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!