MERRY CHRISTMAS 2015

I  just wanted to take a moment to tell everyone who has read my blog sometime throughout the year.
Those of you who have left me such nice comments about my layouts and card.  

I wish you and yours a very very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Thank you for being my online scrapping friends.

The Patries

While I still had the sketch out from "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES"  I decided to use it one more time for a layout using the Christmas card from my daughter and her husband and their rescued fur babies.

You have till January 14th at midnight to enter this challenge using the sketch below.   Check it all out here at "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES"


I will also post this at "PAPER ISSUES"  for Owl I Want For Christmas, because even though my daughter is with her in-laws on Christmas day, I can't wait till the 30th to be with her for our late Christmas.      Love being with family for Christmas, its all I want for sure.

Union Station 2015

I think I'm over compensating with pre-Christmas layouts this year to fill my album since the grandkids won't be with us so I won't have lots of pictures together with them on Christmas morning.
We went back to Union Station to see a holiday laser show.   It was more aimed for kids but was still fun to do something different and I enjoyed hearing all the oohs and ahhs from the kids.

Union Station is now 101 years old so I had Arthur take my picture in the Christmas display set up and then the clock is the original one with the station so has a lot of history so it is on display too with come special holiday decorations.

I used the December sketch at "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES" for this layout.  Other than background paper I decided to go with all holly leaf papers and of course did all my signature matting that I love so much on patterned papers.

Here is the sketch and be sure and go to "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES" to join in the fun, don't worry even with this busy time, this challenge is open until midnight Jan. 14th so plenty of time for you to create.

Naughty & Nice

I've been staring at this Make It Monday sketch #50 at "THE MEMORY NEST" and wondering if I could make something with it.   Then today I got the right pictures to go with it.    One posted on FB and then my son sent me the other two to go with it.    In Mylan's Kindergarten class this last week they had the assignment "Naughty & Nice"   For the nice they made a Christmas gift for their parents and then for the naughty Mylan drew this picture and wrote about what it was  it says "I was naught when I "tacld" my brother Kai.    The "tacld" translates to "tackled"   Then she drew the picture with the speech bubbles of her saying "Mom"  and then off to the side would be her Mom and all you can see is "waught"  which translates to "what" in a long drawn out voice.   Just like Mom would say it.    Then Kai is there on the floor, even with his spiked hair.   She also drew the work island in the kitchen and the 3 pendant lights that hang over it.   The purple to the right is the door to the patio in back.   She has it all covered.    I laughed so hard when I saw the post on FB, then got the message from Susan that Jason would send me the pictures he took in class of the nice project because she thought I would see it as layout worthy.   :)

So long story short, I went for it and used the sketch at "THE MEMORY NEST"  Stayed right with
the sketch layout and just switched where I placed the pictures.

"PAPER ISSUES" also has a challenge going on called "Owl I Want for Christmas"

• Show us your projects about the December holidays and/or your holiday traditions.
• Share a project with an owl on it.
• What's on your holiday wish list?
• Has a child in your life lost any teeth (that may be all they want for Christmas)? Show us those cute toothless smiles or projects about the Tooth Fairy. 
• Download the Remember December free printable from the Paper Issues store and use one or more of the cards on your project.

I went for this layout the wish list as my Granddaughter was naughty and nice.     I love these projects she did for naughty and nice at school.     Click here for "PAPER ISSUES" challenge.

Check out the sketch below and click   HERE  for all the details at The Memory Nest.

Gift from Grandpa & Grandma

I got these two pictures from FB from the first day of Hanukkah with the gift Addisyn opened from us on the first night.    She loves puzzles so when I saw this set of letters, numbers, animals etc in a big carrying bag I told Grandpa that this is something we should get for her.   Obviously she loves it and her brother Gibson had fun playing too,

I used the sketch for Sketchy-Friday at "SCRAP MUCH?"   It worked great for the pictures I had.

I am also going to enter it at "THE STUDIO CREATIONS"  when I saw their challenge announced today to use the words Gifts or Giving in your creation, that is when I came up with my title.

My husbands kids and grands celebrate Hanukkah and my family celebrates Christmas, so keeps us busy with gifts for the whole month.   I'm also entering this layout at "PAPER ISSUES"    This would qualify for all I want for Hanukkah.   :)

Then in the yahoo scrap booking group I'm in, one of our monthly layout challenges is to use the color Red for your title.   So that helped me pick my papers to use.   I knew since they celebrated Hanukkah I didn't want to use my big Christmas paper stash.   So I used the We R Memory Keepers - Quoted collection, since I just loved the red hear paper.

Check out the details for each of the challenges by clicking above and here is the sketch.

