Mexico High School

This is a picture of my high school in Mexico, MO.    I got the picture off of Facebook,  a group of old hometown friends started our own group so we can all keep up with each other across the miles and there are members from probably a 15 year span of graduation dates.    Our colors were red and grey so that is what i used for the banners.     I saw this sketch at Let's Get Sketchy and I had already saved this picture on my desktop just waiting for a time to scrap it.   But seeing this sketch with all the banners I knew it would be perfect for this picture.     You can check out the sketch    HERE
still the rest of today to get a layout entered.

I Love a Party

Got a lot of color and pattern going in this layout but I kinda combined some Christmas paper and then some fun brightness with the pink thickers for the title and the pink hears and rhinestones.
Even though these are pictures of Mylan at her school Christmas party I didn't want it to look completely like a Christmas party because to me the pictures just say happy and fun.
I used  Sketch # 50 at the Sketch n Scrap blog.    You can check it out    HERE
I have a feeling I'll be using it again with some more subtle papers.

LOVE

I had my pictures printed for this layout and printed the My Scraps and More sketch #67.
You can check out this challenge by clicking   HERE>
So basics were ready, then I went to my collection paper drawers and decided to just pull out collections with  a little bit left and get them used up.     So I had one full page from MME
Nostalgia collection and a few cut pieces, not enough for the layout so I pulled out MME
Alphabet soup where I had only scraps left and one 3/4 piece of paper.    The colors of the collection
were going to work well together so I just started cutting and putting everything together.
It feel so good using up all those odds and ends used up and not have them ended up collecting dust.  :)
These are pictures I took of Arthur and Avery during our trip to visit them in FL last month.
It's so great to have pictures of Arthur holding his grandkids anytime because we don't see them that often and they grow up so fast.

BIG Snowman

Still finding Christmas pictures to scrap and I LOVE it.   When we came back to the house the day after Christmas from a trip to see the lights on the Magic Tree I had Kai and Koda stop by the
inflatable Santa in Bruces front yard so I could get a picture of them.   I quickly snapped these
two pictures but that is all I got because they were to anxious to get back inside and play more
with all the new Christmas toys they got.    I used the February sketch  #41 at "Artful Delight"  
You can check it out  Here      This was a fun sketch to work with and I really love how on the
 sketch the narrow strip of paper runs across the pictures so I had to copy that for sure.      
Sometime in the next couple of months I also have to try making a card using the February sketch.    

2-4-14 Snow Storm

Kansas City got hit with the big snow storm yesterday.  Started snowing hard by 9 am and stopped around midnight.   Never stopped all day long.    In our neighborhood, north of the river, we got approximately  11 1/2" of snow.   But the real problem was how windy it was all day and night, there were drifts on our front porch about 3 feet deep.    I couldn't push the front door open this morning more than 6" just enough to stick my arm out and try to snap a couple of pictures that way.
We bundled up and went out through the garage and Arthur used the snow blower to clear the driveway and I used the snow shovel to clear the front porch of the snow and drifting, but first I had to get some pictures because I knew I would want to make layouts of the snowfall.    One challenge
I knew I would enter while taking these pictures was "Lasting Memories" challenge #176 - 'Will You See Your Shadow'.      The challenge was to make a winter or spring layout.    As much as I would love to see spring, as you can see we are still in the midst of winter.     You can check it out  HERE
Then this morning while checking out other challenges I saw this double page sketch at "Let's Scrap"
I knew it would be perfect to use and be able to scrap a lot of snow pictures.   I had a lot of fun finding the papers I wanted to use with this and do a little bit of different edging around the center paper.    You can check out this sketch from Lasting Memories    HERE
I got to also enter this layout in one more challenge and that is the one at Frosted Designs from January 31st, called Winter Blues.   I used the picture inspiration of the blues in the colors and also all the pictures of winter snow.   Well this fit perfect for the 10" of snow we got 2-4-14.    You can check out this challenge   HERE

Holiday Prep

Found another great two page sketch so wanted to scrap these miscellaneous pictures from this last Christmas.    Pictures all came from different days but shows Arthur putting up outside lights back in late October.  (I know I pushed the date but I wanted a good weather weekend and not take any chances.)  Then pics of me wrapping presents.  A picture when we decided that we should add ribbon around the tree.  Plus pics of the chocolate covered pretzels and oreos that I make every year.
So I think I have pictures here from October, November and December but they went together for the layout I titled "Holiday Prep"
I used two older people of Recollections papers as the background paper,  you might not be able to see it in the picture but it has Merry Christmas written all over the paper.   Then I cut two strips of another piece of Recollection paper that had HO HO HO all across it.   That worked perfect to go with the sketch, I just matted it to have it stand out a bit more.   For the banners I used strips that I cut from paper in a 6x6 pad from an Authentique Christmas collection.
I used the January 31st sketch at the Shop Scrap Much blog.     You can check it out HERE,  
there is still time to enter the challenge.

Florida Scenery

I am so glad I came across this double page sketch at Stick it Down blog.   You can check it out
HERE       You still have till this afternoon to enter.     I'm glad I found it today because I had some great scenery pictures I took a week ago when we were in Florida and with this sketch I got to use a  lot of them.       I'm going to enter this layout in another challenge also.    I found out about this new challenge blog from an online scrappy friend  you can check it out   HERE      It's by Gloria Stengel Designs and its called Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge blog.     Today they announced their first challenge.    Challenge #1 is  "What's Your Style?"    Well I'm not sure how to describe my style but neat and clean.    Lately I'm really into matting everything and layers.   Plus I love banners too.
So I have it all in this layout.   I matted the pictures, every piece of paper and the banners, plus there are layers with a couple of the pictures overlapping and the embellishments overlapping and layers of patterned papers.