Get Inspired Christmas Edition

So now that it's been almost a week since Christmas, have you printed out any of your photos from that day to scrapbook? I'm always intimidated by large events like Christmas Day, Birthday parties etc when it comes to scrapbooking. I think I feel overwhelmed by the number of photographs I've taken. And in the case of Christmas, I find it difficult to work with the product out there, as it is usually in the traditional red & green which is one of my least favorite color combos. If you are looking for some awesome inspiration for scrapbooking your holiday photos, please check out Get Inspired's Christmas edition. No worries if you don't celebrate Christmas, as this edition also features pages with Winter and Chanukah themes. And I even submitted a page about El Dia de Los Tres Reyes (aka Epiphany).

Here are the pages I have featured in the magazine...

I hope this has enticed you to see all the other beautiful creations from both the Let's Get Sketchy design team as well as the reader's submissions. You can find the Get Inspired Christmas edition here.

Creative Scrappers

Almost time to say good-bye to 2014! Where did the year go? I thought I wasn't going to be able to share any more layouts this year, but I managed to get the following page finished & photographed in the eleventh hour. Not only did I base it on Creative Scrappers Sketch #283, but I was also totally inspired by DT member Missy Whidden's interpretation of it. It's more of a lift of her layout than anything else. Once again I must apologize for the crummy photo...where is the sun?

I love this photo of Paolina in her crazy "dress-up" She was about 21 months old at the time, and she decided to walk around the house with her Elmo slippers (over footed PJs) as well as her winter hat & mittens. The pacifier is the finishing touch!

Product List:

Basic Grey Soleil patterned paper & cardstock stickers

Basic Grey Sugar Rush patterned paper

My Mind's Eye Breaking Free and Just Dreamy 2 patterned paper

Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm patterned paper

Bazzill cardstock

My Mind's Eye diecuts

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

Sketch~N~Scrap

Happy Monday, everyone! Can you believe there are less than three days left of 2014? This year has certainly flown by...as has December. While I wish I had had more time to scrap, I have certainly enjoyed the moments I've spent with family and friends. And of course all the photographs I've taken this month will provide tons of scrapbooking inspiration in the future. As the year wraps to a close I just wanted to share one final layout I created this month. For this page I was inspired by the December 1st sketch at Sketch~N~Scrap.

When Paolina was in preschool this past year, her 3-year old class had a special project. Each weekend a child took home a stuffed Tweety Bird and the parents photographed & journaled about the adventures their child had with him. Paolina was given Tweety Bird the weekend that the kids stayed overnight at my parents house while Noé and I had an overnight Valentine date. These are the photos taken of Paolina while she was staying with her Nonni & Opa.

Product List:

Basic Grey Capture patterned paper

Bo Bunny Modern Miss patterned paper

Studio Calico The Pier patterned paper

My Mind's Eye patterned paper

Basic Grey diecuts

Crate Paper diecuts

American Crafts Thickers

Fancy Pants alpha stickers

The Crafters Workshop template

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

Stuck?! Sketches

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We went to the Christmas Eve service at church and then had dinner at an amazing Mediterranean restaurant with my in-laws. And on Christmas Day my parents came over in the afternoon. The kids love all of their gifts! But we have a rule...in with the new and out with the old. So today we spent some time going through old "baby" toys and deciding which I would take to a children's re-sale shop and which should just go straight to Goodwill. Then we hit the mall...I find that the sales after Christmas are way better than Black Friday.

December has been fairly mild in temperature here in Dallas, but unfortunately it has been either raining or just gray & hazy most of the month. Which of course is a disaster for photographing my layouts and cards. Fortunately this past Monday was absolutely gorgeous...sunny and in the 60s. So before taking the kids to the playground, I took pictures of a few pages...and just in time because our weather has been turning much more "winter-like."

I actually did the below page the first week of December and attempted to photograph it on one of the aforementioned gloomy days, but it looked horrible! So here is "take two" which was inspired by the December 1st sketch at Stuck?! Sketches...

This past January one of Noé's co-worker gifted this Gator to our kids after her son received a three-wheeler for Christmas. I thought it was just going to be a novelty...a toy that they would tire of after a few weeks or at most a month, But Paolina and Santiago love it, even almost a year later. These are a few photos of Paolina driving it while her brother was at school. Can you tell she's a Californian wearing flip flops in winter?

