Creative Scrappers

Well, here is my final layout for the month of November. As usual I wish I could have found the time to create more, but summer and the holiday season are always the most difficult times of the year for me to squeeze in crafty time, since the kids are home more and there are extra activities on the schedule. I'm just thankful for the time I do have, as scrapbooking is what keeps me sane.

Without further ado, here is page I did using sketch #282 from Creative Scrappers.

For this page I used a few photos of Paolina getting her first bath. It's funny how quickly I have forgotten how tiny infants are. I'm so used to our kids taking showers that it's hard to imagine them bathing in the kitchen sink!

Product List:

My Mind's Eye patterned paper and diecuts

Crate Paper patterned paper and diecuts

American Crafts Thickers

The Crafters Workshop template

Sunset

Happy Saturday! I'm sure some of you have heard of the Elf on the Shelf tradition, and this is the first year that we are doing it with our kids. We read the book to them at Thanksgiving and told them that putting up your Christmas decorations will entice an elf to make its first appearance if our family has been chosen to receive one. So of course they were not patient enough to wait until today to put up our tree, which is the day we usually decorate for Christmas. Sure enough, our elf did "magically appear" at our house in the middle of the night. The kids were thrilled to discover him this morning, but they are still not in agreement on what he will be named.

Well, on to scrappy stuff. As usual I have procrastinated in photographing and sharing the layouts I created this month. I hate that I always flood my blog with a bunch of posts the last week of the month, while the first few weeks the posts are so scarce. Maybe that will have to be my New Year's resolution (again) to improve on that! Anyhow, here is a page that I made using a sketch from ScrapMuch? as well as a prompt from My Scrap & More Challenge forum to scrap a photo of "amazing scenery."

I took this photo from the backyard of out house in California, and I had it developed several months ago when I was having one of my big bouts of homesickness. I guess I just needed some inspiration to get it put on a layout!

Product List:

Carta Bella Hello Again patterned paper

Basic Grey Kioshi patterned paper

Crate Paper Styleboard ephemera

Basic Grey What's Up alpha stickers

American Crafts Thickers

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

The Crafters Workshop template

Stuck?! Sketches

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We had my parents over to our house, and I made dinner. Don't you love how after two days worth of food preparation, about 30 minutes is spent sitting at the table eating lol? And I wish I could say I was relaxing today, but we still had dishes to wash when we woke up this morning and then I cleaned the floors in preparation for putting up the Christmas tree this afternoon. Whoo! So while I take a short break before starting on dinner (re-heating leftovers), I thought I would share a layout I made earlier this month using the November 15th sketch from Stuck?! Sketches.

I'm going to admit to doing something I try not to do...I re-scrapped this photo. The few times I've done that before is because I really, really hated the page I had done. I know that's a horrible excuse, but sometimes the perfectionist in me wins. Anyhow, for this situation I feel like I actually had a legitimate excuse. I had used some crackle accents on a large embellishment that I had also distressed with Tim Holtz's Distress Ink...fast forward a few years later and it had turned the entire embellishment a yellowish color. Booooo! The worst part is that it was the first page of the album it was in, so it pretty much impossible to avoid being blinded by the ugliness. At first I tried pulling the embellishment off the page, but it tore several layers of paper as well as the photo...so I gave up and just re-scrapped it.

Product List:

American Crafts, Basic Grey and Sassafras Lass patterned paper

Echo Park, Glitz and My Mind's Eye diecuts

My Mind's Eye brads

American Crafts Thickers

Let's Get Sketchy November Week 4

Happy Monday! For my fellow Americans it's almost Thanksgiving, which means that many of you may be traveling this week. For those of you who are home and have the time to get some scrapbooking in, Let's Get Sketchy has a new sketch for you to play with...

And here's my take on it...

I adapted the sketch for just one photo which I took of Santiago on his 2nd birthday. At the time he seemed so "big" to me but now that I compare how he looks in this photo to Paolina who is almost 4-1/2, he looks so little.

As always, the Design Team did a fabulous job of making the sketch their own. I hope you find inspiration in all of our creations by heading over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog and checking them out.

Product List:

My Mind's Eye and Scribble Scrabble patterned paper

Bazzill cardstock

Scenic Route diecut arrow

American Crafts Thickers

Liquitex gesso

My Scraps & More #94

Is it just me or is November flying by? I feel like Halloween was just last weekend,,,but in fact Thanksgiving is this coming Thursday. I hope time slows down a bit so I have time to get started on finish everything on my Christmas prep list.

