Friday's Featured Sketchy Blogger

Sticking with the sketchy theme today, Friday's Featured Blogger is an excellent sketch artist and her blog MY LITTLE SKETCHBOOK which features the most awesome sketches. I just discovered Liz's blog so I have not had time yet to play with any of her sketches, but hope to this weekend. I have one all picked out and am excited to get some scrapping time to use it this weekend. Not only does she have some great sketches on her blog but awesome layouts showcasing these sketches as well. She usually posts new sketches each Sunday so mark it as one of your favs and stop by often for new inspiration! If you use one of her sketches please share with the rest of us and post a link to it here in the comments section! Can't wait to see what you create! Check back soon to see my layout inpsired by one of Liz's sketches!

A sketch obsession

Should I call it an addiction? If so it is a healthy addiction at least, but I guess it is really more of an obsession....I am talking about my love of sketches! It seems like everytime I sit down to scrapbook I reach for a sketch to help me along the way. I especially love the 52 sketches 52 weeks sketch site, check it out here. It is so inspiring to at least do ONE layout a week based on one of their sketches, many times I use the same sketch over and over, and startling enough the pages are different each time. This week's sketch over at 52 sketches is #30 (can you believe the year is now over half gone!) I love the way it incorporates so much layering (more than I have done here actually) as well as mulitple photos. These photos are of my nephew, isn't he a great acrobat? He was showing off his moves one June day when we visited him and I snapped these pics of him "just hangin' out!" For this layout I used Fancy Pants Summer Soiree from my July Personalscrapper kit as well as a strip of Cosmo Cricket Snorkel! I also used this layout to fulfill another challenge on the Peronsalscrapper site which was to journal on patterned paper, what a fun look, but one I don't do very much! I know I will use this sketch again and again so keep an eye out, I have another idea for this sketch I hope to work on this weekend! See you back here tomorrow for Friday's Featured Blogger!

Sketch #29

I FINALLY finished sketch #29 from the 52 sketches 52 weeks site this weekend, well over 24 hours before the deadline too! HA! Last week it was 3 minutes before the deadline! It's just a little game I play with myself, no real reason to impose the deadline except the prizes which are usually super fantastic! LOL! Now that's a good reason I would say. This layout shows my dad and son on Father's Day looking at the fire wallet my son gave my dad. We had a good time with it, it is really a funny prank! It makes a great gift for someone who has everything! I used some older Cape Town paper by Scenic Route for this layout, so that I could also use this layout for a challenge over at Personalscrapper to use up things that have been in your stash for over a year! Everything on this layout I have had for well over a year ( even the Scenic Route chipboard letters and embellies!) I love the way it turned it, Scenic Route is still one of my fav companies, just wish they would release more new stuff...I think I have everything they make now! LOL! Sketch #30 is now up over at the 52 sketches site and it is awesome, using FIVE pictures this time! WOW! So hop on over to check it out and play along with me, I'll be back to share once it is completed, hopefully that will be before the end of the week, but hey, around here you never know! Happy Monday everyone!

Friday's Featured Blogger with more sneak peeks!

So I don't really have a layout to share like I thought I would today. I have been working on TWO layouts at once (why? you ask...I have no earthly idea) and this seems to slow me down,as I flit from one to other, never completing anything...it is driving me nuts and I am determined to finish them tomorrow as tonight we have plans to go see G Force with my nephew and then he is sleeping over, so the boys and I plan on a fun evening together. So today's featured blogger is a newer company called Jillibean Soup...beautiful products and now they are offering a sneak of their soon to be releases...WOW! Love them! I love the basics line they will be offering soon and the Christmas line...OMG, it is FUN FUN FUN! So hop on over to their blog, they have sneak peeks, great layout examples AND sometimes even give aways of their awesome products, go CHECK IT OUT PEOPLE!
I can't let the day go by without wishing my friend Angie a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! This a picture of her last week with her son who is not a very cooperative photographic subject! LOL! Happy Birthday Angie! Hope your day is the best!

Sketchy goodness!

