XOXOXO

  Hi, friends! Yesterday I spent a fun crafty afternoon with my sister and the girls, and we each accomplished a page for a challenge we were working on! Amazing! We hardly ever travel during school breaks, so for us these little respites are so renewing and rejuvenating. The snow is almost melted in the yard, the weather is warm, and it almost feels like spring here in Montana!

  I decided to work on a layout for a new challenge blog I've started visiting called "Scrap Your Story." The challenge this week was animals, so I pulled out this cute picture of Sophia with our cat, an adorable, extremely naughty Devon Rex named Neo. (As in Neopolitan ice cream, although he's usually referred to as "crazy kitty" or just "NO!") Despite his hard-headedness, he's been a fun addition to our family.

 I used the Crate Paper "Paper Hearts" collection for this layout, along with some vintage sheet music, the punch outs and sticker sheet from the collection, Prima flowers, Tim Holtz playing cards, Liquid Pearls, and Recollections gem flourishes. The journaling is hidden on the tag above the photo. I used my tiny attacher to staple some little banners in the upper right corner, and curled up a few edges of my background paper with spray ink. 

 I hope the animals (human and non) in your life bring you joy today! Thanks for stopping by, my friends!

A Fine Spring Day

  Hey there, friends! Today I'd like to share a springy layout I made this weekend. I'm so ready for warm sunshine and flower planting, and this cheerful Country Garden paper from Bo Bunny just makes me so happy! I took these photos last year when we were decorating eggs for our family egg hunt. The girls were totally into making characters for some reason, so they made a variety of animals, along with Indiana Jones, and then Sophie dropped an egg on the table and cracked it and a whole herd of zombies were born. My girls are so goofy!

I distressed the edges of my background paper with a spray bottle and backed my main paper with some little pops of color. I layered my photos over journaling tags and created my title with stickers and rubons. (I see now that I don't have my stickers quite straight. Argh!) I painted a chippie from Leaky Shed bright green, and added some butterflies I fussy cut from the paper collection. I originally hand wrote my journaling right under my title, but I totally messed it up and had to add the horizontal green and orange strip to cover it up. This layout had a few walk-away-and-take-a-deep-breaths, that's for sure!

My journaling now lives on a little yellow tag that pulls out from behind the top photo with room for a wallet size pic of the girls' zombie creations. (*Sigh and grin*) My sweet little girls.

I haven't done a single chore all weekend, so I better get at it before the day is done! Have a lovely week, my friends!

Once Upon a Sketch February Challenge

  "Do All Things With Love" is the theme at Once Upon a Sketch this month, and I decided I wanted to change things up a bit. I almost always scrap about my kids (my most loved people), but this time I decided to do a page about me and my special relationship with the instrument that's become my hobby then my career, my therapy, and really my whole life. 

  I started playing the piano when I was eight, and I knew right away that it would be a lifelong project. I went on to study piano at university and have been teaching privately for almost 15 years. I spend at least two hours with this view almost every day, and it's a huge part of who I am. 

  This page is specifically about my love for my "signature" piece, and what it has come to mean to me. I used papers from Crate Paper, some ruffled up Tim Holtz tissue tape, Prima and homemade flowers, and vintage piano music. My sewing machine is still broken, so all the stitching was done by hand. (I miss you so much, sewing machine!)

I wanted this page to have sort of a shabby chic, French country color scheme, and I used Gabrielle Pollaco's tutorial on paper ruffles to create my blue border.

My journaling is hidden in a pocket at the top of the page.

Here's the lovely sketch for this month created by Nadia Cannizzo:

Thanks so much for stopping by today, my friends!

My Creative Sketches January Challenge

  Hi, my friends! I'm home from a very successful piano recital, and I wanted to engage in a little craft therapy today! The sketch this month at My Creative Sketches is really unique, so I pulled out my Prima Zephyr goodies and a nice summery photo and got to work.

  Here's this month's sketch by Kim Keane:

And here's my take on it:

Summer here in the great white north still feels ages away, and the vibrancy of these colors made me so happy today! I used white acrylic paint around the blue border paper and around the photo to mimic the feel of water splashing and foaming. 

I used some of the chippie goodies and flowers from the collection to decorate my page.

I used my needle tool and Basic Black marker to add some faux stitching around my paper layers.

I scattered a few embossed butterflies around the page for some extra summery love. How many months until the pool opens?

Thanks a million for stopping by today. I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Mojo Monday 278

  Wow, the entries at Mojo Monday this week are AMAZING! Do you ever look at the level of some of these projects and wonder if you could ever create anything as incredible? I sure do!

  It's round or square week, and I chose square. I had some Carta Bella scraps left over that I wanted to use up and I thought the pink and red might be perfect for some Valentines Day cards. I don't send too many, but I like to make a few for special people in my life.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take:

  I used a Glitz design stamp gifted by a wonderful friend for the old telephone and hand cut some wonky hearts for the edge. I stamped the swirl and used pink liquid pearls for texture. I really wanted to machine stitch my row of hearts, but alas, the sewing machine hasn't magically fixed itself. (Darn it!) The inside reads, "Just calling to say I Love You."

