A Christmas Card in May

I have been looking at the May card sketch at "STICK IT DOWN"  all month and trying to decide what to make with it.   Finally today I decided (while I was sorting card stock scraps by colors)
I decided to make a Christmas card because I had lots of red and green card stock scraps, so that was
what made me decide to make a Christmas card.

I've never made a card anything like this, but what a fun design I'm really pleased I gave it a try
and worked outside the box on something.

There are 3 great sketches and challenges this month, card, single page and double page and now
I've completed them all.

Here is the sketch and see everything by going to  "STICK IT DOWN"

New Car

We got a new car last week.   We got a 4 year lease on this awesome Lexus and is actually $100 less per month than the lease we had before on a Buick.   We had been looking around to trade as our other lease would be running out soon.   We got a flyer in the mail to get a $75 Visa card if we came in for a test drive of a Lexus.   Can't go wrong with just looking.    But we both fell in love with this car that was in the showroom.   The coloring on these pictures aren't exact, the interior is a great two-tone light tan and brown and the exterior is this awesome brown.   For some reason over the years we have always commented when we saw a brown car and liked it but never had one ourselves.
Plus one thing we also said we wanted to look at this time was a hybrid and guess what.    This car in the showroom was also a hybrid.   So after a test drive of another Lexus, same model, different color and getting our Visa GC we spent the next 2 days in phone calls and e-mails coming to an agreement on a price and finally got what we wanted and went in and picked up this one off the showroom floor.
We both really love it.    I'm so anxious to see how the gas mileage does with a hybrid.   So far after a week it the gauge hasn't moved off full.   :)    I love that we will save on fuel costs.

I used the 'May Sketch +3 Challenge' at "SCRAP OUR STASH"

Here are the 3 choices I made

List #1 - My Mind's Eye - and I went deep into my MME stash and pulled out the Kraft Fun Day Collection for the background paper and the Tres Jolie for the other patterned papers I used.   Both are oldie but goodies from MME.

List #2 - I went with the color choice of Naples Yellow  and I have the yellow on one banner the circle with title and then card stock that  the body of my layout is on.    Again sorry for the color of this pictures, but 3 days of rain here not going to do much better.

List #3 - October Afternoon.    My alpha title and the date numbers are from the  October Afternoon Daily Flash alphas - the color is Early American-Shop Front.     These Daily Flash alphas from
October Afternoon have become my go to alphas for so many layouts.   I have them in 10 colors and at least 2 pkgs per color.   I don't want to run out.

Here is the sketch and the +3 choices.   Check out the details here at  "SCRAP OUR STASH"

Lovely flowers

This is the third layout I've made of the flowers we have planted and blooming this year.    There are still more that I haven't used yet.   But I just love when it gets warm enough each year to go to the nursery and buy new flowers,   makes for a beautiful start to spring and then during the summer I just get to sit back and enjoy all that was planted.   This year we did get a few more perennials too so those won't have to replaced next year.   These pictured heres are annuals but they are blooming so nicely now I wanted to get pictures.

I used Sketch #105 at   "SKETCH-N-SCRAP"  for this layout  and my papers are from the Kate & Co. Cambridge Court collection.   In fact it is one piece  the A and B sides.   I just cut it into 4" strips and then put on a background of white paper to keep them together.      The flowers are handmade by
a scrappy friend in a group I'm in and I thought the color was perfect.

I also will enter this layout at   "SCRAP OUR STASH"  May Book inspired challenge.
I was inspired by the rosy colors of the sky in the book cover and the word summer as I will enjoy these flowers all the way through the summer.   Plus you had to use flowers on the layout and I have that in floral paper, flower pictures and 2 awesome handmade flowers.

Check out the sketch below and all the details for this sketch and the others for May here at
"SKETCH-N-SCRAP"

See the book cover below and check out the details here at  "SCRAP OUR STASH"

Ice Cream

There is a chance I'll be out of town next week so I'm trying to get a lot of scrapping done this week.
I had to start today with the Scrappy Friends challenge for May.     I always love trying to put together a layout using all 3 of the challenges together.     I got it done this month.    I loved the sketch from  "GRAND DIVA'S CREATIVE CORNER"    So great to work with and got to blend a variety of patterns together too, which I love.

