Another Sketch-a-thon Challenge!

Time to share my final sketch challenge for the Memorable Seasons Sketch-a-thon! Like Susan, I also still appreciate the extensive sketch archives available from Scrapbooks Etc despite the fact that the magazine is no longer published. You have most likely seen a theme this month from me...that almost all my projects are two-pagers. And that's because during the holidays, I take so many photos that I need to place them primarily on two-page spreads or I'd be scrapping Christmas forever! No joke! So with that, I present you with another two page sketch (which, again, I feel could be turned into a single page sketch easily)...

And here is my example using my Basic Grey 25th and Pine Design Team kit. I actually had more photos than the sketch allowed for, so I split some of the photo blocks into smaller photos and also replaced the title block with a photo and moved the title over above the journaling...

The rules:

* Create a new layout for this challenge.

* Load your creation in the gallery and link back to this forum thread by DECEMBER 30th (not the 31st please)!

My December Daily: Week 2

December is officially halfway over...WHAT?!?! You have got to be kidding me. But with that, it means I have another week in my December Daily to share with you. And I am happy to report I am keeping up! But I need to work on page prep for the upcoming weeks and want to have everything ready to go so I can continue updating my book while we are in Milwaukee. My plan is to have everything assembled and then take all my daily photos on my phone and use my Walgreens app to get prints made there directly from my phone. The only supplies I plan to take are my exacto knife, 6" ruler, adhesive tape, some enamel dots, washi tape and stickers...just enough to place my photos in the book and embellish them a bit.

But anyways, before I move ahead to the future days, I want to share this past week with you!

Day 8 - a trip to see Zoo Lights. It was COLD!

Day 9 - mailing Christmas cards.

Day 10 - Liam working on a snowman craft at Stroller Strides.

Day 11 - reading The Polar Express.

Day 12 - the Stroller Strides Christmas party.

Day 13 - the front of our house lit up at night. 

(Sorry about the glare. I tried taking this photo out of the page pocket and it still didn't help since I used a transparency overlay.)

Day 14 - baking Christmas cookies.

Day 15 - a visit to see Santa Claus.

And that's week two of my December Daily! I'll be sharing weeks three and four when I return from Wisconsin!

Another Sketch-a-thon Challenge!

The sketch-a-thon is in full swing over at Memorable Seasons, so be sure to come check it out! I love Creative Scrappers, so of course I had to pick a sketch from them to use! I went waaaaay back in their archives and found this gem. There is so much versatility with this one. All those squares could be photos (like my example), patterned paper, embellies, you name it!

And here is my example using my Basic Grey 25th and Pine kit! I pulled a sheet of Basic Grey Solids white distressed paper from my stash to use as my base. The only part of it you can see is along the edge. Then I chose to move my title up by the journaling so I could "hang" the fussy-cut ornament from the top of the page while still using it as part of my title. I also didn't want my title to rest on top of the busy ornament-patterned paper. I dressed up the ornament paper with some of the wood veneers and also added red Smooch Glitz to all the red ornaments for some sparkle. 

I also wanted to point out that I hid some additional ornament closeup photos behind three of the ones featured on my page. That's why they have a blue mat around them and a gold photo turn. 

The rules:
* Create a new layout for this challenge.
* Load your creation in the gallery and link back to this thread by DECEMBER 30th (not the 31st please)!

My December Daily: Week 1

I cannot believe we are already a week through December! Talk about crazy! But, with that, I get to share my first week of December Daily pages. This is my first year doing this project and I have to say I LOVE it! Although, I really didn't need another project between traditional scrapping and Project Life, I am so glad I decided to pick this project up this year. I decided to try the Simple Stories Snap System for the first time using their red faux leather 6x8 album and coordinating variety pack of pocket pages. I am also primarily using their December Documented collection in my book. 

So, with that, here are my December Daily cover, title page and days one through eight - what I will call "Week 1."

My cover. I kept it simple to make it easy to store...just three super old "December" sentiments from my stash.

And I just simply put the year on the spine with number stickers.

And my title page. I think this particular piece of paper from the December Documented collection was meant to be used as a December Daily title page.

Day 1 - pulling out the Christmas decorations.

Day 2 - making our wish lists on Amazon using their awesome "gift list" feature. 

Day 3 - working on my December Daily!

Day 4 - our dog Scout was very tolerant letting me snap this photo.

Day 5 - fun times at the annual Holiday Ale Fest!

Day 6 - Whoa! Snow in Portland is a BIG deal!

Day 7 - Showcasing a screen capture of my Christmas "To Do" list as well as a belated St. Nick's gift.

Day 8 - A cold but fun night at Zoo Lights at the Oregon Zoo.

And that is my December Daily so far! I've got several more pages already "made up" and photo ideas planned. I am really trying to stay ahead on this project so it stays fun and doesn't become a chore. Christmas sadly already comes with too many chores, right? Stay tuned next Monday for Week 2!

Sketch-a-thon at Memorable Seasons!

We've got the month-long Sketch-a-thon happening over at Memorable Seasons right now and I hope you'll come join us! Today, I am giving you a two-page sketch from PageMaps. Now, I know some of you are "anti-double-pagers" but what I really love about this sketch is you could choose to do a single page easily using either side of this sketch. 

And here's my example using my Basic Grey 25th and Pine DT Kit. I used it for a Project 12 catchup page. After this one, I only have December 2011 and February 2012 to do and I am done with Project 12!! 

The rules:

* Create a new layout for this challenge. 

* Load your creation in the gallery and link back to this forum thread by DECEMBER 30th (not the 31st please)!