Product List:

Elle's Studio Saltwater patterned paper

Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm patterned paper

Crate Paper Portrait patterned paper

Doodlebug doily

Daisy D's cardstock elements

Basic Grey alpha stickers

My Mind's Eye enamel dots

The Crafters Workshop template

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

Let's Get Sketchy December Week 4

Is it seriously the Monday before Christmas? Where has the month gone? I'm usually so good about getting all of my Christmas shopping done by the end of November, but this year Santiago wouldn't give us a definite answer as to what he wanted until last week, so I found myself finishing buying gifts this past Friday. Between shopping, gift-wrapping, making cards and going to Christmas parties, I've barely had any time to scrapbook this month. And now Santiago is home on winter break, so unless he plays at the neighbor's house I guess I will be saying "see you later" to my scrap area until January.

Hopefully you will find the time amidst this busy holiday season to get some scrapbooking in yourself. Especially since Let's Get Sketchy has not only a new sketch up today, but there will also be a bonus challenge for the fifth Monday. But for now, check out this week's sketch...

And my take on it...

I couldn't resist getting a bit "messy" myself to create this page about Santiago decorating cookies with edible markers at Easter in 2011. I created a watercolor effect with gelatos, water and plastic bags, and I also splattered glimmer mists, inked with a mask and did some doodling. I had a lot of fun with this page!

I hope you can have some fun with this sketch too...and make sure you head over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog for even more inspiration.

My Scraps & More #96

Over the last two weeks we have had three Christmas parties to go to, but this weekend we have no plans. As much fun as we had going to the those parties I'm glad to have some downtime after all the shopping and wrapping I've been doing. I've barely had time for scrapbooking! Santiago's school party is today and Paolina's is Monday, and then of course Santiago will be on Winter Break until January 5th. So I'll be lucky if I get any crafty time in over the next few weeks! Hopefully your schedule allows you to get some scrapbooking done because My Scraps and More Sketches has a brand new sketch up today...

And here's my take on it...

You can totally tell that I am the scrapbooker in the family and not my husband. This past February, Noé went with Santiago's class on their field trip to the Perot Museum of Nature & Science. I asked him to please take photos. And this is what he came home with...a few pictures of Santiago on the bus. Sigh. Well at least it's something, right?

I hope you have the time to check out what the rest of Team A did with the sketch!

Product List:

Bo Bunny Modern Miss patterned paper

Crate Paper Love Notes patterned paper

Basic Grey Oh, Baby! and Lime Rickey patterned paper

Liquitex gesso and modeling paste

American Crafts Thickers

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist

Let's Get Sketchy December Week 2

Happy Monday! I apologize for the late post...our household has been down with a stomach virus. It hit us before I even had the chance to write up and schedule something for this morning. But thankfully we're all recovering, and life's pretty much back to normal. And what better way to celebrate that than a brand new sketch up at Let's Get Sketchy!

I flipped it and came up with this...

Santiago has always been such a ham for the camera, which works well for a scrapbooker. I have a collection of sometimes silly and always adorable photos of him.

Now it's your turn to get out some photos and get scrapping. Please head over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog for more inspiration

Product List:

Fancy Pants Nautical patterned paper

Bo Bunny Smarty Pants patterned paper

Crate Paper DIY Shoppe patterned paper

My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup and Laundry Line patterned paper

American Crafts Thickers

Sketchabilities

I am super proud of myself. Not only have I already done TWO layouts in the first three days of the month, I also...wait for it...photographed them! Yes, it's truly an anomaly. But I'm hoping it becomes a habit. Unfortunately it's horribly overcast here, making it impossible to get a good photo. So I'm only sharing one layout today which I was able to edit it in Picasa just enough that I don't hate it. But my second layout totally  needs to be photographed again later, once the lighting situation improves.

I used sketch #128 from Sketchabilites for my inspiration...

Santiago went through a pretty extensive phase (about age 1 to 2-1/2) of constantly making ridiculous faces. He never looked in the mirror when he was doing it, so I can only assume he just enjoyed the reaction from people when he did it. He's still a master silly-face-maker, but these days it's usually on request.

