Good Luck Charm

The challenge over at Sketches! {by tamara} this week was absolutely fabulous. The task was to create a layout with 10 reasons why you feel lucky. It inspired me to create a layout with some of my favorite pictures of the baby and list the reasons why I'm so lucky to have her. I hope she loves it when she's old enough to read :) This layout followed the sketch over at Creative Scrappers this week. It's a great sketch and easily flexible enough to fit 1-5 pictures!!

WHOO's that cutie pie :)

I was very intimidated by the sketch posted last week on Pencil Lines. So I decided if I was going to scrap something that scared the crud out of me, I might as well use a kit that scared me too!! I really struggle with bold patterns and these are pretty bold. I have also been wanting to try out adding owls to my page, because they seem to be everywhere you look these days. I was inspired to dig through the kit to find a cute flower embellie by the challenge over at Crafty Calendar Challenge. The theme this month is Flower Power. I hope you all enjoy my attempts at trying something SOOO out of my comfort zone.

Stamping with Acrylic Paint

Here are two layouts I just finished creating. They are of pictures of each of the older two kiddos with their new baby sister. They are absolutely in love with her, so there were plenty of pictures to choose from.

All the papers are from the We R Memory Keepers 'White Out' collection. They are a great line of double sided papers so that of course doubled the pattern choices!! :) I picked them up at Michael's just before Christmas.

I have been wanting to try painting on a layout, but after two very failed attempts at painting swirls with a brush freehand I decided it just isn't for me! Then I saw a tutorial on stamping on layouts with acrylic paint to give it a thicker look. The letters 'sister' and 'brother' are from a stamp set I bought clearanced out at Walmart months ago.

I think the key to this technique is spreading the acrylic paint out thin on a paper plate. If you gooped it up too thickly, the detail on the stamp was lost. Also, they are pretty big letters (but so fun right?) they held up to acrylic paint better than a smaller stamp did.

Pink & Brown (my new favorite)

I'd forgotten how much I loved the pink and brown color combo until I dug this journal box out of a box of misc swap items I've received but hadn't found a use for. I happened to have just bought a pile of paper at Joanns 6/$1 sale and these two brown/pink papers jumped out at me. The ribbon is just from my stash of leftover pieces, but I thought it went perfectly since the writing on it is pink and brown too!! I am still considering adding the words 'Alllie and her Great Grandpa' to the top of the layout (layered over the circles paper) in brown, but ran out of brown cardstock. Since the first day of spring decided to bring a MASSIVE snow storm with it, I am stuck home waiting.

A Wedding Card (mojo monday 130)

I absolutely LOVED the design team creations this week at Mojo Monday. The sketch was a little intimidating because I wasn't sure that I could incorporate that many different colors or patterns into one card. Then I had an idea...monochromatic. I have a wedding coming up before too long that I picked up some paper for. It is DCWV 'white wedding words'. I had a pile of grey/white/black patterned papers in my scraps baggie and I picked a few that seemed to coordinate. I inked the edges to give it a little more definition between the papers.

After settling on my papers it occurred to me that it fit perfectly with the color challenge on a blog I just found the other day, Secret Crafters. The challenge was to use only shades of grey. I hope white and black are okay because I thought they made for nice contrasts.

The stickers are from the wedding decorations aisle at Wal-Mart. There is a flat sticker with a duplicate image raised slightly with pop dots. The ribbon is just a grey satin edged piece from my leftover pieces box. Click HERE to see the original sketch at Mojo Monday and to give it a try yourself.

Swinging like a Monkey

I have had the DCWV paper pack 'Animal Crackers' for over a year and never got around to using it. The patterns are just so busy that I was scared to put them together on one page. Then about 2 months ago I was in my local Michael's and found the chipboard embellishment box for the DCWV line 'Safari Kids'. The animals looked exactly the same it just had a few more pinks in it so I picked it up. Then I headed to Joanns (I tend to hit all the stores when I make a shopping trip...LOL) and there on the clearance rack was ONE 'Safari Kids' paper stack and ONE 'Animal Crackers' chipboard embellishment kit. It was too good to be a coincidence so I snatched them up and finally sat down to give them a whirl. They all mix and match perfectly. For as nervous as I was about mixing so many patterns, I must say I LOVE how it turned out!!!

2..2..2 challenges in one!

I needed a masculine birthday card and I normally struggle with that. I'm all about sneaking pink in a project whenever possible. Hee hee. When I saw the challenge over at Cupcake Craft Challenges this week, I almost wrote it off. A card with no pink...just green??? Are you kidding me? LOL! When I started this project, though, I knew that I had just the green paper that had a rustic masculine touch. All the pieces are from my scraps baggie including the solids and ribbon...whoo hoo! I followed the sketch Sketches! {by tamara} this week. It was a great sketch though I should have checked my envelope stash before attempting it. I don't actually have any rectangular envies. Maybe I'll make one!! :)

Here is my green card take on the sketch:

Baby Layouts Galore...

I hope someone out there is in need of baby layout inspiration and that I can help them find it. I haave so many layouts to do of our youngest daughter and she's only 1 month old. I have scoured the web for sketches because they are the challenge I enjoy the most.

Here are my two latest layouts along with the sketches I followed. You can click on the sketches themselves to go to the Julie or Beckie's blogs.

The Boy's Birthday Layout

I created this layout with pictures of my son's 10th birthday celebration with his grandparents. They had to miss his birthday because they live out of town, so they came up and celebrated it with him a few days early. The solid cardstock and patterned paper both came from the open stock section of Hobby Lobby. The 'celebrate' title and cake cardstock sticker both came from the 25cent garage sale find page kit I used for my hubby's birthday layout. I'm still super excited about that find!! :) The 'happy birthday' subtitle is a piece of vellum from a Quote Stack. I inked the edges of the vellum to help hide the adhesive and I actually love the look it gave it.

My take on Creative Scrappers sketch #95

This is a page kit I found at a garage sale for a quarter. It has tons of papers, stickers, cardstock pieces, journal boxes and more. There is easily enough stuff in there to make 10 layouts and at least as many cards. I have no idea where it came from originally, but another man's trash is MY SCRAPPIN' TREASURE!!! LOL

The sketch I followed is Creative Scrapper's sketch #95. Head over and try your take on this great sketch...I'd love to see it :) You can click the sketch below to go directly to the post with the sketch or the link above to go to the blog's homepage.

A new layout...and inspiration from PageMaps

Here is a layout I created of one of my favorite pictures I've taken recently. My newest baby cousin came to the baby shower with his mama and I captured this shot of my two kids loving on him. It was great 'practice' for the new baby that was coming any day. The sketch I followed came from PageMaps. I flipped the sketch to accomidate this adorable photo matte that I have been dying to use. It came from a swap and was made by my friend Jenn.

Young at Heart

I have been in the mood to scrapbook lately, but I've yet to master the art of keeping the baby occupied (happily) while I toil away at my scrap table. It's a bit easier with the laptop because I can just pull myself up to wherever she's playing and accomplish some digi scrapping. So far she lasts one whole layout before we take a play break! I followed a sketch from one of my very favorite sketchers, Julie Bonner. She has amazing sketches and even more amazing work so check her out here.

A few weeks ago we took the baby to the nursing home to visit her Great-Grandpa again. It was hard for me to visit there at first, because it was just a reminder that my Grandma wasn't here anymore. Seeing how happy the kids make him eased that pain right away :)

Below is the sketch I followed from Julie's blog, Starting Now. Clicking the link will take you to her blog, clicking the sketch will take you to the individual post.