The best things in life are not things

Yet another scrapbook layout featuring one of my beautiful nieces. This time the focus is my niece Alita - isn't she just beautiful?

I used up some stash (the papers are all from packs I had laying around) and also tried something new for a scrapbook page - lots & lots of layers. I found lots of inspiration for this page in the following challenges:

Stuck?! Sketches - sketch

CSI - Colour

My beautiful niece

My house isn't clean and my kids are going to run out of clean clothes any day now but I have been getting a lot of scrapbooking done... Today's layout is inspired by Scrap Our Stash Challenge and this month's page sketch. I've taken the sketch down to it's basic parts and made this page for my niece's most recent school picture. I used nothing but paper scraps (including the background paper which is a textured off-white) and the burlap ribbon and stickers are scraps too. The washi tapes have been in by stash for quite a while. The twist for the challenge is to use sequins and this was causing me some difficulty as I don't own any. But then I remembered a shirt of mine has a few sequins left on it. I'm not a sparkly person (in terms of clothing) so I had no qualms about removing the sequins and adding them to the heart on the layout. I used my Copic marker to make them black to mirror the black polka dots in the washi tape.

 Thanks for visiting my blog today.

A little bit of love

I'm working this coming weekend to bundle up Valentine's Day cards to donate to my local childrens' hospital (via Send A Smile 4 Kids - Canada). Here are 4 of the cards that I'll be including in the box.

I created these cards with scraps (cut into 1/4" strips and woven) and some leftover stickers. I really like how they worked out as there is lots of texture and with the kraft background these aren't too girly so could be given to a boy.

I'm entering these cards into the following challenge:

• Clear it Out Challenge - Valentine's Day / Flowers (2 of the patterned paper scraps had flowers in the design)

Breathe

Had a great day today with Jacqui as we spent hours playing with paint, paper and stencils. So nice to create just for the sake of creating. I finished off one journal page with my word of the year and am nearly done with a second page that I'll share later this week.

Materials:

• Dylusions Art Journal
• Gesso
• Dina Wakley paints
• generic acrylic paints
• TCW stencils - Flower Frenzy, Mini Dots
• Heidi Swapp stencil - Butterfly

I'm entering this journal page into a couple of challenges:

• DecoArt Create Dare - one word
• The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - use something new to you (the flower frenzy stencil)
• The Mirror Crack'd - stencils

Bath-time for foster kittens

My family fosters 3-4 litters of kittens for our local animal shelter every year. Taking care of these tiny creatures is a lot of fun for my kids (a lot of extra work for me, grumble grumble) and living in a family home makes the kittens a lot easier to adopt.

I have to be honest and admit that, for the most part, I don't like kittens - they are messy, destructive, demanding, and there isn't a lot of personality. Yes, they are cute and adorable and watching their antics is better than TV. But young kittens are all pretty much the same and it isn't until after they leave our foster home that their personalities develop and they become individuals. 

But every once in a while there will be a special kitten or litter that does stand out. Late last year we fostered a litter of orphans who stood out, although not for their personalities. These little monsters were eating on their own - barely - but this involved them swimming in their food. Every meal, every kitten needed to be bathed. This went on for almost 2 weeks. 

This month's major case file challenge at Color - Stories - Inspiration (CSI) used a grumpy cat image for inspiration and I immediately thought of this bunch of kittens for a layout. So here is my entry:

I used scrap papers from a couple of Basic Grey collections and the filmstrip is a digital stamp. The layout and colours come from the CSI inspiration board:

Another challenge that inspired me:

• Love to Scrap! Challenge Blog - use a stamp (digital photostrip) and use at least one item starting with blog initials. L(ayers) - T(iny kitten) - S(tripes) - C(omputer journaling) - B(asic Grey papers)

It took 70 years to get this awesome

Today I'm sharing a layout that I just completed celebrating my father's 70th birthday. Although I'm not thrilled with the final page, I keep reminding myself that it's better to have finished pages than perfect pages. LOL.

I used a piece of green cardstock for the background but added watery paint to create a watercolour effect. I also used paint (Tim Holtz Wild honey) to edge all the papers and drag across the background for more texture. The rub-ons and pattered papers are all scraps from Basic Grey Lime Rickey.

I found inspiration in many places:

• Sketch N Scrap provided the sketch 

• CSI provided the colour scheme and prompts 

Corset card

Today's project is a combination of card and gift packaging. I got my BFF a necklace and wanted to wrap it in a special way so I pulled out my brand-new Lace It Up diecut from Tattered Lace, did some research on the internet for styles and then created this corset card.

I had such fun making this. The corset itself is patterned paper over textured white cardstock that is wrapped in silver patterned ribbon. The laces are cut from a shiny silver paper and I made the ruffle from netting which I recycled from some packaging. The last step was punching a couple of holes so that the necklace could be strung through the card. I'm so pleased with how this worked out!

I'm entering this into the following challenges:

• Cute Card Thursday - use something new (the Tattered Lace diecut)
• Card Mania - make it sparkle
• Love to Scrap - use an item beginning with at least one letter of our challenge blog initials (L, T, S, C, B). I used Lace, a Tattered Lace die cut, and made a Corset.
• The Paper Girls - sparkle

Cards for boys

After completing the scrapbook layout I shared in my last post, I decided to try and finish off the rest of the paper pack since it was down to scraps. I made a half dozen boys' cards (using sketches from the Scrapbook.com January Sketch Challenge) and then turned the rest of the scraps into Father's Day card kits for the Childrens' Hospital (via Send A Smile 4 Kids Canada). I'm happy to say that I've used up all but two sheets of the Sassafras Robotics paper collection! Yippee me!

I'm entering these cards into the following challenges:

Clear it Out: Anything goes using stash
Creative Card Crew: For a child
Scrapbook.com January Sketch Challenge:

• Sketch #1
• Sketch #3
• Sketch #4

My handsome sons

I'm really going to try and scrapbook more this year (and post photos of some of the more successful projects). My first completed layout of the year is this one of my son's current school photos.

I was inspired by the following challenge:

From my stash, I used T(wine, on the chalkboard sign) - W(ave, shape across the page) - I(nk, my journal pen) - N(umbers) - E(yelets, holding the chalkboard sign). I also used up quite a bit of scrap paper from a Sassafras pack that I had. Yay me!

I used a sketch from SketchSavvy but can't for the life of me track it down to link it here. I found it through Google search and printed it off for reference. But now I can't find it online anywhere (not even on the SketchSavvy blog). Urggh. But if you love sketches be sure to check out http://sketchsavvy.blogspot.ca/. Her sketches are really wonderful!

That's all for now. Have yourself a creative day!