This Halloween Sketch

This is my entry to My Mind's Eye Blog Challenge #5. This was the first time I was actually able to use a sketch successfully! I love the idea of sketches, but it's rare that I find a design that works with the size pictures I have or the products I want to use. The only rules were that you had to use 80% My Mind's Eye products and stick somewhat close to the original sketch design. Using MME isn't a problem, since I love almost all of their lines. I added a row of extra small pictures, but I pretty much stuck to the original sketch. This page took me just under ONE HOUR to finish! I think that's the fastest I've ever churned out a page. So a great big thanks to MME for their great products and excellent sketch artist!

The Circus

I was putting away a bunch of layouts when this circus layout caught my eye. I wasn't that crazy about it when I first created it but now many months later, I really like the way all of the photo "tiles" fit inside the circle. I like the bold dark red color. And I love how all of the not-so-great pictures look way better cropped into smaller sizes. Isn't it funny how sometimes when you take a second look at a layout, you see things you never noticed before.

I think I might copy this sketch for a layout that I'm struggling with right now. Maybe expand it into a 2-pager. Now if I could just get my hands on another of those huge circles by Technique Tuesday.

Now on to the supply list. All of the paper is by We'R. The chipboard letters, circus sign and flowers are old K&Co. And the brown scalloped paper is by Crate Paper. I just cut out the middle and lined it up with the circle as a faux border.

Spring & Candyland

This is my son in his Spring Show last year. I can't believe how little he looks in these pictures. He has lost that baby face recently and I miss it.
I love the bright colors and whimsy of Doodlebug Designs and I usually find myself buying entire collections of their releases. This is all from their recent Key Lime line. I love the bold blue and green and I thought that they really screamed "spring."

Love the Doodlebug firefly brad and I decided to highlight it inside of a chipboard circle. I painted the circle with metallic green paint to give it some sparkle. It looks much better in person, but it's hard to photograph!

And this layout is to document the 289 games of Candyland that my husband and I have played in the last year. Nico loves this game and asks to play it over and over and over. Oh, and he's not happy if both Mami and Papa don't play. I have a feeling Santa will be bringing him lots and lots of new board games this year - for variety.
The stripe paper is from Bella Boulevard and it matches the colors in Doodlebug's candy/cupcake lines (border & gumball sticker) . I used the dark chocolate brown and aqua to tone down the pictures a little. The gumball sticker and 2 photos are mounted on chipboard squares by Bazzill Basics. One of the photos is tied up with a bit of bakery string from Martha Stewart. The letter stickers are American Crafts and the journal spot is from My Mind's Eye.
Have a great weekend!

I Had P-neumonia

So after a not-so-brief bout of pneumonia, I'm back! It feels so good to be back in my studio going through old pictures and playing with paper. I'm not a chronological scrapper by any means, so I still have plenty of baby pages to do. I keep a journal so I don't forget the stories behind the pictures and this frees me to scrap what I want when I want.

I had fun reminiscing about my son's babyhood with this layout. I wanted to remember the three most important things that got me through that first year. I took the pictures way back then and wrote out the story. Fast forward 3-1/2 years later and the layout is done!

This "Essentials" layout is a mish-mosh of paper by Crate, envelope by Creating Keepsakes KOTM, stickers from Cosmo Cricket and the animal border by K&Co. They all had the same color tones and I thought they mixed well together.