sketch support | fun on the 4th

It’s one page week at Sketch Support. Head on over there to download a FREE copy of this great sketch & to see what the rest of the Creative Team did with it.

And here’s my take:

Supplies - patterned paper: Jillibean Soup (Watermelon Gazpacho & Blossom Soup); Banana Leaf paper: Creative Imaginations; stickers & alphabets: Jillibean Soup; pen: Slickwriter by American Crafts

Variation #1 - I swapped out the stars on the left for a bunch of labels & stickers. When I first saw this sketch, I thought, "cool, this will be perfect for my Fourth of July photo!". Then I went to the scrapbook store...So naturally I bought more than I needed, including a sheet of stickers from Jillibean Soup. I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone & had fun with lots of stickers here.

Variation #2 - I moved the title down onto the photo & to the right. I like the idea of the title on the top, but my papers were too busy, and I had a nice open spot on my photo asking for some word art.

Variation #3 - I skipped the journaling strips & used a label sticker instead. I had been contemplating this design change, and then I realized I didn't have anymore matching cardstock. Done. I like the label here :)

project 12 | june 2011

 

More Project 12 from last year…

A few pics from June & fun papers & stickers from Jillibean Soup’s Watermelon Gazpacho line (love these colors!)

I added a fun little strip that I punched to look like torn notebook paper, and then stitched it on with some pink embroidery floss.

I clustered some journaling stickers, tags, etc. up on the upper right page.

And a few more in the lower right hand corner.

sketch support | summer days at the lake

 

It’s two page week at Sketch Support! Head on over there to get a FREE copy of this week’s sketch & to be inspired by the fabulous creative team!

And here’s my take:

Supplies - patterned paper: Echo Park, Little Yellow Bicycle, Technique Tuesday; journaling block: Technique Tuesday; chipboard & cardstock stickers: Bella Blvd.; letter stickers: American Crafts; pen: Slickwriter by American Crafts

Variation #1 - It's not a winter layout! Ha! So far we've had a mild winter in northern California, so there hasn't been any snow to visit. However, the wave in the sketch reminded me of water, and I had plenty of lake photos from last summer so I played with those.

Variation #2 - Since it's a summer layout, I left off the snowflakes & used some fun journaling spots & chipboard accents instead.

july | project 12

 

supplies: patterned paper: October Afternoon, Crate Paper, Pink Paislee, Bo Bunny; letter stickers: Lush by My Mind’s Eye; border & word stickers: Echo Park; star pin: unknown; all items from my June Green Tangerine’s kit club.

I really had fun as this layout came together. I started out with one idea, and then after looking at a few of Davinie Fiero’s layouts, I decided on something completely different. I love how she has used two different sheets of patterned paper behind kraft cardstock so she could get more patterned paper onto her layout without making it too busy. So hopefully that’s the effect I got as well Enjoy!

10 things i love about summer

 

This layout is based on the latest two-page sketch on Sketch Support. I didn’t get it done on time to be on the blog, but you can pop on over to check out more ideas based on this sketch, and to get a copy of the sketch for free

supplies: patterned paper: Echo Park & Little Yellow Bicycle; journaling card: Technique Tuesday; rhinestones: Doodlebug Designs; title block: Little Yellow Bicycle; Spray Mist: Tattered Angels; other: embroidery floss, (All items from my August Green Tangerine’s kit)

1) I flipped the sketch horizontally & also vertically, just because.

 

2) To get the swirl that I stitched, I opened up the sketch in Photoshop Elements. I cropped & resized the actual sketch so that the dimensions were 24x12. Then I cropped the portion where the swirl was to 8.5x11 so I could print it out at 100%. Then I traced a line onto the swirls so I could figure out where to punch it. Once I punched all of my holes, I flipped the paper over & punched my swirls onto the layout. (My layout is flipped, so I needed my swirl to be flipped too, I hope that makes sense!). After punching my holes, I flipped my layout over & traced the dots (on the back of my layout) so I could see what holes went to which swirl. Then I just started stitching! I’m pretty pleased with the results!

 

3) For the strait stitched line I used my Sew Easy tool. I’m still getting the hang of it, but I find if I lightly draw a line where I want my stitching to be, I can make a straight line.

The journaling block is from Technique Tuesday, and is from a sheet of paper.

 

3) The title block came with 10 strips to write your 10 summer memories on. I was going to ask my kids, but then decided it was going to be MY favorite summer memories I wrote one on each strip, and when I placed it in the page protector I cut a slit on that page so we can remove the strips to read them anytime.

