Sketches in Thyme

Happy Saturday! I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas. Today our family is just relaxing after all the festivities. You know that Christmas gifts were a hit when the kids do not complain once of boredom even when you stay at home all day.

Anyhow, I'm seriously finding it difficult to believe that not only is it nearing the end of the month, but the end of the year too! I have two final pages to share with you, both of which were inspired by December sketches from Sketches in Thyme, This first page was based on Sketch #175.

I'm usually all about the mixed media on my background, but I really loved the watercolor feel of the Easter eggs on this patterned paper so I decided to leave it as is. I did do handstitching through all of the squares to add a bit of texture. I really love these photos of Paolina. She's not much for posing, but when I capture her off guard she's very photogenic...always so full of joy!

My next page was based on Sketch #177 at Sketches in Thyme...

I didn't really do much mixed media on this background either...just a few paint splatters. This page also has some handstitching, which I thought made the circles pop a bit more. The best part is all the scraps I used up. When I'm creating a page, I always look through my paper scraps before I do anything else. I don't think there's any sense in cutting into a full sheet of paper when I could make a dent in my scrap stash! All the bright colors of the photo was perfect for creating almost a rainbow of a color scheme.

Well thank you so much for looking. I'm pretty sure that I will not find any time between now and the end of December to create any more pages and get them photographed. So I wish you all a Very Happy New Year!!!

ScrapMuch?

Merry Christmas! I'm guessing that those of you with younger kids may understand this, but our kids were up before 5am wanting to open gifts. We made them climb into bed with us and wait until 6 o'clock. But of course, they were bouncing around in anticipation for that entire hour. So now it's only 9:30am and we've already opened gifts, eaten breakfast, and played with all our gifts. The kids are currently in their rooms playing some more with said gifts so I thought I would sneak away for a few quiet moments. You have to get them where you can right?

Anyhow, I just wanted to share this layout I created using one of the December sketches at ScrapMuch? (which I flipped vertically)

Not that I actually need a reminder of warm weather, it's been in the 70s here the last few days.,(Yay...reminds me of home!) but this page has photos of Santiago this past summer on "Diving Board Day," the much anticipated day of his two weeks of swim lessons.

Thanks for looking. And once again Merry Christmas!!

Stuck?! Sketches

Happy Wednesday everyone! My hubby took the day off and the kids are at a Holiday Camp so we're trying to use this time to finish up some projects around the house. So...unfortunately I'm not getting to scrapbook today, but I did want to pop in and share a page with you that I created using the December 15th sketch at Stuck?! Sketches. I did flip the sketch vertically because the journaling card's arrow would have been pointing away from the photo if I had used the sketch exactly as it is. 

Paolina absolutely adores taking selfies with me. When she was still in preschool, I would pick her up first and then we would go to wait for Santiago's school bus to arrive. On nice days we would get out of the car and sit on a bench, but sometimes we would just stay in the car and take silly photos. This particular day was my birthday, and when we pulled up to the bus stop she started singing "Happy Birthday" to me. I did catch it on video, but you can't really scrapbook that, so I thought I would document the moment with one of our selfies. Love this sweet girl!

Anyhow, it's back to assisting my hubby with my "honey-do list." Thanks so much for looking!

ScrapMuch?

Happy Tuesday! Can you believe it's only three days until Christmas? Do you have all your shopping done? Have you had any time to scrapbook? I haven't been able to do any since the kids have been out of school, but I definitely have hopes that I will squeeze it in. In the meantime I still have several pages that I completed in the last three weeks to share. The below layout was inspired by a sketch from ScrapMuch?

I took these photos when I went with Santiago on his school field trip to see Skippyjon Jones at the Dallas Children's Theater. I used lots of scraps and mixed media on this one. It can be so much fun to get messy on a page, and I always love the result!

Thanks for looking.

Jenessa

Sketch~N~Scrap

Hello everyone! I hope you all have been having a great weekend. I haven't had a chance to do any scrapbooking, but I'm not complaining because it's been sunny and in the 60s so we've been outside taking advantage of the beautiful weather. Considering it's December we need to enjoy it while we can, right?

Anyhow, I wanted to share a layout I created using the Twistback Thursday sketch at Sketch~N~Scrap.

The only good thing about being so far behind in my scrapbooking is getting to reminisce over the old photos. Santiago was two years old in these pictures...it's hard to believe how slim and lean he is five years later!

I haven't made a banner in absolutely forever, but those cute little tickets really inspired me to add one to this layout. I also used up lots of paper from my scrap stash. Most of it is at least five years old! Overall  it was very satisfying to knock out some old photos as well as make a dent in my scraps.

Thanks for looking!

Stuck?! Sketches

Happy Saturday! I've been so pleased with myself for actually getting all the layouts I've been creating this month photographed and posted here. I hope I can keep it up while the kids are home for Winter Break...

So we had an extremely cold & dreary week the beginning of December, and I immediately felt myself sliding into a "winter depression." In order to combat it, I pulled out some Easter photographs and bright floral papers. It actually made me feel better working with such cheerful Spring photos and product! And I got working on my page in a flash because I had an awesome sketch from Stuck?! Sketches to get my creative juices flowing.

