes such great sketches.    I love the simplicity of it and yet got to use some great patterned papers with it.     I have the sketch below.


I am also going to combine this layout with one of the 3rd birthday challenges going on every day at  "Sketch N Scrap"   the challenge today at "Creating with Paper and More"  is to use 3 different patterned papers.   This sketch worked out just great for this challenge.   I've been having so much fun checking out the new challenges everyday and been fortunate to be able to get a lot of them made.

One more challenge this layout is absolutely perfect for is the the one at   "The Paper Girls Challenge Blog"     Challenge #80 was called 'It's Party Time"  and we certainly had a great party Saturday afternoon at the winery.    So glad we made it to town for it and got to have so much fun with family and friends.   It rained the next day so we had a perfect party day on Saturday.

Check out  the details for teach of them below.






Friday, May 22, 2015

Crazy Monsters



No I'm not doing Halloween layouts in May.   This picture was taken of the grandkids a couple of weeks ago.  It seems they were playing together and then just came to show their Mom how they had put on their costumes.    She posted the picture on Facebook and said these are my "Crazy Monsters"   thus my title.

I used the May 22nd sketch at "Stuck on U Sketches"  for this layout.   I love flags/banners and this BIG one looked like it would be so fun to use.   Only my background paper is a new single sheet.   Everything else I got out of my scrap drawer.   Even got lucky with the big banner as had a piece just the right size to use.   So these papers are from various collections, I couldn't start to tell you what they are.   But I admit I'm really glad that my scrap drawers for patterned papers and card stock are both being used regularly.

You can see the sketch below  and check out the details for the challenge at  "Stuck on U Sketches"



Thursday, May 21, 2015

Kai - 3r Grade



I thought this sketch from Make It Monday - #40 at "The Memory Nest" would work perfect for this billfold size school picture of Kai.   Even though its a single small picture I really think it takes center stage with this sketch.

Check it out below and go    HERE   to get all the details.


Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Gram - Kai - Faces


I had to do some work on my computer a couple of weeks ago, it's speed was so slow, so I decided to look thru the over 70,000 pictures on my hard drive and do some deleting of bad pictures, almost duplicates,  why did I ever take this picture.   I managed over the course of a few days looking at everything to delete around 3000 pictures.   Ended up getting a new solid state hard drive but still was glad I got some pictures removed.   Anyway while looking through old pictures I found this series of pictures of me and Kai playing around out by the pool over July 4th weekend 2010.   I don't even know who took the pictures but I went ahead and printed them out in a smaller size hoping that I would find a fun sketch to use them with.    Then viola last Friday the 15th,  "My Scraps & More" posted their sketch #106 and it was perfect for these.  This was so fun to work with this sketch and I'm so very glad I found these old pictures of us playing.

You can see the great sketch below and  just go to  "My Scraps and More" and check out all the details.


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Buckingham Palace


If you follow my blog you know that I am catching up on old vacations and doing layouts that I never got made soon after the trip.    For this layout of pics taken at Buckingham Palace on our trip way back in 2006 I get to combine two challenges with this layout.

First off the sketch  from May 15th at "Stuck?!Sketches"  was perfect for the two pictures that I had picked out to use.
Another great Laura Whitaker sketch, I just working with her sketches.   Then the 2nd challenge I used was from the May 1st challenge at "Picture This".   Their challenge was (2 Photos + Black and White + Dolly + Yellow).   This was fun to pull out some new paper and some scraps and combine them all to work with this recipe and the sketch.  Plus I got to do my favorite matting of patterned papers.

You can see the sketch below and then check out each challenge with the links below.

STUCK?!SKETCHES

PICTURE THIS


Monday, May 18, 2015

Spring




We got to St. Louis a couple of weekends ago just after a big rain shower and Nikki had taken the kids outside to do a photo shoot.  The pictures turned out great and there were a few just of Addisyn by herself that I thought were just beautiful.   I printed this one to use with the single page sketch at "Stick It Down"    They have a great single page, double page and card sketch for May and I am finally getting started on them.   So see this sketch below and check them all out   HERE.



Saturday, May 16, 2015

Trip to Amsterdam


Catching up on old vacation albums.  I had so many pictures from our Europe trip that I didn't realize I hadn't scrapped yet.   Here is a new layout I made of pics from Stonehenge.  It was so cold that day and windy and a storm was fast approaching so most of my pictures turned out dark, but still wanted to scrap them.   I used Sketch #80 at "Sketch -N -Scrap"     Lately I haven't found a lot of multi picture sketches so I'm glad I found this one for my vacation layouts.    Here is the sketch below and check out all the details for the challenge    HERE.  