Master Chef

When I saw the latest sketch at "ELLE'S STUDIO" blog I thought about these two pictures I had been saving to scrap of my granddaughter Mylan making scrambled eggs for breakfast and knew that I had papers from the Elle's Studio collection "Let's Eat"   I would say perfect match.

This is my 2nd grid layout in two days, pretty unusual for me.   But I had fun putting this one together with just the two pieces of patterned paper from the collection and using card stock strips to make the grid.   I inked the edges of both pieces of paper with a brown ink and that was it.

A couple of tabs for embellishment and to journal on from the collection and its a completed layout.

Here is the check and go to "ELLE'S STUDIO" to check out all the details yourself.

Dressed for a fun day at school.

Went deep into my collections for this layout.  I still have lot of papers left from the My Minds Eye -
"So Sophia" collection.    I have a couple of old collections like that and have moved them to the top so I will start using some of them.   The colors in this collection I thought went great with the socks the grandkids were wearing for the wacky-day at school.  

I used the sketch at   "STUCK ?! SKETCHES"   I just added a couple of flowers from my stash and used everything else from the collection.   I did some faux stitching on all the pieces of patterned paper and everything went together very easily.

Check out all the details   HERE  and see Laura Whitaker's sketch below.

Missouri State Championship

When I first saw the Dec. 15th sketch at "SKETCH-N-SCRAP"   my first thoughts were, there is no way I'll get a layout out made using this sketch and then I though and even if I did no way would I be able to use circle pictures.   Then last night I was looking through some recent pictures I had either taken or downloaded from Facebook from family wondering what I would work on today.
Then I saw these pictures of my son-in-law I had saved from his last bike race of the season.

Light bulb moment and I think of this sketch.    There are a total of 6 of them so  I print them all out in 4x4 size thinking I'll decide on what 5 to use in the morning.  

Here it is morning and I'm placing them around on my background card stock and decide they are just too crowded so decide to try and see if a circle will trace on all of them and work.   So I got that done and couldn't decide which picture to not use so ended up using them all.    It's hard to tell in this picture but I used pop-dots under my "On the Go" embellishment,  the center picture of Jason going through one of many muddy areas on the course and then the bottom right picture of the jersey, gloves socks, shoes, bike coved in mud after the race.

Check out the details at "SKETCH-N-SCRAP" and see what the DT can inspire you with.

All Wrapped Up

Just one more pre-Christmas layout made today.    I have been saving the sketch at "GRAND DIVA'S SCRAPPY PLACE"    It was perfect to use 3 wrapping pictures I had.  I skipped the journaling for the 3rd picture.    It's a stretch but my background paper has the same colors as the December color challenge at  "CREATING WITH PAPER & MORE"

I'm also entering this layout at "PAPER ISSUES"   I LOVE the holidays and for me the giving of gifts for my family is all I want, plus I love the wrapping and adding big ribbons and making everything so festive.

Click on the blog names above to check out the details and see the inspiration.

Special Ornaments

HO HO HO,  I love making Christmas layouts.   I could do probably 2 more double pages about my special ornaments but picked these 8 to feature on this layout.    This is my reveal for the new
12-15-15 sketch at  LET"S SCRAP"   It was perfect for using all of these pictures of a few of the ornaments on my tree.  For the last two years the tree I put in my scrap room just has ornaments with special meanings to me.  I try to pick up ornaments when taking vacations or doing something special.   The KC Chiefs ornaments I've had for over 15 years to remember when we had season tickers,   then you can't live in Missouri and not be a MIZZOU fan.     Then I have my Silver Dollar City ornament that is dated 2004, that is the year I went to Branson for Thanksgiving weekend and we went there one day and evening to see all the lights.   Next is the Carlyle House in Alexandria, VA this is where my daughter got married in 2014,  The Field of Dreams ornament from our family road trip this summer plus also the Wisconsin ornament came from that trip too.   Then I have a dated White House ornament from I trip I took to DC.   Last on this layout is the Beatles Love ornament  that I got this April when you took a road trip to Vegas and got to see the Cirque de Soleil Love show.

Be sure and check out the challenge here at "LET'S SCRAP" and see what you can do with this great sketch.

D.I.Y, project

Wasn't scrapping yesterday, we were recovering our kitchen chairs, 8 total.   So today I found the perfect sketch to use for some of the pictures we took.    I used the double page layout at
"STICK IT DOWN"  I pulled out papers from everywhere to use.   I don't think I have 2 from any one collection.  Even the journal card I used was from another collection.   But it seems to work, at least in my eyes.    Check out all the December challenges here for 'STICK IT DOWN"  there is also a single page sketch and a card sketch.   All are great.