Product List:

My Mind's Eye Meadowlark patterned paper

Authentique Celebrate patterned paper

DCWV Rockstar patterned paper

Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm patterned paper

Pink Paislee Hey Kid ephemera

Crate Paper Styleboard ephemera

Crate Paper Portrait cardstock stickers

My Mind's Eye Jubilee enamel dots

Glitz Design Raven washi tape

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

The Crafters Workshop template

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...

ScrapStuffz

I came across a sad announcement on Monday...after two years, ScrapSuffz "Inspired By" Challenges will be closing its doors. As a previous owner of a challenge blog, I totally understand the difficulties that can be associated with running one, but I will still will be sorry to see this one go.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to play along with them this month, and there were actually two challenges available. I was totally inspired by the below photo as well it's verbal prompt "Let it go."

And this is what I came up with...

As many girls are, Paolina is obsessed with the movie Frozen. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to download the soundtrack from iTunes for only $5, so as I'm sure you can imagine we now hear a lot of Frozen music around our house, in the car, and pretty much anywhere she has access to it from my phone. Of course the boys get pretty tired of hearing "Let It Go" over and over, so I let her use my ear buds when everyone starts moaning and groaning about the Frozen soundtrack being played. Again.

And in case you wondered, yes, she is dressing up as Elsa for Halloween today. Hopefully there will be some adorable photos and a fun layout to follow. Happy Halloween!!

Product List:

Authentique Abroad patterned paper

Echo Park Everyday Eclectic patterned paper

Simple Stories Summer Paradise patterned paper

KI Memories Love Elsie patterned paper

Dream Street Papers patterned paper

Scenic Route journaling card

Chatter Box artsy.licious button

KI Memories felt stickers

Sassafras Lass layered button flower

My Mind's Eye enamel dots

The Crafter's Workshop template

Paper Secrets

Happy Thursday! Everyone at our house (except Noé) is giddy with excitement about Halloween tomorrow. Last year we took the kids to trick-or-treat with some friends who live in a neighborhood near ours, but this year we have been invited to a Halloween party for both adults & kids, and we will take the kids to trick-or-treat there. I'm super excited about doing this as I enjoy wearing a costume myself and it always seems like I'm among the minority of parents who are in costume on Halloween, so it will be nice to be somewhere where other adults are dressed up as well.

But onto scrappy stuff. This layout I did for the Paper Secrets October 1st challenge.

I followed the sketch as well as the requirement to use items, colors,etc with the first letters of the word TRICK. T - (washi) Tape; R - Resin (flower); I - Ink; C - Chevron (mask); K - Kodak (camera diecut).

Thanks for looking!

Product List:

American Crafts Amy Tangerine Yes Please patterned paper

Simple Stories Summer Paradise patterned paper

Bo Bunny Modern Miss patterned paper

Echo Park Everyday Eclectic patterned paper

KI Memories Love Elsie patterned paper

Bo Bunny washi tape

American Crafts Thickers

Jillibean Soup wood sprinkles

The Crafters Workshop template

Sketches4all Halloween/Fall Blog Hop

Welcome to the Sketches4all Halloween/Fall Blog Hop!!

I’m so glad you could join us on the first day of our Halloween/Fall blog hop!  You will have 3 days to hop around and comment on all the awesome projects our Design Team made with gorgeous fall digi’s from The Cutting Cafe!

We hope hopping around will inspire you to then come to Sketches4all and join in on our Halloween/Fall Blog Hop Card Challenge!  You will have from October 27^th – October 31^{st at midnight (PST)}  to complete the challenge and upload your project at Sketches4all to qualify to win the Grand prize. (this contest is open to everyone)

The Hop starts today, October 27th and ends on October 29th at midnight (PST).  Winners will be announced on November 3rd in the Winner's Circle at Sketches4all.  There will be two prizes awarded.

The 1^st place winner will receive one set of Cutting Cafe Images and also this fun fall 12 x 12 chipboard sheet.

And what is the Grand Prize you ask?!  How about all of this yummy goodness?

