A little birdie told me.... Life is Good ~ SOUS June 25th

Well, once again the week has flown by  ... and I've found myself even shorter on time than what has been the norm the past two months.  So, I told my DT sisters that I wasn't going to make it this week. But I soooo LOVED this sketch. AND then last Sunday my dd gave me the perfect pix to do it with ...  how often does that happen, right? And if that weren't enough ... the lovely Floren at Generations Crafting had sent me some yummy Basic Grey "Basics" to work with ...   So what's a girl to do but dive in?  (If I had been feeling better, it would have been perfection! Got a little bronchitis going on.)

These fabulous photos of my dgds Maddie and Malerie don't need much else, truth be told .. I loved them so much that I could not wait to get them scrapped! Love them so much that you will probably see them again .. used in a different way.  I told my gd Malerie that those railroad tracks looked a bit dangerous to me.  She said (very sweetly)  "But Granny, we looked both ways and there wasn't a train coming .. and besides,  it made such cute pictures, didn't it?"  Well, it did!  She's right. 

Okay, not too many details here but ... I used BG Kioshi paper with my Basics .. love Kioshi, btw!   I cut my title from Cricut Graphically Speaking. The subtitle is a BG 3 dimensional sticker .. used several of them, as well as BG chipboard throughout.  Also some BG rub-on flourishes and a BG journaling note.  I scattered some gems around and added in a few Prima flowers. Oh, I used an old, really old, word ribbon that I had purchased thinking it was so cute but had never used it! I wrapped it with another fiber that reminded me somewhat of the railroad tracks in the photo. Did some distressing and inking.  It's not my best work but maybe that will keep the beholder's eyes upon those wonderful photos! (And yes, they both have my chin! LOL) Sweet, sweet girls that love the Lord with all their heart, mind, soul and strength.

Thanks for coming by. Hope you'll give this sketch a try because it's great!  I plan to do it again at least twice more!

Guest designer for My Little Sketch Book ~ June 20th

Hello, again! Hope you are having a great weekend and that you got to celebrate those dads!

I am so honored to be guest designing this week for Liz Qualman's My Little Sketch Book.  Thank you, Liz, for having me once again.  Liz is one of my all time favorite sketch designers. Her work is always so dependable and works so well with my usual style. 

Here is Liz's sketch this time. Now, I will admit that this one was more challenging for me because I wanted to interpret it literally. I had decided to scrap some photos of my Dad since today is Father's Day. And the horizontal lines made me think of Old Glory. So I looked for some red, white and blue in my paper collection and came up with some older Basic Grey Boxer that I had bought last year. Underneath I used some navy Bazill cardstock  and a fab die cut paper by Creative Imaginations that I had gotten and set aside for my Dad's album.  Measuring everything took some time .. I am more of an assymetrical kind of gal, so I had to focus on keeping everything straight .. which is so against my nature but is perfect for this layout!

I used my Cricut to cut the frames for my photos (Sentimentals,)  the stars (Wild Card) and the title (Stand and Salute.) Then I added in an old US Navy dimensional sticker for my circular element layered on a scalloped edge circle (Winter Woodlands,)  some ivory trim to the left side and three buttons at the bottom.  Considering that I don't work with these colors very often, I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.  And as I worked with the sketch I began to see more and more ways to use it ... and have plans for some profile photos of my daughter.

Hope you get a chance to try it! You'll be glad you did! Be sure to visit Liz's blog and see what the other guest designers have done!

"Bliss" ~ June 18 SOUS ~

Woohoo, it's Friday once again and time for another SOUS reveal.  Hope you get a chance to check it out before you go about your Father's Day weekend errands.

My layout is also serving as a DT project for Floren at Generations Crafting who so graciously supplied this yummy Basic Grey Capella paper. These are the more peach-toned papers from the collection and I simply adore them! The Prima tea roses are also from Generations as were the rub-ons.  The crochet flowers were from my friend Leah at Paper Blooms.  

This project almost didn't happen. As much as I loved this sketch, I simply did not feel that I had the time to complete it because I didn't have the 4 photos readily available without doing some printing and resizing. So I looked through one of my MILs old albums and came across these photos that I dearly love and decided to use these as is, with no photo editing or anything. You can still see some of the black edges where she had put them in your photo album.  After finding what I really wanted to work with, the layout went together fairly quickly. (Didn't even turn on my Cricut for this one.)

I used a rub-on for my title, a doily misted with walnut stain as my circular element, used my MS lace edged punch on the vertical piece as well as a horizontal piece that I placed under one of my patterned papers, matted the title and then wove some gorgeous ivory lace throughtout the photos and flowers.  I stumbled across this Prima bird from last year's stash that I hadn't used and placed it where the journaling was supposed to go. Then I computer generated my journaling and put it in the lower right hand corner.  Of course, I used my Chestnut Roan for distressing my edges and added in some pearl brads and rhinestones. I think that is about it. I apologize for no close-ups this week but if you click on the photo it should enlarge for you and you can see everything really well.

Thanks for coming by. Be sure to visit all my SOUS DT sisters and see what they have in store for you, as well as our guest designer, Barb Craft. Thanks Barb for joining us this week!

Have a great weekend! We are having all the family over Sunday and I have 6 birthdays to prepare for so ... gotta run! 