Now to clean up my desk and see where everything goes.

P.S. yes I did see the period on the Y of my D.I.Y. title had moved.   But it is rainy here and grey so just used the picture I had instead of moving around to all windows and doors like I did before trying to find a bit of natural light.

Seasons Greetings

Starting to fill my 2015 Christmas albums with layouts of the decorations around the house and places we have gone during the season so far to see lights and such.     Today I used the new sketch for Sketchy-Friday at "SCRAP MUCH?"    This layout features the decorations in my scrap room.
I have a 4 ft tree in the front window.   I started under the tree with my collection of Hallmark house ornaments set up.  But.....with 5 cats in the house, that didn't last long since they like to jump up and lay under the tree.   Daily I have to put a couple of ornaments on the tree and I have given up on the little village set-up.   But my snowmen couple have survived and always are sitting right to the side of the tree.     For this layout other than the glossy green chard stock base and red yardstick for matting I used the Jellybean Soup - Holly Berry Borscht collection.    Check out this weeks challenge here at "SCRAP MUCH?" and see the sketch below.

Joy to the World

I pretty well depleted my stock of Christmas cards already and have a few more to mail out.
So this morning as soon as I saw the sketch #171 at "NACHO AVERAGE CHALLENGES"
I made one more Christmas card.      In one of my yahoo groups we also have a challenge to use twine on a card so I tied some the long way around the banner and tied a bow.   I think it adds a little dimension to the card.

Here is the sketch and check out all the details at 'NACHO AVERAGE CHALLENGES"

Merry Christmas 2011

Since I'm in the Christmas layout mode.   I went back to some past Christmases that I had not scrapped yet.    These are from Christmas 2011.   I used the double page sketch  by Laura Whitaker at "SCRAP MUCH?!"   I had just the right amount of pictures left to do this layout.    Plus I got to use this awesome 3D Christmas title that I had been hoarding.   It was perfect here.

Check out the sketch below and go here to "SCRAP MUCH?!"  to see all the details of this challenge, the first here for December.

TRIM The TREE

Back to full time Christmas mode in our household.   I love the holidays and decorating all that I can.
Last weekend it was full fledge decorating day.

I had 10 days left to use the November sketch at "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES"  and it was perfect for these pictures of us.    I used a combo of two different paper collections for this layout.
DCWV - Home for the Holidays, the background black and white tree paper, the red plaid paper and the Christmas tree black card  and  the rest is from  The Paper Studio - Remnants of the Past.

Check out the sketch below and go to "MY CREATIVE SKETCHES"  to get all the details on the challenge and join in the fun.

Road Trip PL card

I hope to see lots of you joining this new challenge site of "SKETCHES IN THYME PROJECT LIFE STYLE"   This sketch will begin the 2nd full month of the challenges with a new PL card sketch every week.    You can see the sketch I used for the card below.     I made this card for a title card since the majority of my PL page was about the beginning of our road trip.    The photo I used on the card is the trunk of our car all packed the morning we left.    It's rather hard to see it well here as it was 6 am when we left and dark and only light was from the trunk light, but I thought it would be a fun picture to use on the card.

And here you can see my whole PL page I made using this card on it.

GIFTS

I thought before I have new pictures from Christmas 2015 I would get some from earlier years scrapped that I never got too.  I found a stash of printed pictures from 2011 that for reason never got scrapped so I'm jumping into those.     The new sketch at  "SKETCHES IN THYME"   for the first week of December was perfect (in my eyes) for a Christmas layout.   Plus I get to use a big variety of massive amount of Christmas papers that I have, so I really had fun with this sketch and going thru all my different papers from different collections and finding 7 patterns that would work well together.    You can check out the sketch below and click   HERE   to see all the details about the challenge.   Be sure and come back everyday this week and see what the other Mavens have made using the sketch for more inspiration.   There is a great prize for the month of December is the
White Pines paper, what a beautiful collection.

New York Ferry Tour

I took lots of pictures on our trip to NY in October when we took the Circle Line Ferry tour around Manhattan.   I had never seen the Statue of Liberty in person, so this was a highlight.    We had perfect weather so it was a great 3 hour trip for us.    When I saw this sketch set up for the Dec. 1st reveal at  "LET'S SCRAP", I knew it would be perfect for showcasing a lot of the pictures I took.   Just an overview of what we saw from the water side of Manhattan.

I hope to see a lot of you joining us in trying out your skills with this sketch.   Check out all the details here at "LET'S SCRAP"   and I have the sketch below.   The prize for this challenge is from CCO - Craft Classes Online.