Sketches and a chance to win!

Do you love a sketch for inspiration? I think alot of scrappers enjoy having a nice sketch as a jumping off point and I'm no exception.

Here's a sketch I found over at Sassy Lil' Sketches:

And here is my take:

I rotated the sketch and changed the location of the journaling. Other than that, though -- I stayed fairly true to the design.

Would you like a chance to win a $5 GC to 3 Scrappy Boys from me? I know it's not a lot, but it'll buy something fun to come shipped with your July kit! Or, it'll cover part of your shipping!!

To win, leave a comment linking your layout in the comments of this post (on the 3SB blog). I will choose my favorite on Monday! Tell your friends...come one and come all!

I can dig it

Seriously, Elle's Studio has done it AGAIN with another great sketch! I changed it up a little, putting 3 smaller photos instead of two...otherwise, though...it's about the same. (Well, relatively speaking!) I used some of my Studio Calico June kit and an Elle's Studio journaling spot and VOILA!

just like santa

I know I make more pages about Harrison. In my defense he's 3, and the big boys have pages about when they were 3. AND, he's far more interesting right now. He does funny things, makes funny faces, says funny things. The big boys? They go to school, play sports, spend their free time in front of various video games. Not as much opportunity.

Anyway. Here's Harrison from a couple of weeks ago. He took off his PJ pants, stuffed them in his shirt and pretended to be Santa. All on his own. It was way funny!

Just for the guys

I took these photos last week and I wanted to scrap them. Bad. Then, I found a fun challenge over on the Trail Makers challenge blog and I thought -- what the heck?!

LOVE LOVE LOVE these Echo Park papers and cardstock stickers. The colors are SO me. Grey has been my favorite color for, well, forever. Honestly. Grey. But, in the last few years aqua has joined it as a best friend.

The layout: (about Cam and how he LOVES to play in the front yard. Especially loves playing any kind of ball in the front yard. particularly if there are neighbors involved)

The card: (a fun, happy and masculine birthday card!!)

What do you think?

tattoo artist

Let me just say that I'm totally aware I spelled tattoo wrong. I sat there and looked at it for a while before I did it -- I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. Anyway, I've fixed it since. (Benefit of taking photos of my layouts - it helps me see what is wrong with them!!)

Anyway. The other day, Harrison was supposed to be coloring on paper. He was sitting on the floor right in front of me. He was clearly NOT coloring on paper!

Last Scrapper Standing

Yes, you read that right. Last Scrapper Standing. It's not meant to be comic.

Over at Memorable Seasons they are having a Last Scrapper Standing contest and, of course, I entered. I mean, challenges and voting for a prize at the end? Sign me up!

This week was to include something "green" , as in earth friendly, on your layout. No themed pictures matching themed paper. As luck would have it, I'd been carrying around a piece of trash I wanted to scrap!

The Faygo bottle cap was my "green" contribution to this layout. I know, bottle caps are often used in scrapping. I figured that one that actually came from a bottle of soda deserved extra consideration. Hopefully this layout will be good enough to get me some votes. :)

The dairy farm

Last Friday, a friend of mine arranged for a bunch of us to tour a local dairy farm. Just so happens, her dad is friends with the farmer. I didn't really put a whole lot of thought into the tour, but there are somethings I should have considered.

1. The highlight of the cows would be their excrement.

2. The highlight of the whole thing would be the cookies and milk served at the end.

3. Closed toe shoes would be a very good idea

4. The smell is something most Southern California children have never smelled.

Nonetheless, there was fun to be had and we had it. Feeding the baby cows, riding the tractors and petting sleepy newborns. All part of the experience.

More use of my June Studio Calico kit, Paper Moon. Really, Really love this one.

Never gets old

I wish I could remember where I got the inspiration for this one. I KNOW it was somewhere. It might have been Elle's Studio. I just CAN.NOT for the life of me remember.

Anyway. It's totally simple (honestly, my favorite style) and focused heavily on the photos. And yes, I ran out of S's. So I used a 5. 1. I'm allowed. 2. It kind of fits with the preschooler theme.

LOVE these photos. So Harry right now.

PLAY!

So, there's this blog...called The Scrappiest. A super gal named Liz makes sketches and other great things. I've been watching her sketches for months, waiting for a good moment to jump on in. This week was it. Here's my take on this sketch:

For the record, I hate the title. I more than dislike it. I'm going to work on re-working it. And since I never re-work things, I must really dislike it. And, I do. Dislike it, that is.

Tubby Time

Shimelle puts up some lovely sketches, usually with 4x6 photos. I love to use those sketches as a jumping point. This one was from a couple of weeks ago and it helped me make a layout that I love. The part I like the very best? The colors. They turned out looking really good to me!

sneak peeks!

Seriously, where does the time go? I have *JULY* sneaks for you. JULY, people! We will be talking about the holidays in all earnestness here shortly.

But, I digress. July sneaks of the 3 Scrappy Boys Main kit. Let me just tell you, this kit was right up my alley. One of my favorite sheets of paper this year is in this kit ... and one of my newest favorite supplies is, too.

Anyway, here they are...

YUM, YUM, YUM. Can't wait to show you all of it!

Pretty Girl

Do you ever see a layout and KNOW you MUST make one similar? That happened to me the other day. I saw a layout by Maggie Holmes (Those Eyes) in the Studio Calico gallery. I loved it. I had to make my own.

Now, mine doesn't look exactly the same. It's definitely similar and I love it.

BIG news!

