My little sunshine and raincloud

We have a inside joke/song around here..Mason is my sunshine and Caden is my raincloud.  We even have a "raincloud" song that is it's own version of the "sunshine" song.  This weeks 1 page sketch at sketchsupport is the sketch I used for both of my pages. 

 I had A LOT of journaling for this one and so I added a full page of hidden journaling that pulls up and out at the top of the page.

How about 1 last goodbye to winter layout for the first day of Spring?

 I absolutely LOVE these pics and had a great time making this one!

It is cupcake week--oh I mean add-on week over @ Sketchsupport!

This week our add-on is a cupcake and there are plenty of cute ones over at sketchsupport.  There are also several other takes on it that take it in a totally new direction that you will also want to see, so go over and check it out!

This is my card that I made this week using the cupcake..

Spring Break is Awesome!

First off I am sorry I haven't been able to get my posts to publish lately..it just freezes up on me so I hope this one works!   = ) I have really enjoyed this week off and wish I had more layouts to show you but I have been using this week to do a few home improvements instead.  Here are a few things I have been wanting to get posted.

This is a card I made at Christmas and gave away..I wanted to get better pictures of it and forgot before I gave it away-so this is as good as it gets! It is a bummer because the details in the flowers are so much better than you see here    : (  I made the roses out of scalloped hearts that I cut then ran through the Manhattan embossing folder from Stampin Up! Then I crumpled them a little and inked all the edges.  You just have to play around with them and fold/roll them until you get them how you want.  For the centers I used black stickles.  The frame and background also have dots of stickles that you can't really see in the pic.

Scrapbook Generation Saturday sketches

If your not familiar with Scrapbook Generation and their Saturday sketch sessions, you should check them out!  The following page is from one of the sketches Allison Davis has done in the past.  Either her or Debbie Sanders (Allison's mom) create a page following one of their sketches.  You get to come in and "assemble" it with your own touches and photos like I have to this one below.   I loved this layout and the colors worked perfectly with my pics!  These pages are great for those who don't have a lot of time, those who are just starting out, or those of us who probably have the supplies already but just can't pass up the awesome pages they create!

Card sketch week

Last week was card sketch week on Sketchsupport and I turned it into a 2 page layout instead.  Here it is

To see the sketch and everyone's projects together go here!

We are now a family.

This layout is made up of pictures from our first Christmas card as a family.  We had my mom take them at my grandparents house on Thanksgiving. 

The pics on the lower right corner are in a 4 x 6 interactive add-on from Close to My Heart.  I love them..you can add as many together as you want anywhere on your page.  It is great for those pages where you have a lot of pictures you want to include w/o taking away from the overall page design.  I just cut a slit in the protector to allow the flaps to work if I put it in the center of the page instead of the side as I have on this page.

Owl always love you...

 Caden actually made the 2 owls himself with punches and he drew his name on one of them.  We thought the colors and message fit this page perfectly so we added it in place of another picture.  Even though they fight like brothers, they love like brothers too!

Where does the time go?..Seriously!

I have not posted in a few days because I feel a little like I'm drowning in all the stuff I need to be doing and I keep getting further and further behind!  I love to post new layouts as often as I can but the truth is..I have been to busy to do any!  I did make it a priority today to make a shadow box frame for a friend of mine.  I really enjoyed getting to "play" a little amongst the many other things I should be doing.   : o)  So here are some pics..it's late in the evening and all the "good light" is gone today so the pics aren't the greatest but you get the idea. 

Sorry about the shadow in the last pic!  I used a shadow box frame and the song lyrics she wanted to use and then added some flowers, ribbon and some background papers with a punched lace border.  It turned out pretty good for a 30 min project that was done in a rush!   : o)

Thank you!! & A few giveaway winners!!

I have to apologize for just now getting winners posted, I think I am coming down with something and was barely able to get myself up this morning..urghh. I know everone will be wanting to see if they've won but..  

