The Pick of the Patch

I love pretending that we have a change of seasons here in Texas.  Every "fall" we head to the Pumpkin Patch to pick pumpkins and play on the farm; Dewberry Farm, that is.  I just had to do a pumpkin picking layout for Reese from last year using Karan's latest Sketchabilities sketch. Reese was a little indifferent to all the pumpkins and activities.  It was definitely a different story this year!

Be sure to check out what the rest of the Sketchabilities design team did with this sketch!

Cute Little Chicks: Coordinates Collections November Blog Hop Challenge, Sketchy Thursdays and ScrapFIT

The kids were at their grandparents this weekend so I had the chance to go on a couple of dates with the hubby but between that and sleeping in, I scrapped away in my new scrap room! I promise to post photos some day. ;)  So, I've got quite a few new layouts to post.  The one for today combines 3 different challenges:

• Sketchy Thursdays - create a project based on the sketch below for a chance to win Copics
• Coordinates Collections - create a fall or outdoor themed LO using burlap
• ScrapFIT - use shapes you normally don't see in a LO and use fall colors.

To meet the challenge requirements I used photos that actually include hexagon shapes (how perfect was that?), plus burlap and then I fussy cut hexagons from paper from the Scrapbook Circle November kit. I love the paper and embellishments combos that Lisa puts together. And the sketch was just the inspiration I needed to put it all together!!

Supplies: Crate Paper School Spirit Collection - Ruler and Chemistry paper; misc. burlap; Jillibean Soup corrugated shapes; Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type alphas; Basic Grey archiac alpha stickers; Martha Stewart baker's twine; Tattered Angels Tattered Leather Glimmer Mist; Glossy Accents; CTMH Chocolate Ink; misc. buttons

BoBunny Challenge & Hippity Blog Hoppin' Time!

Here for the blog hop? First, check out my take on BoBunny sketch challenge and then scroll down.
Supplies: BoBunny - Back to Basics Sophie Dot, Sophie Silhouette, Petal Pushers Chipboard, Alphas and borders; Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type alphas; Queen & Co Little Letters black; misc. bling.

Now, I have to tell you how excited I am for this blog hop.  5 different challenge blogs have teamed together to provide you with a "recipe" challenge.  How cool is that?? It starts with an awesome sketch and then you hop around to the rest of the blogs to get the ingredients.  Once you've completed the recipe, post your layout to the final site for a chance to win the grand prize. 

I'm participating as part of the Crop Suey design team.  This challenge was so much fun that I'm going to do a random suprise giveaway too. Just become a follower of my blog if you aren't already and leave a comment telling me your favorite holiday dish/dessert/drink (including the recipe gets you a bonus entry since this is a recipe challenge and I always like to try new things). I'm asking international participants to pay the difference in shipping.

Here's the sketch and my layout.

Supplies: Glossy Accents; Sassafras Pattern Paper - Buttercream Bliss, Gum Drop Garden, Sugary Love, Fruit Slice Land, Sprinkled, Dreamsicle; white Delta paint mixed with Close to My Heart Crystal Blue re-inker; CTMH pink and blue sparkles; misc. thread.

Now hop around to get the full recipe! Here's how I incorporated the ingredients:

• Sassy Lil' Sketches - see the sketch above
• Crop Suey - I inked the edges of every paper and used paint (colored it blue with re-inker; spattered and brushed on with my fingers)
• Scraptiffany - the lace is actually fussy cut inside the cloud in the upper left square
• Cuttlebug Spot - it's hard to see the embossing but it's randomly on the paper cut outs. I also added lots of texture with the stitching, glossy accents and paint splatters.
• ScrapFIT - my three things are the birds AND I also stitched 3 peace signs on the squares and and on one of the birds I cut out to pull out the peace sign in Rheagan's shirt.

Thanks for looking!

