Throwing My Hat in the Ring

So if you saw my last posting it was filled with my creative binges from last weekend.

As a result of surfing around the interwebs I came across the sketch site Sketch ~ N ~ Scrap.

I had no idea that they have a monthly guest designer until one of the team commented on my post that I should apply and sent me the link.

Guess what.

I'm applying.

**ETA: No I'm not applying. I missed the deadline even though I had the page done a few days ago.  LOL!!!  That's okay. CHA+July=Busy anyway. Maybe next month.**


I haven't actually been a part of a design team for many, many, many years.  Yeah, for the newbies in the scrappy world we're talking in major retro times that I was on a team. Does Rob & Bob Studio ring a bell? 

However, I've managed a fair share of them since and have coordinated and hosted countless blog hops. I love it. I love meeting new crafty peeps, and sharing with everyone my passion to create and my passion to journal.

I realize that journaling is a major "no-no" for the trendy white space look right now, but—well—ya know me. That just doesn't fly for my personal motto.

Here's the sketch. (Notice no journaling, which is totally cool. Just makes it that much more fun to tweak!)

Thankfully for my entry, and I'm sure all of you that really don't want to read about my life, the journaling on this page is limited. :) Did I make a good balance?  LOL!

 

Truth is if I would have had more room, I'd have gone on and on about Mr. Macho Lee who "entertained" himself for the last two miles of the 1/2 marathon by sprinting ahead of me and doing pushups until I would catch up to him.  Seriously?  Who does crap like that.

Oh yeah.

My sexy husband.

Well, even if the stars don't shine on me to be a guest designer for a month (which I wouldn't blame them for not picking me one bit—with my whole 18 followers or whatever it is—after all I am in marketing and I get how it works ;) ), it sure was fun creating another fun page! Now to just get back into the shape that I was in last summer.  **sigh**

The Perks of Almost Summer

So sometimes there are perks to the 16 year old being out of school early. I got to send her to go and pick up Mr. Kindey-gartener from school so I could keep tinkering around with my blog. Don't tell her that though. She thinks I'm laboriously working on very important stuff.

Wait.

This is.

I mean, I need to get these things blogged for sketch challenges before their deadlines are passed. Right?

Plus, she got to weasel out of her dishes duties as a result of being my boy fetcher.

Hmmm. Somehow I think I got the short end of the stick. Lazy girl.

So over the weekend I got all sorts of crafty. It felt really good to do some more pages in my memory book about dad, and even a few pages just because I could. If I keep up this drive for crafting, it's going to be a busy summer! :D

So the first layout that I came up with was for the ScrapbookSteals.com Peridot 4, Mid Week Mojo sketch.

I modified the sketch a little bit to work with some of the photos that I took from Maddi's seminary graduation on the 19th.

I can't believe how proud I am of our oldest. Her love and desire to always be at Seminary really make a momma proud. I don't remember having such a strong desire to attend Seminary and do all of the required assignments. (Maybe there were just no cute boys). In fact over the 4 years that Maddi was in the Seminary program, she received all A's, except for one semester in 9th grade when she didn't read her scriptures every day. EVERY DAY. did you read that? She truly is my inspiration.

Next I made a fun and light hearted layout for the Sketch #4 challenge over at the Paper Bakery Kit Club blog. 

I had so much fun doing this layout because there is NO patterned paper on it. Only paper that I used my masks and mists on. I adore how it turned out and I love that I snapped some of these silly photos at the hospital, so that I can always remember it wasn't all gloomy during those weeks, but that we did our best to have fun and be cheerful also. (Hmmm. Wonder if those eyeballs are still there!)

I have to be honest that I've reeeeeally enjoyed using sketches to create pages with. It seriously takes so much of the brain pain out of creating and allows for a quick and simple page. I now get why people looked forward to Mid Week Mojo at ScrapbookSteals.com so much when I was the sketch maker for 4 years. I think I look forward to a new sketch just as much as the next girl!

It's always fun to throw your hat into the ring for a bit of scrappy swag when creating a sketch challenge so I turned to scrapchallenge.com to find some more sketches that might actually have a little swag attached to them. I mean at this rate, I might actually blow through my stash and neeeed some new supplies! ;)

The next sketch I happened across came from the Sketch Savvy blog. I loved this Sketch #102 sketch and thought it would work perfectly for this page I did about my current addiction of gardening. 