This prize includes 9 double sided 12 x12 sheets of My Minds Eye - Joyous patterned paper, 11 - MME gift label stickers, 1 - 12 x12 Pink Paislee Alpha Stickers sheet, 1 Pink Paislee chipboard word sticker sheet, 1 foral embellishment from Petaloo, 4 lengths of ribbon (1 yard each), 5 yards of green bakers twine, 5 yards of red bakers twine, 1 set of Pink Paislee holiday stamps, 3 crocheted flowers, 1 pkg of green enamel dots from Teresa Collins, 1 pkg of Ivory Chevrons bling, 1 small sheet of random colored bling, some random buttons and some holiday themed wooden embellishments.

WOW!!!!  I know you have to be excited now! 

So how do you participate??

1.  Hop around to all of the blogs of our design team members.  Follow them and leave a comment.  

Right away that will get your name in the hat to win a prize!!  

2.  Join the Halloween/Fall Blog Hop Challenge at Sketches4all.  

This challenge will be posted in the Forum under Special Events.  (HERE)  This will get your name thrown in the hat to win the Grand prize. You have to do the hop and the challenge to qualify to win the Grand Prize.

Here is the order of the hop so you don't get lost along the way:

Stacy - http://scrapwithstacy.blogspot.com

Cheryl -http://cherylndesignscreate.blogspot.com

Giorgia -  http://joyblonde.blogspot.it/

Pat – http://ascrappinnana.blogspot.com

Jenessa – Guest Designer for October (you are here)

Fia - http://myhappyscrap.blogspot.com

Here is a card I have made to help inspire you...

Now it is time to hop on over to see Fia. 

Have fun hopping along!  I hope to see you participating in the challenge at Sketches4all!!

Let's Get Sketchy October Week 4

Happy Monday! What a fun-filled weekend we had. Our city had a Halloween Festival on Saturday evening and then on Sunday our church had it's annual Harvest Festival. I'm pretty sure Santiago & Paolina got their fix for bounce houses & carnival games. I do wish I could say that the entire weekend was perfect, but unfortunately we also had an incident on Saturday morning that had me absolutely livid. You'll have to read on, as I ended up journaling about it on the below layout for this week's reveal at Let's Get Sketchy. Here's the sketch (by yours truly)...

And this is what I did with it...

Literally 10 minutes after photographing this page, we had several unpleasant occurrences around our house, I was so furious with Santiago that I told Noé that he needed to get him out of the house in order for me to cool off. So as any good husband would do they went to Wal-Mart to pick up my list of cleaning supplies to attempt to fix the damage done, and to give me some time to collect myself. In the mean time, I needed to get the photo of this layout uploaded to the Let's Get Sketchy blog, and as I looked at Santiago's sweet bedtime face on the page, I immediately knew that I needed to journal about that morning's events and to hide them behind the photo. Here is what I wrote:

"As I am doing the journaling for this layout, I am utterly furious with Santiago. Today he drew on our Room & Board sofa, and then I discovered that he had left a crayon in the pocket of his pants that I had washed and dried. For the second time this year. So a total of two loads of laundry destroyed. But even though I have been so angry with him today, I still love him. No matter what he does...what either of my kids do...I will always love them with all of my heart. This doesn't mean they will not suffer consequences for their behavior, but not one single thing that they ever do can change my love for them. This photo reminds me of that. We may have a really bad day that's filled with disobedience, punishments, tantrums and tears. But each time we lay this little man down to sleep, and he wraps his still small arms around my neck with a sweet little kiss and a whisper of 'I love you, Mami', I am reminded of my unconditional, neverending love for my sweet boy."

For those people who just don't understand why so many of us are passionate about scrapbooking, they must not see that not only does it preserve so many of our memories in a beautiful way but it can also serve as a catharsis. I felt so at peace after writing those words and slipping them behind the photo, that I was not angry when the boys came home. Not to say that Santiago was not punished...he helped Noé clean the crayon out of the dryer drum, but journaling that morning's events was such a sweet reminder of the unconditional, neverending love that our Heavenly Father has for us, his utterly imperfect children, and it really helped me to move past the damage done to some mere material things.

Thanks for taking the time to look and read. Now please head over to the Let's Get Sketchy blog for a bunch more inspiration!!