Want to hear my news? Well...it's official! I'm a Stash Girl! A member of the Your Scrapbook Stash Design Team! Isn't that exciting?!

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for all of the exciting stuff that will be coming your way. For now though, there is $5 shipping at your scrapbook stash (for orders under $50!) and a 15% off code - June15. Head on over, there is a LOT there to love!!

Your silly ways

Sawyer is my funny kid (well, Harry might be turning into one as well, but that remains to be seen!). He has his own style, his own way of being, everything. His sense of style? Well, hilarious. Here's just one example.

I'm Yours

This month (is that how often they do it?) My Minds Eye had a sketch challenge up that I *knew* I had to participate in. I loved the sketch and the theme was song lyrics. Easy enough, right? Yup.

I tweaked the sketch a bit (just not a huge fan of tilted photos) and had some fun. I used the Jason Mraz song for my title and turned out a page that I like.

Everything except the letter stickers and the shipping tags are My Minds Eye!

Happy Birthday...and...

Yes, I love a birthday layout. Traditionally I've done 2 pagers -- trying to add as many photos as humanly possible. For Sawyer's 8th birthday party, I decided to pare it down. I'm really happy with that decision.

I got a couple of photos of just him, a photo with his besties, and a photo of the whole group. OBVIOUSLY I took at least 142 other photos (that is what all mom's do, right?!) but I didn't need to include them on the layout. Just the ones that were very meaningful and told the story of the day. There are lots of other important memories, too -- but these told the highlights.

Another fun part of this layout is that I used the sketch this week over at Elle's Studio. It was a fun one and I could incorporate all I needed by just changing things up a bit. :) Sounds good to me!

Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough last week and I didn't get the layout up for the sketch. I did it, though.

I rarely do a 1 photo layout, so this was a departure for me. But you know what? It turned out okay. :)

Something fun

One of my favorite things in the world is my iPhone. One of my favorite things on my iPhone is a free app called instagram. It takes groovy little photos (no delay, either!) that you can change up with different filters.

This filter, Nashville, is far and away my favorite. I pretty much only use it exclusively.

You know what else? I love scrapping these beauties, too. {remember this one?}

I have found that scrapbookpictures.com prints these beauties in 3x3 for $.15. They look gorgeous and there is no messing around on my part. Perfect!

february thru may

Sometimes, my lack of Type A characteristics shows. This layout is a PERFECT example. See the crooked letters? I didn't even notice until I took the pictures. I have, however, straightened them since.

This is one of my favorite layouts from this year...I love the sentiment, the photos, the design, all of it! I used a sketch from Elle's Studio for the placement and went from there.

foofie play date

Another FUN part of our life is our girl, Holly Golightly. Of course, Holly Golightly is a dog ... a one year old golden retriever to be exact. We LOVE her and love to include her in our lives. Yup, the girl gets play-dates, even!

wooohooo for pool time

I think most kids love spending time in the swimming pool. Okay, at least mine do. AND, living in Southern California we get a lot of outdoor pool time.

In April we had one gorgeous Saturday that prompted us to swim with friends. So much fun was had -- I think it's pretty obvious!

This was the very end of my April Studio Calico kit, Singin' In the Rain. It's completely gone now, any remainders will be put into my regular stash. For anyone who is keeping track, that is 16 layouts with this kit (WOW!), 4 kits completely decimated and 56 layouts and 1 mini album with the 4 kits! (I've been subscribing since February!) I'd say I'm getting my money out of the kits.

Sixteen, scary. and a bit of good news!

The June 1 sketch from Shimelle was a GOOD one. Like, one that I rolled my sleeves up and got to work right away on. I wasn't sure what photos to choose at first...but the dwindling stack of iphone photos always catches my eye.

So, I substituted the 2 4x6 photos for 4 3x3 photos and got to work. I chose bright, fun photos for a birthday themed layout -- I'm quite happy with the results!

Are you wondering what good news I have to share? No, not a new car or a trip to Bali...but 2 layouts picked up for the November issue of Scrapbook Trends! YAY! For those of you who are not counting (that is all of you!) that is 5 layouts of mine being published from July-November. (The July call ended the end of January and I started submitting in January!)

Hard to believe all of the success I've had this year -- I COULD.NOT be happier!

My Sketch World JUNE sketch

For the summer over at My Sketch World, Lucy has gone with one sketch per month. It's sad to not have two reveal's for the design team -- but at least I still get to work on my sketches!!

Here's Lucy's JUNE sketch and my take on it!

After Tuesday came...

Wednesday, of course! And on Wednesday we went with friends to the donut shop, the park AND to get a haircut. Seems minor to most, I know. But Andy and I had been asking Sawyer for quite some time to get a haircut...he finally agreed. I wasted no time in getting him in that chair!

Hold up!

At least I did say it would be hard for me to post in the summer...right? I have a back up of layouts now after a couple of quiet naptimes -- now to find the time to share!

This is our first week of summer vacation and we're getting closer to finding our groove. And, even if we're not, we've had a lot of fun already! We've had playdates, swimming, ice cream parties and that isn't the end of it!

Here's a layout of our Tuesday, the first day of summer. SO many more to come!

It's summer!

We're into our 84 days of summer vacation and trying to grasp our new normal. Sadly, I think my new normal will be less scrapping time and less blogging time. Oh well...there's always when they go back to school, right?

Anyway, finally have time to post this layout I made at the end of last week using a selfie and the Pink Paislee Junque ephemera stuff I've wanted to use. I thought they went together well. Not to mention that I just LOVED the message and the thoughts I could convey with a few simple words.