LCTS sketch #145 reveal



It's reveal day over at the Let's Capture These Sketches blog,  Here's a look at the sketch #145 by Natalie Roy:

I will fully admit that the free form design and overlapping pictures, had me a bit stumped at first.  However, once I settled on using just one photo, and substituting banner/tag elements in place of the others, the rest of the page fell together pretty easily.  It goes without saying that my layout is much more linear than the sketch, but what can I say - I like my straight lines! ;)



Supplies used - Patterned Paper: Little Yellow Bicycle Saturdays Collection, Meet Me in the Meadow (floral) and Blue Reverie (blue/white medallions and grid); Diecuts/Tags: Little Yellow Bicycle Saturdays Collection tear-out ticket and journaling card book; Embellishements: Jolee's Boutique (small grey flowers), American Crafts thickers (title) and brad (Amy Tangerine), Bella Blvd (yellow/white chevron tape), Colorbok (stick pin), My Mind's Eye Lost and Found (label stickers); Stamps: Jillibean Soup ('anniversary' and numbers); Other: October Afternoon sprinklers, machine stitching, button, Autumn Leaves ink



I love that the title stickers provide a tone on tone feel to the layout, but also have their own presence and pattern to make them stand out against the background paper.  I have seen these particular Thickers used all over the scrapbooking world as of late, and finally scored some of my own!

From the next two close up shots, you'll see that I spent lots of time dressing up the beautiful tags/tickets/banners that coordinated with this particular Little Yellow Bicycle paper collection. I love the collage-y feel of all of these elements and layers.

I hope you stop by the Let's Capture These Sketches blog, to check out the other amazing designer's pages and play along with this month's sketch!  Leave me a note and let me know if you do!

Another sketch

It seems I'm becoming a bit of a fan of sketches these days.  Not that I haven't used them in the past, but they seem to be at the top of my inspiration list at the moment.  It may have something to do with the fact that they provide such a quick starting point for a page.  I don't have to make 'tough' decisions on where to place my pictures, title and journaling when the sketch spells it all out for me!  Any way I can speed up my scrapbooking process these days is MUCH appreciated! ;) 

Here is the sketch that was recently posted on Little Yellow Bicycle's blog for their monthly sketch challenge.  I always seem to have a stash of LYB, so I thought I would play along.

Here's my page.  As you can see, it's a fairly literal translation of the sketch.  However, I had fun adding some extra details and embellishments on my page that were not included on the original.  I guess that's what I like best about starting with a sketch -- there's still lots of 'wiggle room' to make a project reflect your own style and preferences.

Here's a close up of the title that I cut with my cricut, using the 'B side' of one of the LYB Babysaurus papers, and backing it with a slightly offset shadow of the same letters cut in gray.

A closer peak at the journaling:

And some additional embellishments at the top of the page.  I LOVE that flag sticker banner from the Babysaurus line.  And I couldn't resist cutting out a few of the cute little dinosaurs as additional page accents!

That's it for today -- I'm off to cook dinner for the fam.  I'll be back soon with another page I've been working on.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hello...is this thing on???!?

So, I suppose if I'm going to start a blog -- I should actually take the time to post something to it now and then, huh?   Has it really been since April that I started and posted my one and ONLY blog entry?  WOW!  Well, my hesitation certainly has nothing to do with lack of material.  Our little family has had a busy summer filled with trips to the pool, patio building, backyard BBQ's, visits with family, potty training, Lego playing, bike riding, and all of the other fun things that summer usually brings.  I guess I could use the excuse that, yes, we have been busy, and thus, I've had no time for this little old blog.  And let's be realistic, that is a part of it, but I think I've also been hesitant to to put my crafty shares out there for fear of a bit of critique.  Thankfully, I have reminded myself that I started this blog, to share my crafty creations, as I've gotten so much in the way of ideas and inspiration from other bloggers.  I also, of course, hoped to maintain it, to share pictures and stories, with all of our friends and family that we don't get to see often.

Now that I've come to this happy little realization -- let's get on with a crafty little share, shall we?  For the past year or so, I have been designing display pages for a local scrapbooking store in Dayton called Simply Scrapbooks.  I am given a line of scrapbooking supplies to design a two-page or two one-page layouts.  It has been a fun opportunity for me, as I get to sample some of the newest scrapbook supplies and more importantly, it give me the 'excuse' to scrapbook (as if I needed one, right?!).

With all of this talk of summer, I thought it would be fun to share a couple of fun summer pages that I created with Little Yellow Bicycle's Sweet Summertime line, for a recent design team assignment.  The first shares a compilation of pictures from our summer adventures at King's Island amusement park last summer.  That single little 'ticket' type of embellishment (in the upper right corner of the page), reminded me that I had done nothing with the loads of pictures I had taken during our many summer visits to the amusement park.  And the bright colors of the 'Sweet Summertime' line worked out perfectly for this collage of photos.

And here's a detail shot of the small cluster of embellishments and word stickers I used in the lower left corner of the page.  I cut the ends of the word strips to mimic a banner and popped them up to add a bit of dimension.

With the bright summery colors of this kit and loads of fun embellishments, I certainly couldn't stop with just one page.  The next page features many of the 'lemon' themed items from this line.  It took no time at all for me to locate some of my favorite summer pictures of the boys that matched the bright, primary color scheme that 'Sweet Summertime' features. 

With use of the 'lemon' themed papers and embellishments, I was inspired to write a little letter to my boys, to keep their childlike attitude and always use life's lemons to make lemonade.  The journaling and detail shot of that cute little lemon slice strung banner:

And one more detail shot of the title in the lower left hand corner:

So, that's my little bit of summery inspiration for today.  Hoping I can keep steady with the blogging trend this week.  See you tomorrow with another crafty post!