Sketch #152 at Sketch Inspiration

I hope you all had a wonderful, restful Thanksgiving filled with family & friends.  We were blessed to spend our day with some very good friends and their parents.  It was relaxed and delicious...not to mention the kids all played really well together and there was no fighting.  Now that is something to be thankful for!

I've been super busy crafting Christmas gifts and haven't taken much time to scrap for me so yesterday I decided to play with the sketch for the week from over at Sketch Inspiration.  I'm not real big on Halloween but I've had these papers that I picked up in the dollar bin at Target probably 2 years ago laying around and I finally decided to use them up. 

Here's the sketch...

And here's my take on it...

This sketch was a really quick and easy one for me to use and I have a feeling I'll go back to it again in the future.  Thanks Sketch Inspiration for inspiring a little "me time" into my busy pre-Christmas preparations.

A Christmas Mini

I've had lots of projects going at once - most of which are gifts so I can't share them here...you never know who might be lurking - wouldn't want to spoil the gift opening on Christmas day.  This project I can share because it's for my family and it's already out on the coffee table...the first of many Christmas decorations to make their way into my home.



Sorry for the not-so-great pictures.  Our weather can't decide if it wants to snow or sun today so my lighting was hit or miss.  This photo I spread the pages out around the binder ring so you could see a little more of the embellies. 

And here are a couple of the individual pages.  I used a real hodge podge of supplies...stuff from multiple manufacturers but that's the great thing about the holiday lines - they all have a very similar color scheme so you can work a lot of them together on the same project. 

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving.  I know I have so much to be thankful for.  Take a moment to remember all of the good in your life and give thanks!

Scrap the Moments Challenge is Like New

The Scrap the Moments challenge this week is to scrap with something from around your house...a tag, a receipt, a ticket stub...you get the picture. I had lots of cool clothing tags from some of my teenagers' jeans that I thought I'd use but that didn't seem "interesting" enough to me. For a little while I was stumped and then it dawned on me that I could use paper towels. Yes, you read that right...paper towels. I don't remember where I recently saw this technique but I loved the way it looked and thought it was such a clever use of materials. I hurried to my kitchen and tore off a sheet and headed back to my craft room. Here are the results and my layout for the challenge.

Start with shite paper towels and tear them into strips.

Using Smooch Spritz in Spun Sugar and Gingersnap I misted the paper towel strip heavily on both sides then set them out to dry a bit.  You can't let them dry completely as they need to be a bit damp and pliable when you twist them into flowers.

To make the flowers I rolled each strip the long way on the paper towel then I simply twisted and rolled until the flower shape was how I wanted it.  I set them aside to dry a bit more then used my hot glue gun to smear glue all over the back of the flower to help it maintain its shape.

And here they are on my layout.  All the elements on my layout, with the exception of the Thickers, the "ring" border strip and the paper towel flowers all came from the November Artful Delight kit that I won back in October.  Enjoy and make sure to head on over to Scrap the Moments and enter this weeks challenge.  Catch the Moments is sponsoring and they have a fabulous prize package lined up for the winner.

 

Scrap the Moments Challenge

The first challenge to be tackled by the new design team is up over at Scrap the Moments blog.  I for one can't wait to get started on it.  Head on over and check it out.  Entries are due by December 6th.  We can't to see what you come up with...

Exciting news...

I'm thrilled to announce that I have been selected to be a design team member over at Scrap the Moments - a lovely challenge blog created by Devon Hickman.  Here's the official announcement.  I can't wait to get to work on my first design team challenge!  Devon also has a wonderful kit site (Catch the Moments) where you can purchase some fabulous kits.  Check it out here.

For now...I'm busy, busy, busy working on Christmas presents - I swear my craft table looks like Santa threw-up.  What a mess it is!  I'm thinking I'll have to take a break from Christmas papers and embellies and make a project completely un-related just so I don't go nuts from all the red and green.  Until then...happy crafting and be blessed!

A Thankful Giveaway...

Melissa over at Creating from the Heart is giving away an amazing Christmas bundle.  Click on over there...check out the giveaway, get yourself entered for a chance to win that yummy prize, and check out Melissa's wonderful blog.

A Little "Sass" afras...

I've been drawn to the Sassafras collections for a long time for their fun and funky colors and images.  They're a little sassy don't you think?  I added some to my collection through a great buy over at Crop Chocolate then didn't know how to use it since I tend to scrap more "traditional" papers and embellies.  I happened to have these photos of our two youngest on my table when I was organizing my supplies and the Sassafras stuff I purchased caught my eye.  I love how this layout came together almost as much as I love to see my boys chilling out with a couple of books.

I mean really how often are they both sitting still (quietly, nonetheless)???