 

4) This was also the first time I used spray mist…love it! I sprayed the blue waves just to make it more blue, so nothing exciting, but I had fun playing as I sprayed. I can totally see now why people are addicted to their mists…I may have to find me some more things to spray now !

last july at the zoo

 

I just realized I’d never taken a picture (or shared) this layout of our trip to the zoo last summer.

Supplies: patterned paper: Echo Park; journaling spot: Jillibean Soup; brads: Basic Grey; letter stickers: American Crafts

And as usual, I’m using a sketch from Allison Davis (Sketches for Scrapbooking v. 6).

I didn’t really switch up much from the original sketch this time. I did use a journaling sprout in the text area (instead of strips). And I tucked part of it behind the photo because it had a word on it that didn’t fit in with the layout.

I also used brads instead of buttons. Minor swap, I know. And it felt so good to use up some Lime Rickey brads I’d had sitting around for a couple of years!

just another friday night

 

I think this just might be one of my favorite layouts right now:

Supplies (all May Green Tangerines Kit Club): Letter stickers Bella Blvd; Patterned paper: My Mind’s Eye, Crate Paper, October Afternoon, Pink Paislee; Jute Flowers: Jillibean Soup; ric rac, twine, embroidery floss (2 strands for stitching)

It’s based on the double page sketch #16 from Sketch Support.

After printing my photos in black & white, I knew they needed to lay on a white background. And I wanted LOTS of color in the patchwork below. So I pulled out my kraft cardstock and my May GTKC.  Then I just started laying all the papers next to each other until I figured out which ones worked best on this layout.

(yes, I noticed AFTER I took this photo that my lettering was coming up…thanks to a little glue & a page protector it’s A-OK now!)

The sketch calls for stitching. I didn’t want the fine line from my sewing machine, so I knew I’d be hand stitching. I just go the Sew Easy tool & it was so fun to use on here! It didn’t go thru all three layers of paper, but that’s okay. It did give me a partial hole that I just poked thru with my paper piercer.

 

I didn’t want to get my layout too flowery, since the main photo is my son and his best friend, but my kit had these cool jute flowers from Jillibean that I’ve been dying to use. I think they added the right touch without being too girly.

 

This banner here was one of the embellishments from my kit. The sketch had clouds over here, which didn’t really “fit” my layout. But I think the banner adds just the right amount of color without being over the top.

barbeque

Brenda invited everyone to her house in Oakdale over Labor Day weekend to celebrate Michael’s birthday. It was great to see everyone on such a fun day. Brandon & Olivia spent the entire day in the pool & had to be forced to get out of the pool to eat! They finally got out when it was time to go home because they were too cold. Abbie, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure about getting in and was perfectly content to sit on the edge dangling her feet in the water. She finally got in with Brenda…but was fully dressed!

I used another Alison Davis sketch (vol 6) for this layout. The papers are all American Crafts Heat Wave. I bought a bunch from that line over the summer & I’ve used it on quite a few layouts! Love the versatility!

The “flower” is some kind of starfishy-like thing. They’re glittery & part of the Heat Wave line. I used a brad from my stash (Lime Rickey from Basic Grey).

The scalloped border is actually circles I punched cut in half. The sketch calls for a 1.5” circle punch so there’s an even number of scallops. I have 10 circle punches, but none are 1.5”. Oh well, what can you do? I ended up using a 1.75” punch which still gave me an even number of scallops (except on the left hand page where I’ve got a half showing). I was so happy!

The letter stickers were bought at the same time as the paper. They’re a yellow vinyl Thicker & I’ve used them a lot.

hot summer nights

I don't know why this layout took me so long, but it did.

The photos are from this past July, when my mother-in-law & niece came up to visit. We all went to nearby Folsom Lake for a picnic dinner. I got some great photos that evening, and I couldn't wait to scrap them. I picked a sketch from Allison Davis (I don't remember which volume) and picked out some photos fairly quickly. Then it was time to choose the paper...and that's when my drama began :)

Nothing I grabbed worked like how I wanted it to. I finally (after about three tries!) settled on my papers, all leftover from my August '09 Green Tangerine's kit. The blue is from Basic Grey's Marrakech line. Unfortunately I'd already punced a circle out of it, in a spot I had no way to cover up. So I trimmed it down to about 10 1/2" wide (it was supposed to be 12" wide).

The striped paper is from Jillibean soup, and that was the last of it. I love that paper, so I may pick up another sheet!

Then I remembered I had picked up those cool flowers from Jillibean too...perfect! Just the spot of color I needed. Except I wasn't sure what to put on them. I found some buttons that did the trick, and tied them off with embroidery floss.