  Since I had all my stuff out, I made a second card with the same sketch and an old acrylic stamp I've had for ages and never used once. Today was the day! I colored the couple with Copics and layered them over a fun doily I got from Ellen Hutson LLC. The baker's twine is Stampin' Up's Cherry Cobbler.

  Well, I'm off to do the best kind of work: Deciding what I really need to put on my Stampin' Up order this month! Have a wonderful Sunday, my friends!

Deconstructed Sketch #85

  This week I really found a card sketch challenge I can get on board with and use regularly. With my schedule, posting entries in weekly challenges can be really difficult, but the longer ones are perfect! I love the sketch at Deconstructed Sketch this time around, so I decided to join the fun.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my take:

  I used an Early Espresso card base and layered some Colorbok glitter paper and Victorian Parlour printed paper for the base. I stamped a couple of clock faces and embellished with some Prima roses, a stick pin, and some seam binding ribbon I dyed with Pool Party Stampin' Up ink. (My favorite color!) 

  I liked the feel of this card so much I decided to make a matching gift bag using the same paper line:

And, since I already had my supplies out, why not try a version in pink as well? What the heck!

A big thank you to Jen at the Deconstructed Sketch for her fabulous challenge! Thanks for stopping by today, friends!

Sketchbook365 January Challenge

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share a page I finished up this week about our family's generation-spanning love of the British cult classic TV series, "Doctor Who." I snapped this picture of my sweetie holding one of his most coveted possessions, his disappearing Tardis mug. My uncle had the 1980's version when I was a kid, and whenever we visit the farm in eastern Montana, we all get to arm wrestle for it. Now my kids get to look forward to the same kind of friendly competition. 

  Here's the sketch this month by Morag Cutts. Since I don't have any of my Christmas photos printed yet, I altered it for my own purposes:

And here's my take:

I altered the background with some stamping and sponging and a little spray mist. The journaling is on a kraft tag that pulls out from behind the photo layer.

I made the British flag out of a scrap from the paper collection (Teresa Collins) covered with strips of washi tape that I colored red with Copic markers. 

I used random strips of washi tape to add some interest to the background.

I'm still doing my best to journal somewhere on every single page. 

Thanks for stopping by today, my friends!!

Snow Angel

  It's snowy and cold here today, so it's the perfect day to share a layout I finished up over the Christmas holiday. We have lots of opportunities for winter photos here in Montana, and I love this picture of my daughter enjoying the latest snowfall.
 

  This layout is pretty clean and simple as I had a few scraps from last year's Winterland line from Fancy Pants that I wanted to use up. I created a border on my background page and then cut snowflakes from an acetate sheet to decorate the page. I used lots of Stickles to give them a snowy sparkle and layered on a few fussy cut elements from some of the papers I had left. The result is a page that will actually fit in a page protector (unlike so many of my others!) 

  Take time to play in the snow, my friends!

Magic of Oz Mini Album

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share a little project that seemed to be many weeks in the making. I ordered a few of the 12x12 papers in Graphic 45's Magic of Oz collection a long while back and started a paper bag mini album. I just got the canvas binding on this week and announced it done!

Here are a few pictures:

The cover! Always my favorite part of any mini album. I popped up and glossied lots of elements and made some red polyester poppies with my heat gun and the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. I used red Stickles on the ruby slippers and used my Copics to color Dorothy since I only had a sepia version of her left.

The first two pages featured the scarecrow. The large scarecrow pulls out as a tag, and a long scarecrow perches across the top of the photo mat. He's so cute!!

The yellow brick road page features all the characters.

The tin man's page ...

The Emerald City page has tons of tags and an envelope for extra photos.

The Wicked Witch! Ding dong ...

the Wicked Witch is dead! 

This was such a fun project to make! Graphic 45 and mini albums are a match made in heaven, and you'll see lots, lots more of these! Thanks for stopping by today, my friends!

Once Upon a Sketch January Challenge

  Hi, friends! Today I'd like to share my page for Once Upon a Sketch's January challenge. This challenge site is one of my favorite because of its focus on journaling and using scrapbooking to tell our life stories. The theme this month is "The Start of Something New," so I decided to do a page on my life's biggest adventure, the joy of becoming a mother of twins. 

Here's the lovely sketch designed by Nadia Cannizzo:

And here's my page based on the sketch:

For this layout I used Carta Bella's Beautiful Moments paper line and sticker sheet, a Leaky Shed chipboard frame, and lots of blooms from Prima, Recollections, and a few I made myself. I cut the title with my Cricut and Storybook cartridge.

Here are a few close-ups:

I made the pink flowers out of polyester suiting fabric by cutting various circle sizes and melting the edges with my heat gun. I spritzed them with ink and added some inexpensive pearls from the beading section at my craft store. Bad-a-bing!

I wanted to tell a longer story on this page, so I decided to place the journaling on the back. I've been trying to do this more and more with my layouts.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! While January can be a dark and gloomy time of year (at least here in Montana) I hope you find some little joys to carry you through! I saw a bunny out my window this morning which made my whole day! It's the little things, right? See you soon, my friends!