After a long absence from the 52 sketches site I got back in on the sketchy goodness this week completing sketch #28. This sketch was really a fast one, very easy to do and fun to! For this layout I used my July Personalscrapper kit featuring Fancy Pants' Summer Soiree line. Can't get enough of this line, it is my FAV Fancy Pants line to date. The pictures are from a beautiful spring day in March of this year when I took the three kids to the park by my sister's house to play. They loved climbing on the rock wall, as you can see even little Katie got in on it too! She was not to be outdone by those big boys! LOL! Well, I'm off to start on sketch #29 maybe I can complete it by the deadline for the prize drawing this week, I'm feeling lucky!

Bella Blvd Sneak Peek

Well, its that time of year once again! Very exciting to see all the new products that the scrapbooking companies will be debuting at CHA next week. I am a fan of so many companies but one of the newer companies that I am very excited about is Bella Blvd. This new fun and innovative company is debuting a few new lines that I am super excited to get my hands one. You can get a sneak peek of my fav new line SUPER STUD over at the Bella blog . And even better, if you advertise their sneak peeks somewhere you can be entered into a drawing for some of their awesome new goodies, can't beat that can you? Ok, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, now hop on over and check it out for yourselves!

The alphabet challenge

I know its pretty pathetic, but I seem to get more done much quicker when I am working on a challenge. Challenge #15 in the Pay it Forward Crop at Personalscrapper was to use at least 3 alphas on your page. I decided to use my new blog candy I just received from one of my most favorite manufacturers Cosmo Cricket, Early Bird. Still can't believe I won that! The whole kit and kaboodle folks, the folks over at Cosmo are SOOOOOO generous, they are alwasy having give aways! I used this photo of my son and my niece taken in the front yard on July 4th. She refused to hold my hand when I told her "Hold hands" cuz she was trying to run off to the park, and she shook her head "NO" vigorously and then said "Cakie" and grabbed Jake's hand (she calls him Cakie) How cute is that? So I quickly snapped this photo, it is so sweet and PERFECT for this Early Bird paper! I also used a Pink Paislee die cut accent, Making Memories puffy and tiny stickers, Adornit tiny stickers AND Jenni Bowlin chalkboard alphabet stickers on this page. The other accents were cut out by hand and the "DONT FORGET" little tab was cut off a journal jotter from My Minds Eye (you can barely see it in the upper left hand of the pic). The other journaling jotter is from the Noteworthy journal book by Making Memories. I also used one of the Page Maps sketches by Becky Fleck for this layout as well. I really LOVE all of the sketches this month and hope to use them all at some time before next month's come out! Before I close, I would like to give a shout out to my personalshopper Janelle! Yes, I have a personal shopper (didn't you know I was famous and too important to be bothered shopping for myself?)...no really, since we don't have an Archiver's here my good long time pal Janelle takes my order and gets my goodies when she stops by Archivers and ships it to me from Kansas City! Now that's a good friend huh? And NO you cannot have her number! HA! Hoping to take a few minutes to create something with my new goodies that arrived today so check back soon!

More Waterpark fun!

No scrapbooking going on this weekend it looks like, this heat has slowed me way down, so we headed to the waterpark yesterday to beat the extreme heat. We had a great time hanging with our friends Angie and Logan. I think my fav was the lazy river, I just didn't want to get out! Jake has decided he no longer enjoys having his picture taken, so getting a good picture requires a lot of work. I thought I would be smart and hide out on the bridge above the lazy river and take pics as the boys floated by, but the were soon on to me and this top picture is how Jakob avoided getting his picture taken! Maybe he is destined to have paparazzi follow him when he is older and he's just getting some practice in early! Hope you are staying cool and enjoying your summer too! I did get to pick up some new scrappy supplies on my way to the waterpark, and can't wait to work with Bo Bunny's Mango Luau line, Scenic Route's Garden Grove and Pink Paislee's Fetching line. Hope to be able to show some fun creations with these 3 lines soon, PLUS I picked up MORE Fancy Pants Summer Soiree to add to the papers I already had from my July's Personalscrapper kit. My next purchase (I hope) is going to be October Afternoon's Road Map line, you gotta check it out here it is super cute! All the manufacturers are releasing new lines soon, which is exciting but also hard on the old pocketbook! And don't forget the exciting new Grand Opening in two weeks of Scrapbooks on the Go's all day crop/workshop event! Ok, gotta jet, I still have an hour to create something before Mom's taxi cab is back in service! Later!

