Let's Get Sketchy September Week 5

Happy Monday everyone! And welcome to another challenge for Let's Get Sketchy. Whenever there is a 5th Monday in the month, the challenge is usually is something a bit different and this time we are being challenged to create a Fall or Halloween inspired card. I chose to use a Halloween theme, but since many people don't celebrate that holiday please don't forget that it can have a Fall/Autumn theme as well.

Please go check out what the rest of the Let's Get Sketchy design team came up, and hopefully we will inspire you to create a card as well.

A Plethora of Challenges

Sometimes I feel like the Queen Procrastinator. I still remember that in both high school and college, despite completing all of my research waaaay ahead of time I always put off actually writing my papers until the night they were due, and then I would inevitably be up until the wee hours of the morning typing away. I haven't gotten any better over the years. I carefully schedule & plan everything, almost always completing my projects as soon as I have the time to squeeze them in to my schedule. But then they sit...and sit...and sit. And all of a sudden I realize I haven't photographed them...and of course I still need to edit the photos and do a blog write-up and get them uploaded to the various challenge blogs they belong to. And then I have this huge blog post with multiple layouts. I'm seriously going to have to put this at the top of my New Year's Resolutions list for 2014.

Anyhow...now for my layouts. First up is for a challenge at Scrap Our Stash which was to use the provided sketch as well as some chipboard from our stash. I had the perfect background paper for the sketch (which you should go check out here)

The background paper came from a pad I picked up on clearance at Wal-Mart (Colorbok maybe?) but the rest of the paper, as well as transparency & chipboard is Basic Grey's Sugar Rush which I've been hoarding and slowly using here & there. It's one of those lines that I really adored and almost makes me sad to use it knowing it's forever gone lol. Which is silly because now I can enjoy it whenever I look at this page of Paolina taking a bath in the sink. Was it super mean that I took these photos of her or what? To this day she hates having her hair washed lol.

This next layout is for a sketch challenge at Inspired Blueprints

I again used some hoarded paper...I am a horrible paper hoarder! Although this time I wasn't hanging onto it for fear of using it all up...but because I have been waiting for the perfect photo(s). I thought the color of my jeans blended nicely with the salmon pink and my top is kind of a lacy crochet which I thought looked cool with the doilies. I was also proud that I've been continuing to dig into my tag stash. I even used a clothing tag from a pair of jeans I recently got for Paolina.

This next page is for the September challenge at Stuck?! Sketches. Did you know that this blog has been recently taken over by Laura, one of my fellow design team members at Let's Get Sketchy, who really does fabulous sketches. You also might be interested to know that they are currently running a Design Team call. You should go check it out!

Two funny things about this layout. One - this photo of Santiago was taken with my iPhone and it just wasn't that great, but I played around with it using one of those photo apps and made it totally scrapworthy. I even used the app to add the quote which is exactly what he said to me as he ate his chocolate ice cream cone lol. Two - when I first saw Bo Bunny's Mamarazzi 2 online...I had to have it! Got it in the mail and thought the colors looked way different in person and felt buyer's remorse BIG time. But in the last few months I have been using it like crazy. It's ended up looking great with so many photos! Now I am back to loving it again and the best part is that I'm using it and not hoarding it!

I also did a page for Stuck?! Sketches September 1st challenge. I just love Laura's sketches!

Now that my kids are 5 and 3, I look back at these photos of them is newborns and it's hard to believe they could have ever been so tiny. I can only imagine how I'll feel when they're completely grown!

Last but not least I did a layout for the September 15th challenge at About a Boy...which don't forget is merging with About a Girl on October 1st and together they will be Boy Meets Girl.

For this layout I used some Crate Paper The Pier...I love this line! I was actually hesitant to buy this but when I saw it "in person" I was so so glad I did!

Thanks so much for taking time to look at all my creations!

Boy Meets Girl

Hello everyone! Just wanted to take a moment to share some fun news with you. Some of you may be familiar with the challenge sites About a Boy (I used to be on the Design Team) and About a Girl. Effective October 1st these two blogs will be combined into one amazing new blog...Boy Meets Girl. If you go check it out right now you will see that they are running a giveaway.

