Sweet Peaches and Chocolate...

The Sweet Peach Crop Shop is celebrating their anniversary this month with several sketches from Liz Chidester.  As most of you are aware, I love Liz's sketches so I had to play along.  I chose to work with sketch #3 this time.  You have until May 1st to play along so hop on over to Sweet Peach Crop Shop's blog and check out all the sketches.  This project is also my design team project for Crop Chocolate for the month of May.  The theme was "freestyle" so we could choose to create whatever we wanted.  So nice to have such creative freedom!

Here's Liz's sketch...

And my interpretation of the sketch...



Supplies used:  Cardstock, Patterned Paper & Title stickers (happy & day) - Echo Park Paper Co.; Ink - Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink in Charcoal; Pearls - craft supplies; Stickers (all others) Creative Imaginations; Thread - craft supplies



I adore these pictures of my husband and I that were taken at my brother's birthday bash...we were able to leave all the kids home with friends and fly out to Napa for a wonderful grown-up weekend back in October.  It was such a relaxing time for us and such a great time to spend being a couple instead of being "mom & dad".  I think that truly shows on our faces in these photos.

A Masculine Birthday Card...

We have another special birthday coming up this week in our family so I got busy and made a card.  I love this Circa 1934 paper line from Cosmo Cricket and it has such a great variety that you can easily make a card for a man or a woman.  I used clear embossing powder and my polka-dot background stamp from Hero Arts on the strip of red paper, my Fiskars stamp set for the birthday sentiment and some stickers from both Cosmo Cricket and Echo Park.  The ribbon is from a clothing tag that I had saved from a pair of my teenager's jeans and it goes perfectly.  Love it when that happens!

So I did get a little crafty on this week (besides that kindergarten yearbook I'm still plugging away at).  Maybe more to come since I have a couple sketches I'd really like to make use of.  Okay...I'm off to start on some turkey stock.  Can't wait to have my house smell all homey and yummy with that cooking on the stove.

Blog neglect...

Sadly I feel as if I've been neglecting my blog as of late.  I'm still busy crafting but am working on a "yearbook" project for my son's kindergarten class and am knee deep in pictures and paper.  Thankfully the expectations aren't super high on this one - it will be fairly simple as I'm trying to cram as many photos of all those kids into a small album that can then be photocopied for the entire class.  I'll try to scan and post pictures once I have it complete...which I hope is soon.  I'd really like to get back to my regular crafting!  Until then...be blessed.

Laurie Schmidlen's Sketch for Skipping Stones Designs

Laurie came up with a great card sketch this week over at Skipping Stones Designs.  I need to be making cards this week anyhow - lots of events coming up in the near future so what better opportunity to play along.  Here's the sketch...

And my take on it...



Supplies used: Bling - Studio G; Embroidery floss- DMC; Glitter glue - Studio G; Journaling tag - Elle's Studio; Patterned paper - We R Memory Keepers and Daisy Bucket Designs; Pen - Marvy Gel Excel in black; Thread - craft supplies

This was a fairly quick card to put together (although my husband managed to tie 4 flies in the same amount of time it took me to make one card - his hobby certainly is faster, that's for sure!) Hope you enjoy and have a blessed day.

9 Years Ago...

I married the love of my life.  I thank God for him everyday and am looking forward to the many years we have ahead of us.  Happy Anniversary Hunnie...I love you!

Artful Delight's April Challenge...

You may have noticed I like to use sketches to inspire my creativity.  I think I've adopted this style of creating layouts because my time to craft is so limited and I don't want to spend what little time I have messing around with the "bones" of my layout.  I want to use that time to showcase my photographs in the most beautiful way I can.  Sketches allow me to do that in the bits and pieces of time that I'm given.  Here's the sketch for the Artful Delight Blog challenge for the month of April.

LeeAnne (the owner over at Artful Delight) shows her take on the sketch and her layered, punched border totally inspired me.  Here's the layout I created today.