 

...First off I sincerely want to THANK all of you who participated and left such nice comments and I am excited to have so many more followers! I wish I could personally thank each of you... I have really enjoyed this process and have to send Allison a shout out for helping make all this happen and for giving me another creative outlet for my love of scrapbooking!  And to all my fellow DT Members...you guys are awesome and did some great layouts! Love that I get to be inspired by you all in the future on Sketchsupport!

 

Now for the WINNERS~~ which were chosen by random .org 

( funny story there..the 1st 3 #'s chosen were not eligible..team members or my mom who ironically won the last Vol 7 sketch book i gave away (I only had 4 followers then) so I guess it's fate that you guys won after all that! So much for random! LOL  I hope you enjoy!

 

The first winner for the Vol 7 sketch book  is...

Lisa said...

I love all the details you added to make this sketch your own! I hope I'm a winner and can't wait to check back to see who is winning all these give a ways! Thanks for the inspiration and have added you to my bookmarked list of blogs to check for inspiration!

The second winner of the scrapbook goodies is....

DanaMK said...

I love all your snowflakes and your sparkly touches! Off to become a follower now - thanks for a chance at either RAK!

To claim prize by midnight Friday, send me an email to karoller@live.com with giveaway winner in subject line so I can get your shipping info! Congrats! Amy

Sketchsupport Blog Hop

Welcome to my blog!  All of us over at sketch support are doing a Blog Hop this weekend starting at 8:00am Central/9:00 Eastern Standard time.  So if you're here early check back then. We are glad you are participating in our "Hop!" If you want to follow along, make sure you start at Sketchsupport and it will get you started!  There will be giveaways there and on all our design team blogs.  Whoo hoo!!! Today I want to start by sharing this layout with you:

It is my take on this sketch by Allison:

You will find each of the design team members has used this sketch in our blog hop.  I'm excited to see how everyone uses it!  This is my first blog hop..I followed many but never actually participated in one so I am having fun!

One thing you will notice with me is that I tend to always change each sketch in some way or another.  That's why I love them..you can alter them to fit your needs.  For example, in this layout, none of my pictures are the sizes given in the sketch.  I altered them to work with what I had and I didn't want to leave any out so I added a few extra pictures as well.  I used 2 pictures in place of the vertical 4 x 6 and I added a small one by the title.  Most of the 3x3 pics on the sketch are 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 in my layout. I used snowflakes instead of stars..anything would work, just vary the sizes.  I also added a few flourishes here and there.


Supplies: All papers are Fancy Pants Cardstock: Bazzill Flourishes and glittered snowflakes: Making Memories  All other Snowflakes are Stampin Up! Rhinestones: Loreal

Now how about a little info about how I scrap...

When it comes to paper crafting I am...  Obsessed!  I love this hobby and the idea that I am leaving something behind for my kids to look back on one day.  I don't really know what my style is, I just do whatever strikes me at the moment.  I do have to have balance and tend to do things symmetrical.  I love bling and the color green.  

Where do you craft?
I am very lucky to have room dedicated to this hobby I love.  My husband helped me build the tables and I LOVE this space and I love to organize everything in it!  I  enjoy having room for friends or my boys to come and "play " with me!   Here is a link to my room: My Happy Place

When I am creating, these are the things I have to have around me... Friends, music, and everything at arms reach.  I also seem to have the need to snack every time I sit down, so of course there has to be something sweet(chocolate), sour(candy) and salty (honey roasted peanuts) or my homemade trail mix.

When I am not creating, you can find me... clipping coupons.  I am loving the challenge of saving money. If I'm not doing that or volunteering at church, I'm home probably cleaning or reorganizing something.  I sort of have an obsession with things being orderly and I get giddy about new storage supplies.

