let’s go brandon

First of all, it’s Memorial Day. Thank you to all the men & women who have graciously served our country.

And to honor them, what is more American than baseball?

I take a ton of pictures at each of Brandon’s baseball games, thanks to the burst mode on my camera. It’s so easy to snap ten in a row & hope that one is him hitting the ball. When I looked at the photos from Brandon’s last game, I thought, “hey wouldn’t it be fun to have a story-board style layout of these photos?”

I found this sketch in one of my Allison Davis sketch books. (love them!)

Then I pulled out my March GTKC & found some papers that would work nicely, as well as some brads to embellish it. I wanted to keep it fairly simple, so the focus is on Brandon swinging the bat.

goal!

 

Today our soccer team won it’s second game, and Brandon scored two goals! Yes! Finally the kids are getting the hang of it, and we’ve only got one game left. Oh well. At least it got us all pumped up for our team party!

The trophy is Brandon’s. I made three cards like this one for the coaches. I scraplifted the design from a layout Raimi did at Green Tangerines. The strip on the side was cut from a 12x12 sheet of paper, and I cut out extra soccer ball halves & popped them up. The stars were both cut from the same sheet of Jillibean Soup paper (double sided).

And for you locals, the trophy is from Classic Impressions on Folsom-Auburn in the Gold’s Gym shopping center. They did our baseball trophies last year, and I was very happy with them. It’s a family-run business, and they are truly the nicest people there. And they have a play area for  your two and four year olds when they come with you to place your order.

just kick it

I had so much fun with this layout! I’ve been snapping pictures at most of Brandon’s soccer games, so I had a TON to choose from. I was able to narrow it down some, then picked a sketch from Alison Davis’ sketchbook #6. Then I narrowed down my photos a bit more until I was happy with my layout (I do a lot in Photoshop Elements before I print anything).

The sketch I used had a lot of stars in it, which worked perfectly with this American Crafts paper I still had (& wanted to use). I drew some stars in Photoshop & printed them on the backs of the patterned paper I wanted to use. Then I inked the edges & adhered them to the page. I popped up some, and used the cool “buttons” in place of others.

I had already used some of this collection on another layout, but I had saved the soccer ball, knowing Brandon was going to play soccer.

let's go rivercats

Brandon's baseball team went to a Rivercats game in May. I was inspired by a layout I saw on the Jillibean Soup blog, though I can't find the exact layout now, of course! 100% of this layout was from my stash...such a great feeling to not buy one thing for a layout, you know? I came close...

I love these flocked thickers from American Crafts. So sporty! I used some old Making Memories rub-on letters for "rivercats".

I journaled in one of the Jillibean Sprouts I had sitting around. I got a bunch in a kit a while back, & love how they look though I hardly ever use them. The baseball is part of the American Crafts Junior Varsity line (as is the patterened paper). I bought a few things from that line when it came out, then stocked up later on. I love the colors & know I'll use it on a few sports layouts.

This was my trouble spot. The layout I scraplifted had two large brown "cool beans" buttons in brown, and one in green. I was using different colors on my layout, so no biggie, I decided to use red. Except I only had one red cool bean. Okay. And I knew I wanted to use one of the "buttons" from the JV line. Now what? Use another button? Nope, want some for an upcoming soccer layout. Buy more buttons? Nope, not finding what I want. Use an old red button from Making Memories that I've had for a LONG time? Yup! And it totally matches...yippee!

Let's Play Ball!

Brandon had his first T-ball game almost a month ago & I finally finished the layout! I actually had bought some American Crafts paper for it about three months ago, but I couldn't make it work to my liking for this sketch. I could've reprinted the photos & chosen another sketch, but I decided to use those papers for another layout. It's not like I don't ever take any photos of his games!

So I chose to use some goodies I had leftover from my February kit. The colors worked out great! I was also able to use some brown puffy thickers I had in my stash, and some cool epoxy baseball stickers I've had a LONG time! I think they might be Karen Foster? I used them on this layout that I did sometime in 2007-ish.