Then for "THROUGH THE EYES OF ROCHELLE SPEARS"  the This or That challenge for this month was to use Flair or Buttons.   I got to use two cute butterfly pieces of flair that had the 'perfect'
colors to go with my paper colors and the color in the picture of my beautiful granddaughter.

Then last but far from last was the challenge at "CREATING WITH PAPER & MORE"    This challenge was the fantastic mood board.   I pulled from the colors of pinks and blues and even a tiny touch of green.  Then also from the flowers.  I used pink and white flowers and the mood board had pink flowers in it.

Here is the sketch and all the prompts below.    Just click on each link to see more details and
inspiration for each blog.

"GRAND DIVA'S CREATIVE CORNER"

"THROUGH THE EYES OF ROCHELLE SPEARS" 

"CREATING WITH PAPER & MORE"

Roses 2016

I think this is the best year ever for the first bloom or our roses.    They were just so full of buds.
We did have 2 days of heavy rains before I got these pictures taken so some blossoms had been knocked off but still so very pretty to go out and look at.

I used the sketch #104  at  "SKETCH-N-SCRAP"  to make this layout.    I was torn on what papers to use but I had the Fancy Pants Meology collection sitting on my desk from an earlier layout and decided to just use papers from the collection and make them work.    This way instead of picking flowery patterns for the papers I just stuck with flowers on the pictures.

Here is the sketch and just clink on  "SKETCH-N-SCRAP"  and see all the great sketches and challenges they have for May.

Mothers Day Mini Golf

Since my daughter loves to play Miniature Golf I told her the next time we were in my hometown to see Dad again together we would go play at a little course there.   I went to see her for Mothers Day weekend and we went over to where Dad lives Sunday morning so the whole group could go to Brunch together at a place there that just has it once a month and certain holidays.

We had so much fun.   Leslie won by 2 strokes over her husband and I beat my brother.   Always a good thing.   Dad walked around and watched us and it was some great fun as a family.

I used the double page sketch at  "SCRAP MUCH?!"   it was perfect to be able to use so many of the pictures that I took.    I also included our score card.

Check out the sketch below, you have until May 29th to enter.

2 layouts same sketch

Crazy me on a Sunday morning.   I had this sketch from "ELLE'S STUDIO"  out on my desk at the end of the day yesterday to be the first sketch I worked on today.     I knew I would be able to scrap a lot today while I watched all the morning news programs and then the Nascar race.    Hubby is busy with his TV shows now with 2 Netflix movies to watch so just me in my scrap room.

So I jumped right in this morning with my coffee and was going to go right to work on still catching up with more layouts from past vacations.   So pulled up the pictures  from Australia trip in 2005.
I thought of the sketch I wanted to use and decided it would great to use it with the new pad of paper
I bought on sale yesterday at Michaels.  I could do something different and rotate the sketch and just one picture and then 2 PL style cards.    Easy peasy got everything made and looked over again at sketch so I could do a blog post and Oh Yeah, I forgot this is the latest "ELLE'S STUDIO" sketch
and I want to use papers from Elle's.  

So good think I love this sketch.   I go to the drawer with all my Elle's Studios collections and pulled out some to look through.    Plus also looked at some older pictures for this layout too and saw these from Christmas night 2011 and decided they were the perfect pictures to use 3 photos for the sketch and not rotate or anything.   I ended up using papers from 3 collections.   The background paper is from the "Shine collection"  (I liked the deep blues to look like a night time background)  the the 1/2
matting around 2 of the pictures is from the "Penelope collection", plus I also cut out my title letters from the same paper.    The little 'we ate' square that I journaled on is from the "Let's Eat collection".

Check out the sketch below and see what you can do with it.    And check out all the details at
"ELLE'S STUDIO"   I'm so glad I got two different layouts made with the sketch.    Ended up very positive for me filling in old pages in different albums.