Stuck?! Sketches

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I'm here today to share some exciting news...a secret I've been keeping for about a week now. I know I haven't been blogging much lately. Life has just been especially busy. It's always a struggle to balance real life with my creative time. Somehow or another, for the last seven years I have managed to serve on various design teams. Sometimes I was unsure of how I would juggle those duties alongside running a (since closed) small business and being a stay-at-home mom to two small children. But scrapbooking is my passion and serving on those teams not only challenged me, but helped me develop friendships with ladies all over the country (and even the world) so I just made it work. At one point I was serving on four teams at once. I quickly came to the conclusion that serving on two teams was the maximum time I could devote to the attached responsibilities. And then this past July I made the decision to resign from my one-and-only design team. It was summer (so the kids were home) and we were packing, remodeling our new house and then moving in to the house. I didn't even have my scrappy supplies available to create, so resigning seemed like the logical path to take. Once I unpacked my supplies, jumped back into creating, and I was not distracted by design team duties, I was on a huge roll. I was cranking out about five layouts a week, which for me is impressive. I was even pretty good about sharing consistently here on my blog...for a few months. I soon realized that while not serving on a design team freed up more of my time to actually scrapbook, it was not holding me accountable to consistently sharing my layouts. It dawned on me recently that I went the entire month of February without a single blog post. I also really miss the camaraderie that is developed between design team members. I feel a bit disconnected from the scrappy world when I'm not constantly communicating with my online scrappy friends. Now hopefully you've managed to make it through this lengthy monologue to hear about my exciting news...I'm so thrilled to announce that I an now a member of the Stuck?! Sketches Creative Team. This is truly an honor for me. Laura Whitaker creates the most amazing sketches, and I use them frequently. Sooooo how awesome is it that I get to be a part of this team and share the pages I've created with those sketches twice a month?!

Here is the layout I submitted for my team application...

Last year we happened to be enjoying a beautiful day at the park on National Siblings Day. I did what any good scrapbooking mother would do and requested a photo of Paolina and Santiago together. Not only did they oblige, but the kids gave me some pretty good pictures.

The sketch is, of course, from Stuck?! Sketches. The product is, as usual, a mish mash of different manufacturers and lines. The background paper is from a pad I picked up from Wal-Mart (?) a year or two ago. I think it might be Colorbok? The paper scraps are Studio Calico, Crate Paper and American Crafts. The heart washi tape I found at the Dollar Tree around Valentine's Day, The title is done with two different types of American Craft Thickers. For the background, I just used a little gesso to tone down the busyness of all the phrases and then splattered a little Heidi Swapp Color Shine. I also handstitched some circles and then added some additional ones using a Sharpie. I'm pleased that all the colors worked so well together, given that they came from so many different product lines.

Thanks for looking! And make sure you check out the Stuck?! Sketches blog to meet the rest of the new Creative Team members.