I've mentioned before that I like to work my product around the color of my photos, so let me tell you how excited I was to see the shades of green and peach/coral in these lines work so perfectly with the kids' clothes. I also dug into my stash and found some embellies from Sassafras Lass and cardstock stickers from Flair Designs, both manufacturers that have closed their doors years ago. I love using up ridiculously old stash!

Thanks so much for looking and enjoy your weekend!

Product List:

American Crafts Amy Tangerine Stitched patterned paper

Webster's Pages #Happy patterned paper

American Crafts Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm patterned paper

My Mind's Eye Laundry Line patterned paper

Scenic Route patterned paper

Crate Paper cardstock stickers

Flair Designs cardstock stickers

Sassafras Lass stitched flowers

Heidi Swapp color shine
Dylusions ink spray

American Crafts Thickers

Lily Bee Design alpha stickers

Recollections paper punch

Sketch~N~Scrap

Happy Friday!! I've got to head out to my kids' school holiday parties, so this will be another super quick post. I just wanted to share a page I created using Sketch #94 from Sketch~N~Scrap.

I won't lie. I've been enjoying both of the kids being at school full time. Immensely. But I do miss "Mami-Paolina" days. Especially the little tradition we had of dropping Santiago off at the bus stop and then going to Einstein Bros for bagels before doing our grocery shopping.

Thanks for looking and have a fantastic weekend!

Product List:

Heidi Swapp Hello Today patterned paper

Heidi Swapp color shine

Crate Paper Flea Market fabric bow

American Crafts Thickers

Scrappy Friends

Happy Thursday everyone! My kids' school has early release today, so I'm just popping in super quick to share a page I created using the sketch from the Scrappy Friends' December challenge.

I adore these photos of Paolina swinging out in the backyard of our old house. I just love how you can see the pure joy on her face!

Thanks so much for looking!

Product List:

Heidi Swapp Hello Today patterned paper

SEI patterned paper

Basic Grey patterned paper

My Mind's Eye chipboard

Crate Paper Styleboard ephemera

Kaisercraft pearls

Heidi Swapp color shine

Martha Stewart paper punch

Recollections paper punch

ScrapMuch?

Happy Monday! I hope everyone's week is off to a fabulous start. Today I'd like to share a page that was inspired by one of the December sketches at ScrapMuch?

And here is my take on it...

I know this page looks a bit bare without any journaling or even a title, but it's adjacent to a page with more pictures from this series, so it seemed redundant to add yet another title and more journaling. Trust me it makes sense when you're looking at both pages in the album! I suppose this is the problem I create when I scrapbook events all out of order lol. Anyhow these pictures are of two of my cousins (plus significant others) when we had a family reunion in St. Louis back in 2009 and went up in The Arch.

I thought the hot air balloon paper from the Echo Park Everyday Eclectic line was perfect for the photos. I couldn't resist fussy-cutting some clouds to use as embellishments either!

Thanks so much for looking!

Let's Get Sketchy

Happy Sunday everyone! As some of of you may have noticed, not only did I have a brief hiatus from scrapbooking during our moving process, but I also have not posted as a design team member of Let's Get Sketchy since July. I had the great pleasure of serving as both a design team member and also a sketch designer with Let's Get Sketchy since the time of its conception back in March 2012, but I felt that at this point in time I needed to step away from design team duties and responsibilities and to focus on just my scrapbooking. So now that I've gotten back into it at full force, it was super fun to get to play along with their newest sketch. And, oh, if you haven't visited the Let's Get Sketchy blog for a few months then you might be surprised to discover that for the first and fourth weeks of the month there is now a mood board along with the sketch. Double inspiration, friends!

And here's my take on the sketch and mood board...

When Santiago was a baby, he adored sitting on my lap and having me read books, but as he grew increasingly mobile his patience for book-reading diminished. He became the stereotypical boy-on-the go, only stopping when he was sleeping. I realized then that he was probably not going to be much of a book-reader once he learned to read, which was a bit disappointing to me as I could get lost in a good book all day long easily! Sure enough, getting him to do any of his language art homework has been a struggle since day one of Kinder. We have finally turned a bit of a corner when he discovered graphic novels as well as nonfiction books about subject matter he's interested in. So on rare occasions I'll find him curled up on the couch reading a Minecraft manual or Star Wars graphic novel, and of course I feel the need to document these monumental moments lol!

Thanks for looking!

ScrapMuch?

Happy Friday everyone! I'd like to kick off this weekend by sharing a page I created using a sketch from ScrapMuch? I seriously struggle getting my two-pagers done, and I don't know what I would do without Laura's (and PageMaps) awesome sketches!

For this layout I used photos of the kids releasing their balloons to Los Tres Reyes back in January of 2014, Until recently this was the only time we visited this particular park. But, ironically, when we moved into our new house this summer I realized that it is now almost within walking distance of us so now we go there often after school.

Thanks so much for looking and have a fabulous weekend!

Product List:

My Mind's Eye Penny Lane patterned paper

Fancy Pants Floral Chic patterned paper

Bu Bunny Candy Lane patterned paper

Recollections patterned paper and doilies

The Paper Studio washi tapes

Heid Swapp color shine

Tattered Angels glimmer mist

American Crafts Thickers