How are you doing with your to-do list for all the upcoming holidays? I hope you're finding time to get some scrappy fun in. Just in case you are, My Scraps & More Sketches has a fabulous new sketch for you to work with...

And here's what I did with it...

Speaking of Halloween, I used a photo from last year when the kids went trick-or-treating with Santiago's best friend. I'm the worst when it comes to using themed product...so I have a huge stash of Halloween paper and embellishments that I've hardly used. It felt sooo good to finally create a page with them.

I hope you will head over to the My Scraps & More Sketches blog to see what the rest of Team A did with this fun sketch. And don't forget to link up your take on it for a chance at winning the monthly prize.

Product List:

My Mind's Eye Happy Haunting patterned paper & diecuts

Basic Grey Sultry and Kioshi patterned paper

KI Memories Haunted patterned paper

Sassafrass Lass patterned paper

Scenic Route and Prima alpha stickers

My Mind's Eye enamel dots

Miscellaneous diecuts and dimensional stickers

The Crafters Workshop template

S.W.A.T. Drill #43

I've been seeing so many fall layouts lately, but honestly with our weather being so hot all through October I have not been in the mood to stare at photos of us donned in sweaters or to embellish a page with fall-colored leaves. But with the wonderful drop in temperature I've been making soup, getting out my jackets & scarves, dusting off my ankle boots and pulling some fall photos to scrap. And now I can finally make use of all the "fall mood boards" I've seen on many challenge sites & blogs. The following page was inspired by Drill #43 over at S.W.A.T. which is the below mood board...

The table setting photo and the color scheme inspired me to scrap Thanksgiving photos from 2010.

So much fun to see Santiago at age two wearing the little crown he made at preschool and Paolina not quite six month old. Good memories!

Product List:

Scenic Route patterned paper

Daisy D's patterned paper

Flair Designs patterned paper

American Crafts Thickers

Jillibean Soup wood sprinkles

K & Company diecuts

Little Yellow Bicycle buttons

The Crafters Workshop template

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

Let's Get Sketchy November Week 2

I realize that most people in the rest of the country have been experiencing fall temperatures for awhile, but here in Texas (as well as back home in Southern California) it has been in the 90s through most of October. This past week it has finally started feeling like fall. Believe me I'm not wanting to rush the cold weather...I hate being too cold. And don't even get me started on how I feel about snow lol. But a nice crisp 65 with some sunshine just screams "Perfect Fall Day" to me. And that is exactly what we had this weekend. After lots of rain last week, we were all ready to just be outside in the sunshine...and not 95 degrees, but a beautiful 70. It definitely kept me from being homesick! I hope the rest of you enjoyed your weekends, and maybe some of you are even sad to see them end like I am. The good news is that even though Monday may be the end of a perfect weekend, it's the day that Let's Get Sketchy reveals a new sketch! And here is this week's...

I flipped it and came up with this...

These photos of Paolina and my mom are from April of 2011, when we were still living in California and had come out to Dallas to visit our parents. My mother-in-law had given that doll to Paolina since we weren't able to pack many toys for the flight, and she still has it and carries it around today.

When creating this page I was also inspired by the November challenge at Scrap It Girl, which is to use paints, water colors or gelatos. I don't use my gelatos nearly enough...so I got them out and used them like water colors with a stencil. 

I hope this provided you with some inspiration...I encourage you to head over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog for much more!

Product List:

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Luky Charm patterned paper

Bo Bunny Modern Miss patterned paper

Die Cuts With A View Rockstar patterned paper

My Mind's Eye Kaleidoscope and Just Dreamy 2 diecuts

American Craft Thickers

KI Memories and My Mind's Eye buttons

The Crafters Workshop stencils

Faber-Castell gelatos

Get Inspired Issue 5

I just wanted to quickly post that Let's Get Sketchy's online magazine Get Inspired has released it's November issue. The editors have been hard at work to re-format this issue, and of course our design team has created a plethora of amazing inspiration. If you didn't have the opportunity to submit to the reader section of this issue, never fear as they are currently accepting submissions for the Christmas/Holiday Edition.

Here are the layouts that I have featured in this edition...