Fun new Crop Event coming to Fort Worth

I've know I've been a bad blogger lately, but I haven't created anything fun to share lately. I hope to remedy that this weekend if God's willin' and the creek don't rise, as the saying goes! However, I wanted to pop in and take time to tell all you fellow North Texas Scrappers about an exciting crop/workshop event that is coming to Fort Worth in two weeks! It is an all day workshop/crop event hosted by Scrapbooks on the Go run by my favorite sister (HA! my one and only sister) so go check it out and register, I wanna crop with you! You can register here....but you better hurry spots are filling up fast!

My Goodies!

It seems like every month I say that I this is my favorite Personalscrapper kit ever! It just keeps getting better and better! I guess that is why I have been a member for over 2 years now! I was so excited to get my July kit today that I couldn't wait to rip into it and I did just that! The papers are from the Summer Soiree line by Fancy Pants. I used some of my newest photos from our June vacation to Cocoa Beach, FL. I was lucky to run into a fellow scrapbooker on the beach who offered to take a picture of me and my son for me! This page is a lift of a page created by Ronda Palazzari and featured on the Fancy Pants blog, you can see it here. I love how she used the strips of paper to piece together the layout! I was able to use this layout for the awesome SCRAP IT FORWARD crop over at Personalscrapper going on during July. I just posted the latest challenge which is an odd/even challenge. Participants are to use one even number and one odd number of one of the following: 1) patterned paper 2) rub ons 3) circles 4) brads or 5) ribbons/fibers. Each time a challenge is posted participants "race" to finish it first, then the first person who posts a layout to that specific challenge, posts their layout AND a new challenge. It is a fun twist on a challenge a day! It isn't really a race though, even if you don't finish first you can still post your layout in the gallery AND you get another layout created! FUN! FUN! Why don't you come and join us!

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Birthday America! Hope ya'll had a Happy Fourth of July! We had a great day full of fireworks, good food, and HEAT! WHEW! It was sure hot here today, but we didn't let that slow us down (at least the kids didn't anyway!). We enjoyed our second annual fireworks fest and the favs this year were the killer bees, magic whips and sparklers. Katie didn't like the fireworks at first, although I am not sure if it was the noise or the fact that her "balls" (smoke bombs) were burned up and destroyed. LOL! She did come around though and by the end of the night she was enjoying all the "pop pops" and sparkles. I had planned to scrap a bit tonight, but I am a bit too tired from all the festivities for that, so I decided to share my photos of the festivities today and hit the sack. We have another big day planned for tomorrow at the local waterpark, so we will be enjoying the hot weather in the water tomorrow! Hope your Fourth was full of lots of fun memories! Catch ya later!

Friday's Featured Blogger and a lift

Today's awesome blogger is Wendi from Scrappy Day in Paradise. I stumbled upon her blog while blogging hopping the other day and just knew I had to lift some of her AWESOME layouts! Not only does she do beautiful layouts but her cards are out of this world as well! The layout above is a lift of her layout entitled "MY BEACH BOY". The papers used are by My Minds Eye Breaking Free line as are the die cut elements. This line is featured in Personalscrapper's June kit and I fell in love with this line when I saw it. Knowing we were going to the beach soon, I knew I would put it to good use! These pictures are of my son's first time in the ocean. For my journaling I once again did my fav technique of hiding it behind my picture. This journal jotter is from Creative Chaos' etsy shop, made by my good friend Jenn who sent me this particular one when I was the recipient of her most recent blog candy give away! Thanks Jenn! So hop on over before your fourth of July festivities to take a gander at Wendi's awesome blog. Have a safe and Happy Fourth of July everyone! Take some time today to reflect the wonderful blessing of freedom we enjoy in our great country!

More delight

I am still working on using up my May kit from Personalscrapper featuring Fancy Pants Delight papers. I have made four layouts so far and am working on one more and hope to get 2 or more after that. This layout was done for Janine's "Step outside the box" challenge for the June LOAD crop at Personalscrapper. This challenge was to use a die cut paper or step "outside the basic 12x12" page. For this challenge I chose this picture of my niece and Dad this Father's Day. I used a plate to trace my circle and hand cut it, then punched out circles out of cardstock for the flower "petals". I had planned on just having the flower be my page, but the cardstock circles were a bit heavy and tended to bend on the lighter weight patterned paper so I attached it to a 12 x 12 piece of cardstock to make it more sturdy. I really like how it turned out. Check back tomorrow for my awesome Friday's featured blogger!