Next I stumbled across a few sketches on the Sketch ~ N ~ Scrap blog.  I printed off a few sketches but only had time (so far) to complete the May 15th Sketch.  It may be my favorite of the bunch as it is of me and my sweet momma. Geesh I love her. I'm such a lucky daughter to have such an amazing mom, who has stood firm as a rock during the course of the past few months. I only pray that if I outlive Tracey that somehow I will manage to be as strong as her. 

The final sketch I completed was the May : Week 3 Sketch challenge on the Let's Get Sketchy blog. Another page down in the book about dad. The only thing that truly breaks my heart about this day, is it was the last time we were all together—mom and dad with their 4 kids. I genuinely wish I'd have thought to get a photo of all of us. :( 

Well I guess it's time to get a little work done around the house now. Well, I do actually need to get working on my class for CHA. Hmmm.  Maybe I'll do that instead. :D

Memories up on Kiwi Lane

So if you don't know me (which why any random crafty blog surfer would actually look at my kind of pathetic looking blog is beyond me), I'm a very blessed woman.

I've had the luxury of working from home for the past several years designing blog content and managing design teams. For nearly 4 years I was the blog hostess for ScrapbookSteals.Com, which I dearly loved. It was through my time with them that I was introduced to a very innovative company called Kiwi Lane Designs.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm now the Kiwi Lane—work at home—Social Media director / blog hostess / Design Team coordinator. I love it. I love the ladies I work for. I love that they are all outstanding and righteous women that get that family comes first. I have been so truly blessed.

Anyhow, being that I'm the Bloggy person for Kiwi Lane, I kind of get to make up my own assignments. At the beginning of the year I was pretty adamant that we have a feature called Write From the Heart, as journaling has always been my passion when scrapbooking. It's all about the who's, what's, when's and wheres because you better believe those darling little great-great-great grandchildren with the little turned up—freckly noses are going to wonder about the people in the photos in your scrapbooks. Don't make them guess! Hand it to them with a silver spoon! (Cause heaven only knows you don't really want to be mistaken for your brothers—sister in laws—mothers—cousin). ;)

My turn rolled around today on the blog, so I thought I would do Susan Budge (my awesome boss lady) proud, and make a two pager. I hate two pagers. She thinks I do a good job with them. They make my brain hurt, but alas, I did need to have a little more working space, so this is what I made.

Of course I needed to allow enough space for journaling, so two of the journaling cards in the Teresa Collins Everyday Moments collection.

I used some of the Kiwi Lane Designer Templates that we are featuring this month to create these cute lil' embellishments. 

It's strange how some days are quite easy when it comes to thinking about dad being gone, but other days are kind of rough. I'm just so glad we have lots of happy memories. 

The Erin Colby Challenge

So I have to admit something that really isn't so much of a secret—that my life has been absolutely richly blessed with the friends that I have made through the scrapbooking world.

Luckily for me, sometimes those friends get to challenge me to create a scrapbook page.

The crazy talented Erin Colby dished out a challenge to a group of ladies called The Little Somethings challenge.

Something Old
Something New
Something Borrowed
Something Blue

Here's what I came up with:

Here's how the "Somethings" dish out.

Something old: The photo of dad

Something new: The glorious Authentique Paper Seasons:Summer collection. (Thanks Sam!)

Something borrowed: I am currently borrowing a We R Memory Keepers Albums Made Easy 3x4 punch, which I used to punch out the cards framing dads photo.

Something blue: Well the paper easily fits into this as does this gorgeous crouched flower that another dear scrappy friend, Cathryn Hanson created and mailed to me. 

Of course you know me and my journaling love. Telling the story. That's what it's all about. 

Thank you Erin for such an great challenge! Oh and for those of you that are in the Mojo Mama's Creative Corner challenge group, this layout will be the sketch for next week!

More Challenges! I just can't get enough!

So you'd think that all I do is sit around and scrapbook these days. I promise that's not entirely true. My front yard is looking fab with all of the flowers that I've planted, and I even spent 2 hours last night chatting with my Tessie-Poo while pulling out dumb Fescue grass from my lawn.  I WILL BEAT YOU YET FESCUE!  And while I'm at it I'd like to beat Adam and Eve a little for ever taking the plunge to leave the garden resulting in God cursing them (us) with weeds.

Then again, if they didn't have weeds, neither would I.

And then I wouldn't have had a lovely 2 hour chat with my daughter who talks SO MUCH that I have a hard time actually listening to her.  Somehow multi-tasking with weeding is a good fit.  Guess it's a good thing I've got those obnixious buggers polluting my pretty green lawn.