Friday, May 15, 2015

Amsterdam


I'm back to working on older vacations.   This was from our trip to Europe back in 2006.    The Twistback Thursday Challenge for "Sketch N Scrap" was this sketch from April 2015 with the twist of the great outdoors, which was to to used photos taken outside on your layout.    I did that with showing how we did our sightseeing while in Amsterdam,  first picture is when we got off the train, then next walking around to see things and then my favorite was riding on the boats on the canals.   I loved every minute of that.

You can see the sketch below and then check out the challenge at "Sketch - N - Scrap"   HE RE.

Remember for Sketch-N-Scrap 3rd birthday they are having a challenge every day so keep checking the blog to see what is going on each day.


Family - Four Generations Together



Being on the DT at "LET'S SCRAP"  is really getting me into making more and more double page spreads.     When I saw this sketch, I thought I would really stay true to it and found a circut cartridge that had a tree on it.    When looking at the sketch and cutting the tree I kept thinking FAMILY.
I had no idea what pictures I would use.   But I went to folders on my computer from different holidays where we were all together and found this group of pictures from Thanksgiving 2014.
I'm so blessed to have so many times of all 4 generations together.   So take a look at this sketch and challenge at "LET'S SCRAP" and see what you decide to do with it.       Here is the sketch and go  HERE     for all the details at "LET'S SCRAP" for this challenge.




View Out The Cat Door



My daughter and son-in-law have these 2 great and inquisitive and sometimes maybe not so bright dogs.    They love to stick their head out the cat door each after the cat uses it and whine because they can't get thru like the cat did.    Sometimes its just the one dog but other times they both get their head through to look out.   You have to say its comical to say the least.

I used the newest sketch reveal for Design Team A today (May 15) for "ScrapMuch?!"
I just had to rotate it because of the orientation of my pictures.   but I think it worked out great this way and of course will the way it was sketched.

Be sure and check out all the details  HERE   at "ScrapMuch?!" and see the sketch below.


Thursday, May 14, 2015

Christmas 2011


I found a stack of pictures a couple of weeks ago from several years ago.    In the stack were several from Christmas 2011.   Even though I have made several layouts from that Christmas I hadn't made any using these pictures.   When I saw sketch #148 by Rochelle Spears at "Sketches In Thyme" for some reason it just said Christmas layout to me.   I love it when I get to use a bunch of my Christmas papers during the year because believe me I have more than my fair share that I need to use up.

Here is the sketch and just go     HERE     to read all the details about the challenges this month at
"Sketches In Thyme"



You are one in a Buzzzzzilion



I  cleaned out my scrap drawer this morning and set this piece aside to use on a card.   I was looking through my sketches and found this one from "Freshly Made Sketches" sketch # 186 and decided to just use the whole piece and a piece of ribbon .    I wanted to use a triangle on a card for a challenge in one of my yahoo groups  "Scrapping and Chatting" and this sketch was perfect because it said to use any shape as its focal point.    Then I had to find a stamp that would work on the shape and luckily had this little bee stamp that I had never used.   Simply made and ready to add a not inside and send it off to someone.

Here is the sketch and the info for the challenge is   HERE.


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

A Santa Christmas Card


Don't adjust your monitors.   I know its May and yes you are seeing a Christmas card.

I had the sketch out for the May card at "Stick It Down" and I knew I would be able to use some of my scraps for the background papers for it.    (Love using up my scraps) so I started looking thru all the patterned paper scraps I have in a drawer by my desk and saw this Christmas tree paper and knew it would be perfect to cut into strips and then mat and make my card to go with the sketch.  
I had this Santa already made from a swap from last year so it was perfect to add as my main embellishment.

You can see the sketch below and then go to  "Stick It Down" to read all about the challenges for May, a card, a single page and a double page.


Molly Brown



Mom and Dad had lost their long time dog McKeever about two years prior to this Christmas, circa 1992 at my best guess.  They had always had beagles so when we saw an ad for beagles for sale we decided to get one for them for Christmas.   They were so excited.   We carried her out in a basket with a red bow around her neck.   (I so wish I could find that picture)     They named her Molly Brown (like the Unsinkable Molly Brown, that was on the Titanic) and Molly B was their beloved pet for over 10 years.    I kept this layout simple with no embellishments.   I don't have that many pics of my Mom and I just love this one so didn't want anything pulling from the pictures, plus the pic of puppy Molly B sitting there is precious so I let the pictures shine.