Supplies used: Alpha stickers - Glitz Designs; Cardstock - American Crafts; Decorative pin - K & Co.; Embroidery floss - DMC; Ink - Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink in Charcoal; Patterned paper - Basic Grey (kraft), Core'dinations, and Glitz Designs (all others); Punches - Fiskars (border) and EK Success (small heart); Stickers - K & Co. (tiny hearts) and Creative Imaginations (all others); thread - craft supplies



I recently received these papers as part of an order from a gift certificate I won over at Your Scrapbook Stash.  I have to be honest I hadn't ever seen any of Glitz Designs papers in person but they looked amazing on the website and believe me, they do not disappoint.  The colors are so vibrant and they are gorgeous, double-sided, heavy-weight cardstock.  I love them and now wish I had a ordered a few more sheets.  The bird stickers and several of the other stickers are quite old - a Marah Johnson collection from Creative Imaginations that I just had to have at the time and then couldn't really figure out how to incorporate them into my work...I'm thrilled with how they work with this layout.  I hope you enjoy and have a blessed day!

Happy Anniversary Sweet Peach Crop Shop

Sweet Peach Crop Shop is celebrating their 1st anniversary and Liz has created some sketches to help them celebrate - of course, I had to play along.  The first of four sketches was revealed here.  Here's the sketch...

And my take on it...



Supplies used:  Alpha stickers- American Crafts; Cardstock - American Crafts and Core'dinations; Ink - StazOn in Timber Brown; Patterned paper - Jillibean Soup; Ribbon - Fiskars; Staples - Office supplies; Stickers - Cosmo Cricket (green circle) and K & Co. ("joy")



I have longed for this Jillibean Soup line of patterned paper and FINALLY purchased some.  I did a lot of fussy cutting to get all those cameras to make my circle but I love them...I even inked the edges of each camera to make it more dimensional on my layout.  I also moved the title to make room for my journaling.  I seriously love these pictures of my son on his new bike - he was so thrilled to receive it for his 7th birthday and was sure we wouldn't be able to find a bike just like his big brothers (which he had taken to riding because he outgrew his old bike).  Well, it wasn't exactly like big brothers - it's chrome instead of army green and I think it's a rather sweet ride. and so does he.

Crop Chocolate Design Team Reveal

It's time again for another design team submission over at Crop Chocolate.com.  This months challenge was an Easter/Spring project.  Since Spring in my household means that I will be running my younger boys back and forth to their different sports related activities...that is what I chose to scrap about.  Here's my layout using mostly products that I've purchased over at Crop Chocolate.



Supplies used: Border sticker – Echo Park Paper Co. (For the Record collection); Border strip – Echo Park Paper Co. (For the Record collection); Cardstock – Kaisercraft; Chipboard circle – American Craft Thickers Accents; Ink – StazOn in Jet Black and ColorBox Fluid Chalk ink in Charcoal; Journaling sticker – Fancy Pants Kraft Kutz; Journaling strips – Echo Park Paper Co. (For the Record Collection); Patterned paper – Fancy Pants Kraft Kutz and We R Memory Keepers (distressed blue); Smooch Spritz – in Gingersnap; Star punch – EK Success; Stickers – Fancy Pants and Karen Foster Designs

We'd love to have you stop by and check out the current offerings over at Crop Chocolate...they have some pretty sweet deals!

Sketch 113 over at The Scrappiest

Another great sketch by Liz over at The Scrappiest this past week.  I got my mojo late this week and barely finished this one in time to submit it but it's done and it was fast and fun.  Here's Liz's sketch...

And my take on it...



Supplies used: Cardstock - The Paper Co.; alphabet stickers, die cut, patterned paper & stickers - Echo Park Paper Co.; Ink - StazOn in Timber Brown and Zig marker

We had gorgeous weather yesterday (in the 80's) which is highly unusual for Colorado this time of year - today on the other hand is cold and snowing...crazy!!!  We need the moisture badly so I'm not complaining and we got to enjoy the day yesterday outside.  A little time outside with the family, time snuggling inside where it is warm, and some crafty goodness.  Overall...a very good weekend.