My Heart Melts for Those Baby Blues

I was checking out My Paper Treehouse again this week and found this challenge to include something your heart desires AND she included a sketch from my girl Shawn at Nuts About Sketches so I had to make a layout.  I chose to focus on Reese's gorgeous blue eyes and how my heart melts every time I see them.  I did a bit of fussy cutting and manipulating of ribbon and lace to make the flowers.  You have to look closely because it's a little hard to see in the photo but I also fussy cut two of the scallop flower circles from the blue paper and applied them to the back of the clear buttons and placed them on 2 of the large red cutouts.  I also used glossy accents on each of the red flowers in the paper on top and then added a couple of teeny tiny red bling to a couple of the red flowers to make them stand out just a bit more.  Oh and I only had a little bit of blue lace and it wouldn't fit around the entire ribbon flower so I cut it in half and pieced it together to make the flower.  There's actually 4 cuts of lace pieced together but you can't tell. I did the same thing with the cream ribbon for the bootom right flower.  How's that for extending and not wasting supplies?

 Supplies: October Afternoon - Thrift Shop One of a Kind, Complete Set & Near Mint; October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers (tiny alphas); CTMH Ink & Bling; Glossy Accents; Misc. ribbon & lace

Gifts From Above

I stumbled upon a fun challenge at My Paper Tree House and I was eyeing this week's Sketchy Thursday sketch so I thought I'd mix the two together.   I didn't want to layer with too many patterned papers (from my Scrapbook Circle November kit) on this layout so to give it an effect to resemble the sketch I misted over some Tattered Angels stencils with brown mist.  Then I took the stencils that had been heavily doused with mist and applied them to plain cardstock.  I loved the effect so I cut them out and included them on the LO. I misted them again with the same blue mist I used on the border and title paper. Thanks for Looking!

Supplies: lilybeedesigns paper - fall festival & caramel apple; Tattered Angels Tattered Leather & Spring Rain mist & stencils; handmade flower; Thickers Delight fabric letters (dyed barn red); CTMH Doodle & Tiny Typewriter Alphabet stamps

Here's an up close of the flower I made:

Here's an up close of the stitching I am proud of ;) and the frayed title to match the flower

Adorable You

Check out the first challenge over at Crop Suey, with the new owner and new Design Team. Mia challenged us to use at least 3 out of the following 5 items on our scrappy project/layout/card.

Here's the list of items and comments on how I incorporated 4 out of 5 of them in the layout below:

• White cardstock - it's there under all that mist.
• Buttons - I used square buttons as photo corners on some of the photos.
• Stamp - I used the reverse image of 3 stamps to create the journal areas.  Basically I determined the size of the stamp, journaled and doodled in the area before stamping, flipped the acrylic stamp over  so I could stamp using the back of it, inked it with Versamark, and added clear embossing powder.  I wanted to show the white underneath and use it for journaling but also to resist the misting.
• Ink/mist/paint - I inked the edges of the paper and misted the white cardstock.  I used Tattered Leather and Pink Bubblegum mist. I normally don't mist THIS much but I was going for that stamp embossing/mists resist effect.
• Distressing - not included on my layout unless you consider the inked edges.

Here's the corresponding sketch I created for this layout.  I love using sketches created by others so I thought I'd create a sketch for this layout.  Please let me know if you use it and link me to your layout.  I'd love to see your creations based on this sketch.

Check out what the rest of the Design Team did and be sure to play along with this challenge for a chance to be eligible to win 30 (yes, 30) 3' lengths of ribbon from May Arts, our November Crop Suey sponsor! You can see pics of the ribbon on the Crop Suey blog. You have until midnight EST on November 20th to submit your creation!

Oh and last but not least come back next week for the Hippity Hop Blog Hop.  6 challenge blogs have teamed together for a few days of fun and prizes.  You don't want to miss this!

There's No Place Like Home

Check out Karan's new sketch and other fabulous design team reveals over at Sketchabilities. Since this reveal falls so close to Halloween I knew exactly what I wanted to do. This was so fun (and challenging) to do. I hope you get all the subtle and not so subtle references included in this layout. There are 3 - 4 references - can you guess them all?