Project Life: 2013 Album 1 Closing Page & Album 2 Opening Page

And since I've finally made it to the halfway point of the year, it's time to switch over to the second album. This means I need a closing page for album one and an opening page for album two! 

So here's my closing page for album one. I absolutely love the sentiment cards and quotes and the bright colors with the black and white photos!

And here is the intro page to my second album. I tried to keep it fairly consistent with my 2013 title page, which you can view here. I went with a black and white photo, a large quote card in the same rectangle and an S monogram on an alphabet background. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Basic Grey 25th & Pine at Memorable Seasons!

Basic Grey does it again! They have created yet another collection that I consider timeless. 25th and Pine is the perfect Christmas collection for scrapping any holiday photos; it would work well with heritage photos as well as the photos you take over the holidays this year. It has an "old school" feel mixed with modern elements like chevron patterns and wood veneers. Love it all! And you can get some of this fabulous, festive collection right here in the Memorable Seasons store!

Here is the awesome kit I received...

And the backsides...

And my "must-have" extras...

And here is what I have created so far. In honor of our Sketch-a-thon this month, I used sketches from Inspired To Scrap for all three of the below projects. If you've never seen Stacey's sketches, I encourage you to check them out! I think you can tell from the two layouts that I really liked the chevron pattern on a couple of the backsides and I prefer to have ornament embellies "hanging" rather than "floating!" 

I'll be back with a reveal each Wednesday this month along with a Sketch-A-Thon challenge for you! Be to check out the Memorable Seasons forum because the Sketch-a-Thon is going on all month long!

Project Life: Week 26

We've reached Week 26 in my Project Life adventure which means we are halfway through the year. This spread was a ton of fun to compile because this was such a great week for us. We took Liam on his first camping trip over the weekend so I decided to include a Design J insert just for camping photos. I totally love the way it turned out! 

This photo shows the full spread with the camping trip insert...

And here is the full spread without the insert...

And here is a closer look at the left side. The QR code on the photo about the DOMA Supreme Court decision leads to a news article about it. I also love including important emails on my PL spreads!

And here's the right side. I had the photo of Andrew using the smoker for the first time but also had the photo of the chicken inside the smoker. I wanted to include both but on the same block so I thought it would be fun to show what was inside the smoker by using a circle pop-out photo, some twine and a mini-brad.

And then there's the front of the camping insert. I LOVE this page. The photo of Andrew and Liam hiking at Timberline is a favorite. I love the map that I printed from Google of the area we camped in. I used the "Here We Are" stamp to pinpoint exactly where the campground was. And how about that chipboard "Lake/Camp" sign? It worked perfectly on the photo of Ashley and Justin hiking!

And here is the back of the camping insert. So it's not the most attractive photo of me, but I love the selfie I took of me reading to Liam in the tent before bedtime. 

Project Life: Week 25

More Project Life catchup. Here is a look back on Week 25. I think this is one of my favorite spreads to date. I really like the Design C page protectors with the six 6x4 slots. I love the clean look but don't use it often because it limits the number of photos I can use on a spread. But this week, I had fewer photos and some special ones I really wanted to showcase, so the Design C protector worked well for my righthand page.

And here is a closer look at the left side. I kept this side pretty simple since it was very photo heavy. I really love the photo of Liam sitting in the toy box. It is a completely subpar photo, with him half out of the shot, blurry...but it's real. And that's what's important. The photo in the lower left with the "enjoy" definition is of a bowl of lemon-lime sorbet...the first thing Andrew made in our ice cream maker.

Time for the right side! I totally love the photo in the upper right of Liam in front of the mural at the park. When I took that photo, I knew it would be a keeper. The photo of Andrew mountain biking is another favorite. Could they have had better weather that day?

Project Life: Week 24

Still playing catchup on Project Life. I actually got the next few spreads done about a month ago, but just haven't been around to be able to update the blog. So here we go! 

Week 24. I am REALLY happy with this spread. I just love the variety of photos and details on this one. 

And here's a closer look at the left side. The plate of food is actually not my photo. We totally forgot to snap a photo when out on our date night so I went out to the restaurant's FaceBook page to see if they had a photo I could use. Luckily, they had posted a photo of that week's special which was exactly what Andrew ordered - perfect!

And now it's time to look at the right side. I am sticking with consistency and including subway art for each specific holiday on that particular weekly spread. The butterflies on my title card are actually punched from a Stella & Dot jewelry box. I love those metal letters I used for PTFC - and they are a super old. Feels great to use them. I'm a little aggravated I didn't think through the sentiments a little more and used "love this" on not only two photos on this spread (something I try hard not to do) but on two adjacent photos. Oh well. Move on.

Project Life: Week 23

Time to share Week 23! This is one of my favorites so far and I am not sure why...maybe it's the photos...or the little details...but nonetheless, I'm really happy with it.

Let's look at the left side. I love the corrugated cardboard cloud and sun on the center top card! And how about turning a super old Wild Asparagus title card into a filler card by just trimming it down a bit, rounding the corners and adding some wood veneer stars?

And now let's look at the right side. Love that"Best Part of my Week" overlay from A Vegas Girl At Heart. My hubby neglected to grab photos while at the indoor mountain bike park so I just grabbed one from their web site. I love the Tim Holtz gears on this particular rectangle too!

Project Life: Week 22

More Project Life catchup! Here is my week 22 spread...lots of bright greens of this one! Love it!

And the left side. The photo of Andrew and Liam in the upper right is an all-time favorite. That's why the only treatment I did to it was a simple frame overlay from A Vegas Girl At Heart. The card in the lower right holds fortunes from Chinese take-out night!

And the right side. The QR code with all the photos of Scout take you to the article on our vet's blog where they discuss taking photos of puppies and mention Scout.