ScrapMuch?

A few weeks ago I thought I had learned a valuable lesson about being more diligent with writing up blog posts ahead of time and scheduling them for going live. Thursday evening I felt a migraine coming on so I made a concerted effort to write one up...and I thought for sure that I had scheduled it and not just saved it as a draft. But apparently the beginnings of the migraine were already clouding my thinking. And normally I probably would have caught my mistake immediately the next morning. However, despite all precautions I have had a full blown migraine since yesterday and have been avoiding looking at computer screens etc. so I did not see until this morning that I had NOT scheduled my blog post. I am utterly ashamed because (as you will read below) I was supposed to post as a Guest Designer...

So last month, through an online scrappy friend, I discovered a really great blog. It's called ScrapMuch? and every Friday they post really fun sketches. And if you follow my blog at all you know I am all about the sketches! Anyway I was completely flattered when I was asked to be a Guest Designer!

Here is the sketch I had to work with...

I flipped the sketch and came up with this...

Now I can check another one of Santiago's newborn photos off the list! Thanks for looking and please stop by the ScrapMuch? blog to play along.

Paper Secrets Sketch Challenge

Have you ever seen a really cool sketch that you were super excited to use but then you started to work with it and your page didn't look nearly as cool as the sketch or the samples of it? Maybe that's just me...but it happened when I was working with this Paper Secrets sketch. Loved the sketch when I saw it. Loved what the designers did with it. Knew immediately which photos I wanted to use with it. Then I just struggled through the whole page. And I'm still not entirely happy with the result, which does happen on occasion but usually only when I've worked with a sketch that I only thought was "okay" to start with. But it's done and I refuse to agonize over it and will just move on to other pages.

Here's the cool sketch from Paper Secrets...

And my take on it...

I used photos of Paolina releasing her balloons & letter to Los Tres Reyes back in 2009. I've been saving this paper from Basic Grey's Soleil line specifically for these photos. Maybe I would be happier with the page if it had a title (like the sketch)...but I had hoped to put the title on the adjoining page which has additional photos of Paolina chewing on the letter & balloon strings. But like I said, I hate to agonize over not being "in love" with this layout and I hope to get over it and move on lol

Incidentally, not only was the challenge to use the sketch but to also use embossing folders. It's a bit hard to see but I embossed a couple of the banners and then inked them.

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

Let's Get Sketchy September Week 2

I believe I have just learned a valuable lesson regarding the importance of scheduling my posts more than just the afternoon prior. I always spend my Sunday afternoons writing up a post for the Let's Get Sketchy reveals on Mondays, but yesterday started unraveling in the afternoon and I haven't been able to get things back together until just now. Anyone with boys will probably appreciate this...Santiago was playing over at the neighbor's house yesterday and fell off the top of a bunk bed and landed head first onto a hardwood floor. His head got split open right above his eyebrow. After it happened we bandaged him up and spent the rest of the evening just keeping an eye on him, watching for signs of a concussion. We didn't want to go to the ER since he seemed to be doing well. But then before bedtime we took off the bandage and realized it really was going to need stitches. Still did not want to make that trip to the ER...so we decided to wait until morning when an Urgent Care facility was open. That of course was a disaster. It took two hours to get him calmed down enough to get a local anesthetic administered for the doctor to even suture his wound, which then only took about 5 or 10 minutes to complete. At that point he was fine...babbling about Minecraft and telling us about how he was going to show his stitches to everyone at school. Which is where is he is now. Oy! I never knew parenting a boy would be so stressful. This is our third trip to Urgent Care for some kind of injury related to him acting like a "boy". I predict the next one will be bone-related, which I shudder to even think about.

Anyhow, better late than never...here is the sketch for this week's reveal at Let's Get Sketchy...

And here's my take on it...

I used some old Webster's Pages paper and a photo from Paolina's newborn photo shoot. Thanks for looking...hope you check out the Let's Get Sketchy blog and join in with the challenge!