Here's the sketch and my layout.

Supplies:
Rainbow: Red -  Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Stew "Brown Rice"; Orange - Lilybee Domestic Bliss "Centerpiece" Yellow - Heat Embossed Misc. Yellow Cardstock; Blue - CMTH Splendor; Green - Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Stew "Diced Tomatoes" ; Purple - Bazzill Dotted Swiss Cardstock "Grape Jelly"

Squares: October Afternoon Thrift Shop "Complete Set", Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Stew "Red Peppers"; Misc. Green Cardstock; Stripes Paper Uknown 

Ribbon - My Mind's Eye Lost & Found; Clouds - CTMH Splendor Paper; Alphas: Colorbok Modern Red Glitter Clear Stickers, Thickers Delight Fabric Letter Stickers "Leaf" & "White" (misted with Shimmerz Chick-a-dee); October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers "Indigo & Cream"



The rainbow looks like it should be so easy to pull off but I had to go include an arch and then of course they had to line up perfectly so there wouldn't be any gaps. Let's just say my ruler got a lot of use that day. If you try this make sure to measure it all out on scratch paper and cut a template for each strip. That way to can make sure it will line up correctly once it's all cut out. I did that and it worked beautifully (no wasted pattern paper).

Oh, if you complete a layout using Sketchabilities Sketch #33 or Sketch #34 and link using Mr Linky you will qualify to win a scrapkit worth $35.00 from Scrapshotz...you have until Nov 10 to complete this challenge!

Truly Madly Deeply In Love Sketch & Challenge

I've been playing around with creating my own sketches and challenges lately. In all reality we create our own sketches and challenges when we scrap; I just actually documented it. I don't plan to make this a recurring thing because I love playing along with sketch challenge sites but I thought I'd share the ones I do create with you. 

Here's the first sketch and challenge I created.

1. Alter the dominant paper using paint/ink/mist - the now brown areas on the left and right of my layout were originally black and were painted brown with Tattered Angels Glimmer Glam.
2. Think outside the box with your ribbon - I used ribbon to decorate the front of the photo/journaling pocket.
3. Use heat embossing on the layout - I heat embossed clear transparency to create the "X" and "O" letters and "in love" words. I also used Mist on the transparencies to give them more depth.
4. Incorporate a handmade flower - I fussy cut the flowers, painted and arranged them and voila, a handmade flower.
5. Include hidden photos and/or journaling. 

I have to add that I NEVER scrap photos that don't include a kid.  I don't have an album of just my hubby and me, other than what was done pre-kids.  I don't plan to start one at this time either.  I do, however, plan to scrap more photos of me, us, or him to include in the girls' albums.  They need to know more about us as individuals and as a couple.  I WILL scrap more photos like this!

Easter Chicks

Okay, so I know it's nearly Halloween and this is an Easter layout that has enough hearts to have been used for a Valentine's layout but you know what? That's okay.  Check out Karan's lastest sketch.  I just love it.  Here it is along with my take on it.

Handmade Flower with heart as leaf

Other Details

Thanks for looking! Make sure to check out what the other Sketchabilities DT did with this sketch.  And there's a chance for you to play along to win a yummy scrapkit worth $35.00 from Scrapshotz.

I'm featured on Crop Suey!

Hi everyone.  I am excited to show you that I am featured on Crop Suey today, a new Design Team I am on.  If you want to learn a few more things about me personally head on over there to read all about it.

I love that Crop Suey focuses on creating monthly challenges for it's followers and Mia really has her act together re-launching this site.  The challenges she has in store for everyone, starting in November, are going to be so fun.  So, head over to Crop Suey and become a follower if you aren't already.  If you came to my blog from Crop Suey and like what you see, I'd love for you to follow me as well. I am clearing out my scrapilicious goodies (old and new) to start fresh in my new craft room so I'll be posting lots of giveway opportunities and my followers will be the first to know.  My overflowing stash needs to move to someone else's overflowing stash. ;)

Thanks for visiting today!!!