Product List:

Fancy Pants Nautical patterned paper and cardstock stickers

Dream Street Papers patterned paper

Bazzill cardstock

Jillibean Soup Wood Sprinkles

American Crafts Thickers

Pink Paislee Hey Kid Ephemera

Scenic Route diecut arrow

My Mind's Eye enamel dots

The Crafters Workshop templates

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist

My Scraps and More Sketches

Hey everyone! I'm so excited it's Friday. Not only is it the kickoff to the weekend, but there's a new sketch up at My Scraps and More Sketches. While some people find more time to scrap over the weekend, this is actually when I have the least, as our family is usually out-and-about. If you're anything like me, have no worries...you have until October 31st to link up your page for the chance to win a fabulous prize. So without further ado, here is Sketch #92...

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

I had already done a layout with some of the photos I took of Paolina on her 4th birthday, but two of them didn't make it on to that page. They were sitting on my desk, and when I saw this sketch I couldn't resist using them for it. As I mentioned before I rotated the sketch...if you head over to the My Scraps and More Sketches blog you can see all the other amazing interpretations that the rest of our talented design team came up with.

Product List:

Basic Grey Soleil patterned paper

SEI Jocelyn patterned paper

K&Co Jubilee patterned paper

My Mind's Eye Kaleidoscope patterned paper

My Mind's Eye So Sophie diecut

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist

The Crafters Workshop template

Martha Stewart paper punch

Let's Get Sketchy October Week 2

Happy Monday! And Happy Columbus Day! Santiago is off school today, and as usual I have a love-hate relationship with days like these. I hate that I'm all thrown off schedule. I grow accustomed to having certain days to myself and I have perfected a schedule that balances chores, going to the gym and even scrapbooking, in order to actually spend time with the kids when they're not at school. So today I won't be able to go to the gym and most of the chores I normally do on Monday will now need to be squeezed into Wednesday & Friday, and I will not get to scrapbook at all. On the other hand I love having Santiago all to myself for the day. He and his sister are not bickering or being too loud as they play together. I can sit down and play games with him that are too advanced for Paolina (like Chess or Monopoly) or maybe we can share a special treat that has egg as an ingredient. I try to treasure these days in my heart because I know that all too soon both kids will prefer to spend all their free time with their friends and certainly not with me!

Anyhow, it's time for a new sketch at Let's Get Sketchy...

I stayed pretty true to the design and came up with this...

In a prior post, I shared a layout of Santiago riding on a carousel during a visit to Dallas back in 2011. This is the adjoining page featuring Miss Paolina (and her abuelito) on the same carousel.

I hope you will take the time to visit the Let's Get Sketchy blog for much more inspiration from the rest of Team B!

Product List:

My Mind's Eye Oxford Lane patterned paper & chipboard stickers

Echo Park For the Record 2 patterned paper & stickers

Basic Grey Boxer patterned paper

Kaisercraft template

Sketchabilities

Happy Saturday everyone! As usual we are busy busy. So this is going to be a quick post, as I only have about an hour of down-time between our commitments for the day. Speaking of time, I didn't have as much as I would have liked this past week to scrapbook. I worked on two layouts but only got the following one completed. As usual, a sketch came to my rescue, eliminating any extra moments figuring out how the general design of my page will go. I used the current sketch over at Sketchablities

to come up with this...

I created my own background by first using some Gelatos for a watercolor effect, then applying both acrylic paint and Glimmer Mist to a template from The Craftrers Workshop and next splattering a little additional Glimmer Mist. For a final touch I did some doodling with my Sharpie. The scraps of paper are all from the Maggie Holmes Styleboard collection. I couldn't resist using the pink horse patterned paper, as Santiago's school mascot is a Stallion.

Thanks so much for looking and please enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Sketches4All Guest Designer

I'm honored to announce that I was asked to be a Guest Designer over at Sketches4All for the month of October. They have such a warm & friendly community as well as fun challenges each month so I really encourage you to head over and check out their site here.

As a Guest Designer I was given the opportunity to host my own challenge for the month, which is to use the below sketch to create a layout. There's also a bit of a twist...but you will have to go to Sketches4All to get all the details!

And here's my sample page...

We really get our money's worth out of our kids Halloween costumes...they love to use them as dress-up. In fact, Santiago (who is 6) still has the costume he wore when he was 3. It doesn't fit by any stretch of the imagination, but he loves to squeeze himself into it and play lol! I took these photos of Paolina over the summer when she was playing dress-up in last year's Rapunzel costume.

Do you like the sketch? Are you wondering what the twist is? I hope you take the time to head over to Sketches4All and join along!