My Scraps & More Sketch Challenge

Well Paolina loved her first day of preschool...and so did I! I was soooo productive. I got some cleaning done, phone calls made (anyone with small children can appreciate that one...why won't they ever let us talk on the phone??), and I got some scrappy time in! I even started an altered project which I haven't had much time for in the last year. The best part of the whole day was how excited Paolina was to see me when I picked her up and how happy I was to have both of them home after getting a much-needed break. I really have a lot of respect for the moms who homeschool. I could never, ever do it. I'm just too much of an introvert to never get any peaceful, quiet "me" time. I'm much more patient with them when I have had a chance to recharge, and I will readily admit that I just need a break from my kids to be a good mom.

Enough about that...on to some scrappy stuff I want to share. My Scraps & More Sketches is another sketch challenge blog I enjoy. I love that they post new sketches every week and give you the entire month to link them up. This month I was only able to use one of their sketches, but I definitely see being able to use more of their sketches in future months. I used Sketch #42 and came up with this...

Besides the adorable photos of Santiago when he was only 14 months old, my favorite part of this layout is that I was able to combine some brand new Crate Paper The Pier (the background & green patterned paper) with some scraps of Basic Grey Marrakech, which is a seriously old line. Add some masking & paint splatter and this page looks totally current! It's super fun to get the latest, greatest scrappy stuff but I truly believe that it really is possible to use up your hoarded stash while keeping your pages looking up-to-date.

ScrapMuch?

Well today was Paolina's first day of preschool. She has been talking nonstop about going for over a week now, since that's how long Santiago has been back to school. Yesterday she woke up at 4am and woke us up to ask if she was going to school. This morning she was "thoughtful" enough to "sleep in" until 5am. I thought I was going to be a little sad to drop her off, since she's my younger child...but I wasn't. Both my kids are very social, so honestly I'm thrilled that they aren't stuck at home all day with me and get to spend time with other kids their ages. And selfishly I'm thrilled to now have six hours a day, three days a week all to myself. The first thing I did when I got home was do some cleaning & dinner prep, now I've moved on to design team/blog responsibilites, and my final order of business will be to scrap until I have to leave to pick them up. I promised the hubby that every day the kids are at school would NOT be devoted to scrapbooking, but after a long summer of no time to myself, I WILL be having a few days of celebrating.

Speaking of which I have two pages to post, both of which are inspired by sketches from that new sketch blog I found called Scrap Much? I really love their sketches...and I promise I'm not just saying that because I'm on a design team with their creator lol.

Both of these pages are from our album of the trip we took to Des Moines/St. Louis in the summer of 2009. I'm really excited because I only have a couple more pages to go to complete the album. So satisfying! I'm also excited because for the last four layouts in this album I used a ton of Echo Park's Eclectic line. I bought the collection pack last year but then for some reason I struggled finding the right photos to use with it. Maybe I was just unconsciously hoarding it lol.

Thanks so much for looking. Be prepared for an abundance of posts now that I have time to actually create and blog!!

Sketches with Color

Oh my goodness! Is it September already? At the beginning of summer break, I thought it would take forever to get through that three months...but it came and went and it's practically fall now. Well it certainly doesn't feel like fall...it's still in the triple digits out here in Dallas. But it's September, school is back in session, and before we know it all the fall holidays and festivities will start up. With this new season and some "doors" opening there are unfortunately some "doors" that are closing. Specifically for the Sketches with Color blog. This has been a year of  many ups & downs for the blog. Brenshevia handed over the reigns to me as administrator. We lost a few Design Team members, we acquired some amazingly talented new Designers, we lost a few more. And then there were changes to the challenges. Unfortunately, between all of these changes as well as commitments & medical issues I have in my own personal life, continuing to keep the blog up & running has just become no longer an option for me. I decided that we would have one final sketch and color challenge however. So please head over to the blog and check out our final sketch and a color palette that has hints of autumn.

For my project I decided to create a card for my parents who are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this coming week. Hopefully my mom doesn't peek in on my blog before I manage to get it into the mail to them lol.