When it comes to sketches I... Love the versatility of them!  I love how a sketch can take me in so many different directions and gives me a great starting point.  I can just grab a sketch, some coordinated supplies and start!  They have also changed the way I buy my papers..I also get more use out of what I already have.  Often times,my scraps are perfect for cards...and they have a sketch book for those too ya know     ; - )

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I will be giving away a Vol 7 sketch book by Allison Davis to one lucky winner.

and another lucky winner will win a box of scrapbook goodies...to be eligible just follow my blog and leave a comment.  I will announce the winners on Monday.  The winner will then have until Friday to send me their contact info to karoller@live.com for setting up prize delivery! If no one claims by then, a new winner will be chosen. Good Luck and Thanks for visiting! Come back soon    :- )   Up next on our hop is Melissa Elsner and you can find her blog here!

Rockstar in Training

This week is 1 pagers at sketchsupport and this is my take on the sketch.

Add-on week @sketchsupport!

This week is add-on week over at sketchsupport and this is my take on it.

Supplies - Cardstock: Bazzill; Stamps: Close To My Heart, Stampin Up, and unknown; Rub-ons: Close To my Heart, Basic Grey, and Stampin Up!; Watercolor crayons: Stampin Up!; Ink: StazOn; Paint: Making Memories; Other: Stampin Up! die, Glimmer Mist, 

For the February add-on sketch, I decided to build my whole page around it. It started out as a frame for my picture and grew from there!

I started by first taking my 5" x 7" picture and some water and rubbed/sanded away part of the photograph to leave a distressed white space around Mason. This is a great way to use photos that have something distracting in them that may otherwise cause you to not use them or even toss them! 

 

I then stamped a sentiment and stamped off the edge of the picture to add a few vines creeping onto the blank area. 

I didn't stick the photo down until the layout was almost completely finished, I just tacked it down in the general area so I would know where to place the words as I went. I also stamped the vine and butterflies up the edge of the page to create a border. Next, I stamped phrases in random areas and built on that with rub-on words and more stamps. 

I made sure to use StazOn ink so that none of it would bleed or run on the next step.

I punched holes for his name, a few flowers and a heart so that I could stitch them after the background was finished.

Because everything was done in the same colors I knew I wanted to do a "whitewash" effect over the word background to add a little more color. I mixed some paint to match his eyes and then watered it down and then brushed it across the layout. I had to let this dry overnight.

Next I used watercolors and traced the vines with green and blended it with my fingers. 

After this was done I stitched all the previously punched areas in purple for another pop of color. Then, I began cutting out around the vines up the outer edge. I tore all the edges of the paper and then added it to another purple background and tore those edges as well. 

 I did this one more time with a black cardstock that I also spritzed with silver Glimmer Mist to add a light sparkle. Finally I placed all the previous layers together on the original colored cardstock and painted the edges with purple paint.

Last but not least, I used a die to punch out lots of little butterflies and added them throughout the page on top of many of the stamped butterflies along with rhinestones in the center of each stitched flower. I also added one larger mesh butterfly just under the picture.

I hardly ever do 1 page layout unless I have a challenge or sketch deadline but this one I did for me and I really like how it turned out..I love layers lately!

This one is Cadens' first snow..he didn't care for it much!  Love those faces.

We're home and well

The surgery went well and they took tonsils and adenoids after they saw how big they were.  It didn't take long.  He was rather upset after waking..blaming us and saying that "you told me it wouldn't hurt!"  Which we never said..he was warned numerous times it would be sore and uncomfortable :-)  But he went in brave like a champ!  Didn't cry or get worried before and now that we're home, I think it's going to be hard to enforce the no playing or rough housing for 2 weeks...all in all things have been fairly easy so far, 2 weeks to go : )

Tomorrow is the big day...

Well we are scheduled to have Caden's tonsils removed at 8:00am tomorrow. I don't know which one of us is more nervous! I ask for prayers that it all goes well..I will update sometime afterward to let you know how it all went.

2 page sketch

This week on sketchsupport we have a 2 page sketch that I did these layouts with.  The second one is a special challenge layout using only Jillibean Soup products.  You can see them all by going here!