I used the sketch for Make it Monday #39 at "The Memory Nest"  as it was perfect and didn't show a lot of embellishments.      Here is the sketch I used and you can see all the details   HERE    You still have a little over 19 days to enter this challenge.


Happy Birthday card



I made this card yesterday and going to enter it in two challenges.    First off I used the latest sketch #300 at "Tuesday Morning Sketches"   I love any sketch where I get to use a banner/flag.
Here is the sketch  and check out the details of the challenge    HERE.


Then I am also entering this card for another 3rd birthday challenge with "Sketch-N-Scrap"
Design Team Member Marie-Christine had the color challenge of blue and orange and to also use 3 different buttons.   She made a layout but I decided to go with the card.
You can see her challenge and layout   HERE.

On Vacation


I found these old pictures from probably 20 years ago and wanted to scrap them and add to my daughters old album.   This was a trip we took to CA with her uncle and cousin, so it was fun.
This is a challenge from a DT member at "Sketch-N-Scrap" to celebrate their 3rd birthday of the challenge blog.  I love the challenges there and there is a new one each day of the month of May.

Wendy's challenge was to use this sketch and use 3 patterned papers, 2 flowers and one bow.
I really liked the sketch and was able to use some old papers I have had for awhile too.

Here is the sketch and check out the challenge   HERE  you have till May 31 to enter.




Thursday, May 7, 2015

Pool Fun



This is more hot tub fun for the kids at their house but still the same fun in the water and it is a big 6 person hot tub on their deck so plenty of room for these two duckies.   :)

I used the set at "Let's Capture our Memories" sketch 122 for this layout.   I've been hoarding this little swim ready duck for ages from a swap I was in and thought it was perfect for this layout so I'm really glad I got to use it.

Check out all the details   HERE  for this "Let's Capture Our Memories" challenge and see the sketch below.




Birthday Card



I've been trying to play along with some of the 3rd birthday challenges going on daily for the month at "Sketch N Scrap".   Today's challenge was a card sketch with the color combo of yellow, blue and red.   I always need birthday cards and I really liked this sketch so I went right to work on it.

Maria Christine is hosting todays challenge so go HERE to get to her blog "Ink and Scrap"  
 and see what she has to say.   The blog is in French but there is a button on the top that lets you translate it to English

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The Pitcher


This picture is of Bryce and his first game as the pitcher for his team.   I was totally out of any baseball themed papers, so broke my no buying paper rule to get these two sheets.   Saved the rest of the baseball piece for another page sometime.    The baseball embellies I had plenty of from swaps so all worked out well.

For this layout I used the sketch #105 at "My Scraps and More" I just rotated it for my vertical picture.

Check out all the details for this challenge   HERE  and I have the sketch below.




School Project


I couldn't wait to scrap these pictures of my granddaughter Mylan.    This was the car they made at home for her school project.   They had a  "Safety City"  at school where all the kids brought in the cars they made and then they 'drove' them thru the Safety City with stops at the ATM, the Gas station and also the Car Wash.   After that the kids sat in their cars and watched a movie and had popcorn.
Now that sounds like a fun day to me.    Although I have to say I'm glad I wasn't one of the parents at this time to have to make the cars.  But I think Jason and Susan did a great job on the car for Mylan, with the cool tail pipes, the side mirrors  and cool tires.    I also love it that Mylan has a family picture  on her right sun visor.  Now that is some detail.   :)

I only got the two pictures from Facebook so the sketch at  "My Creative Sketches"  was perfect.
You have till May 15th to enter the challenge.   You can check out the details   HERE.


Tuesday, May 5, 2015

# Desserts


I use Facebook but not Twitter, so I'm not into the hashtag world, but I thought that this title might work using the hashtag with it.      This picture was taking a couple of years ago while we were out for lunch in St. Louis and Bryce was enjoying his dessert.  

I didn't use any sketch just pulled the background paper out from a kitchen themed pad of paper I've had for ages.   Since it was all of sweets I thought it would work but then to try and overshadow all the pinks in the paper since the picture is of a boy only,  I pulled out some scraps for the background stripes that had blues in them and then matted the stripes and the title with a dark blue card stock.
I mad my picture frame from more scraps with blue and also mated in a navy blue.   Added some blue border strips vertically for just a little extra and then used blue bling on the 4 corners of the picture frame.

This layout I am going to enter at "S.W.A.T. - Scrap Warriors Advanced Training"    The NSD challenge there was that there were no rules, no sketches, no colors combos, just create and make what you want.   So viola, here it is.

Be sure to check out "S.W.A.T" to participate in the challenge.   You have till May 8th to join.