"Together" ~June 11th ~ SOUS Embossing Challenge ~

Yeah, it's Friday again and time for another SOUS reveal!  I could hardly wait! This is our "no sketch, other challenge" week and we chose embossing this time around.  Any type of embossing is permitted, we just want to see new projects. I chose to do Cuttlebugging ... although I actually use Cuttlebug folders in my old Sissix machine. 

I had great fun doing this layout! I've been dying to break into my new DCWV Natural stack. There is lots of brown, rust and creams. My photo of the LO looks slightly orange-y but it's actually a copper foil and looks so yummy IRL.  The photo is one of a family member and myself taken a few years ago .. when my hair was still red.  LOL We had gone to Glamour Shots together and had a make-over and photos done.  As we went back outside, we got more photos taken by family members and I love those the best.

Boy, I don't know where to start on this but here goes .. I knew I wanted to do a lot of distressing, so I distressed, inked, crumpled and cut away .. and used lots of layers. The crumpled edge is my amateur version of Robinzberds' technique over at Swirlydoos. Hers is perfection but I'm sure I'll get better at it if I keep trying. Beneath the wrinkles is a MS fan cut and one of my embossed (swiss dots) objects.  I alos embossed my flowers (swiss dots) and my fence (distressed wood .)

My flower is from my George cart. I hadn't used it in a while and thought I wanted something simple like that. I used 6 layers on one flower and 4 on the other. I used a brad in the center and cinammon Stickles on the edges. It is hard to see the embossing because of the pattern to the paper but again IRL, I like the look.  I used a Prima Say it in Crystals swirls in an amber sort of color that goes nicely with my paper.

I added in some feathers beside the larger flower. It seemed to provide balance to the design  and is representative of something Julie might like.  She is not one to follow the crowd but pursues a path all her own.

The fence was cut from my Heritage cart,  embossed and then mounted with dimensionals.  The flowers are some old Jolee's stickers that I've never thrown out .. but they were just perfect for this.  My circle layer was cut with Plantin Schoolbook. The photo mat with A Child's Year.  The cream layer was just handcut and I love the look of it and plan to do that more often!

My title was an old die cut that I had .. to which I added both cream trim as well as the brown sequin trim .. again Julie's personality here .. and maybe my own as well! I added 2 brown pearls and used dimensionals to raise it off the bg paper. My butterfly this week is from Gypsy Wanderings. I added amber pearls to his body and made a small trail behind him.  I used more rhinestones around my circular piece and then distressed my circle some more by tearing it .. after this photo was taken! The scroll in the upper corner is from Sweethearts.  There are also some amber pearls around the photo. It was a Glamour Shots day, remember?

Thanks for coming by this week. Sorry I haven't had any mid-week blog posts lately. Very busy month and work has been a toil.  I hope you will visit my SOUS design team sister's if you have not already.  We so appreciate you!

Congrats, summa cum laude ~ SOUS, June 4th ~

Hello, scrappers! Time for another reveal at Stuck on U Sketches.  I feel as though I've been out of the loop for awhile but I guess I really haven't ..  May was just a busy month! One of the things we had on our schedule was my dgd Malerie's college graduation from Oklahoma Baptist University.  I designed this layout on my Gypsy while we traveled there the night before.

My papers are from Basic Grey's Capella line and so this layout is doing double duty as a Generations Crafting design team project.  I thought about printing my photos in black and white so that I wouldn't have to contend with the red clothing that a couple of folks were wearing. However, I wanted the whole enchildada (especially Malerie's school colors) .. so I left them as is.   

The first thing I looked for on my Gypsy was a Congrats cut and found this cute one on Zooballoo .. I liked it because of the bird who looks as if he were singing, appropriate since Mal's degree was in Piano.  This photo shows my use of the MS deep edge fan punch, as well as the small Prima roses I added.  I decided to double mat my photos this week and like how it looks.

My subtitle was cut with my Cricut Songbird cartridge.  Gotta remember those highest honors! I went for the Prima flowers again this week, using some Gallery roses which were provided by Generations Crafting and went perfectly with my paper as well as more of my Prima tea roses.  I did add a bit of Cinammon Stickles to my Gallery roses just to kick them up a notch.

Here you can see that I added in some lace from my stash and applied some flat backed pearls to it.  I used a Jenni Bowlin calender die cut and added some very small pearls beneath the date for emphasis.

I hadn't used any butterflies in a few weeks and was having some withdrawal pangs.. so I cut a few from my Indie Art cart and decorated them with gems and Stickles. Of all my butterfly images, I think this remains my fave! I applied pop dots beneath the butterflies for dimension.

Since my corners were a little bare, I used some Basic Grey rub-ons that I've had for about 3 years.  I always forget how nice they look!  Added in another butterfly and beneath my title, used a Prima Ballerina Bloom. Yummy!

And ....

... since I had my design figured out, I threw together this page of my dgs Patrick who graduated from highschool a week later.  I used more of my Graphic 45 The Proper Gentleman Papers, Cricut Nursery Rhyme for my title, Graphically Speaking for the year, and then handmade some square flowers that look pretty cool and more masculine.  I've made 4 layouts from this collection and still have a few sheets of paper that I will likely use up on the companion page to this one.

Thanks for coming by. I love reading your comments!  As a design team, we at Stuck on U Sketches want to offer you the inspiration you are looking for ... so feel free to leave any suggestions that you may have or ideas about what you'd like to see next.

Have a great and safe weekend! 

Sandi