I used another flower from Jillibean here too. Except I added a chipboard button that I had covered with some more Jillibean paper (Pasta Fagioli collection). Topped off with a button from my stash.

And this isn't a great picture, but you get the gist. I didn't feel like pulling it out of my album for a retake :)

I inked the edges of the yellow paper to jazz it up a bit.

legoland

My detailed Legoland experience can be found here. My scrappable story is here:

For this layout I used a sketch from Becky Higgins. I'm sure it's from her sketch book or Creating Keepsakes, but I found the inspiration on her blog here.

The papers are a mix from American Crafts' Heat Wave line & my Apr/May Green Tangerines kit (have you heard? They're reopening sometime in September! Woo-hoo!). I had fun using lots of bright colors on this layout. And, that cute strip of paper at the top with the diamonds on it? It's the reverse of the paper "edge" that's meant to be torn off (with the line name on it). How cool that AC has made that strip functional! Fortunately I had two sheets of the Kahuna Kiwi paper so I was able to do the strip across both sides of my layout.

Although I didn't ink the edges of everything, I did ink the circles. They just needed a little more definition. Becky didn't have them in her original layout, but mine just lacked "something" so I punched some out with my 3" circle punch, inked them, & slid them into a few spots. Perfect!

For my journaling, I used a sheet of lined paper that I trimmed down to size, and then I punched the edge to make it look like I tore it out of a notebook. I've been seeing this a lot lately, and so I recently picked this border punch up at Michael's (40% off!). I'm having a ton of fun with it!

splashing in the sprinklers

Our kids had so much fun splashing in the sprinklers at my sister in law's house this last June. And of course I had fun putting this layout together!

I used another Allison Davis sketch. I really like how she uses lots of patterned paper on her layouts, because I'll admit, I never was quite sure what to do with it all!

I found these yellow vinyl thickers on clearance on Two Peas, along with all the paper from American Crafts' Heat Wave line. The fun little letter stickers are Making Memories (?) and are from one of my GT kits from last summer.

The "flowers" (that look like a cross between flowers & sea shells) are from that line too! I simply pierced them & added a white mini-brad. You can really tell here, but they're semi-glittery too.

***Photo note: This time I took the pictures in the very sunny playroom, but not in direct light. And I took them in RAW mode so I could adjust the exposure & white balance. That's what I do with my regular photos, so it's not a big deal. I was just trying to be quick with my layout photos. Anyhow, I think I've got it down...kind of!***

party in the usa

Not anything too fancy for my 4th of July layout this year, oh well...sometimes it's nice to have something simple :)

this just screams summer

As soon as I saw this photo of Olivia I thought, SUMMER!

So I set it aside & knew I'd scrap it at some point.

Then I came across this contest on the Page Maps blog, and thought, hey, I know what I'm going to do now! And came up with this:

I really had fun with this one. I used a bunch of October Afternoon Cherry Hill from my stash.

The scalloped circle "newsprint" (or dictionary excerpt I guess) was the patterned paper side of a journaling card. My scallop punch is 3" diameter, and of course the card is vertical (& only 2.5" wide). The journaling card to the right (with the title on it) covers up the circle that isn't.

Another scalloped circle made from a scrap. This circle is only as big as what shows; there is nothing hidden under the tan paper.

breakaway to the arctic freeze

The hardest thing about scrapping my Breakaway photos is the sheer number of photos I take. I think I took almost 1000 pictures that week! Granted, many were really, really bad. But it's still a lot to go thru before even THINKING of scrapping them. My tip: go thru them nightly & delete the really bad ones. Then go thru them again the next day & delete the ones that have a nicer, similar "duplicate". And then go thru them again when it's time to scrap, preferably at least a month later. No emotional connection to the photos at this point & it's really easy to purge! I think I got down to about 30 photos a day, or maybe 150 for the whole week.

And then go thru & pick out your favorite 50. And think about what layout would work with that many pictures. Then purge a few more & voila:

I can't take full credit for this layout. First of all, it's a sketch by Becky Higgins. Second of all, it's VERY similar to Brenda's Breakaway layout from last year. Granted, there are only so many ways of organzing that many photos onto one layout (I believe there are 24). And I'd prefer not to use the same layout for every Breakaway layout (it's our church's VBS so we go annually).

But I did "borrow" her journaling :)

The letter stickers here were all from my stash...woo-hoo! The brown are from my August GT kit (I love those little letters for sub-titles) and the blue are from my Dec kit & a month in review kit.

The layout was a bit "blah" & needed something to spruce it up, so I added some of the flowers from the American Crafts Heat wave line. The striped paper is from that line too.