Anyhow, I totally got my scrappy on yesterday and completed two sketch challenges.

I've become quite fond of the challenges over on the Lilybee Designs blog. I really love their product. I really need to get more of it, since if I keep up with their challenges either A - my pages will all have the same paper collection(s) on them and my posterity will think I had a crazy addiction to the glorious patterns and colors (which I guess I do), or B - I'll simply run out and wont be able to play along anymore!  Hurry ScrapbookSteals! Have another Lilybee feature!

This particular challenge, was a sketch for a team up on the Lilybee blog with a Kit company called Scrapbook Circle I kind of live under a rock, so truth is I hadn't heard of them before. So yeah, Lilybee, you did your job—you got the word out to at least one scrapper.

So here is the sketch:

I decided to take a break from crying over my layouts and did a page about one of the activities from our Easter Staycation. 

Of course, I had to add a little extra journaling, and loved how the cute Lilybee notecards worked to fill those embellishment spots *and* host my title and journaling. 

After the two hours of pulling weeds I really wanted to scrap some more so I fought off sleep and tackled the Sketch Challenge #3 from The Paper Bakery Kit Club.

This sketch was super easy to pull off in about 30 min. Even after pulling weeds and fighting to stay awake!

I scrapped another page from our Staycation—about my crazy little dude that HATES SHOES. It was too funny that we made it all of the way to the hotel before realizing he was barefoot. Yeah. He got new shoes. I guess that's one way to go about getting them. Maybe I'll give it a go!

I even busted out some of my Kiwi Lane Designer Templates to create some fun whimsical borders for the paper blocks on this page. I mean that little Chuzzard is kind of fun and whimsical himself. 

As much as I should probably take a break from scrapping I don't want to. Next up is creating my Erin Colby challenge in the Mojo Mama's Creative Corner challenge group. 

ScrapbookSteals Peridot 3

You know I kind of feel like my scrappy sister, Sheryl Kloke, having already scrapped a Mid Week Mojo within hours of it being posted on ScrapbookSteals.com.

Today the guest sketcher, Marisa Torp, (another crafty friend) created a fun and simple sketch for the Peridot 3 Mid Week Mojo, which I was able to easily interpret to work with the next batch of photos to be scrapped in my memory album of dad.

Here's her sketch:

And here is my interpretation:

Again I have to thank that sweet Sam at Authentique Paper who sent me the most incredible care package after dad passed. She couldn't have known how in love I would be with everything that she sent and how perfectly the gorgeous collection of fall papers that she sent me—which I don't see listed on their website—and is currently downstairs so I can't even address it's proper name—would be for using on this page.  (Eeesh, how's that for some awful grammar!!  LOL!)  I even dug up some ancient embellies and worked the Tim Holtz Grungeboard into the layout. That stuff smells weird!

Those who know me know my inability to leave out the journaling, and given that I really want to journal about this journey I opted to swap out an embellishment blog to house my hideous handwriting.  Thinking about re-doing it on the computer, but it's not likely. ;)

So while my layout may not be an exact interpretation of the Peridot 3 sketch, it's one more layout done in my album about dad, along with another bucket of tears shed.

Gosh I miss him. 

ScrapbookSteals.com Peridot 2

Well the facelift of the blog is coming along. I really should just convert to WordPress as that is what I use for work, and I'm wayyyy  more familiar with it, but alas, now it's become kind of a personal inner quest to make this one look purdy.

I think for the moment I'm content with the exception of the little green flower doo-hickeys. I want em gone. I'll have to hit up the hunny when he's not quite so frazzled from the boys' incessant whining tonight. I'm already toast. Burnt.

I really love the Peridot 2 sketch at ScrapbookSteals.com. Then again maybe it has something to do with the fact that my dear friend Melodee is the one creating them now. Either way, I've decided to start on the memory album of the last few months of my dads life and think that I'll interpret each sketch each week for the project.

Here's the sketch:

And here is how I've interpreted it:

This wasn't an easy layout to do, but I do love words, and I love journaling. I'm hoping that by the time I'm done with this album that it will be a greatly cherished keepsake that will bring me lots of comfort and joy.

I have to thank my dear friend Sam at Authentique Paper for the lovely Seasons:Summer collection, which from the moment I saw it I knew I wanted it to be a priority in the album that I'm making about dad. 

It's just. so. pretty. <3 p="">

Thanks for stopping by and sharing in the memories of dad with me! 

Oh Snap! 2 Layouts in One Day? ScrapbookSteals Peridot 1

Oyi. I really hope that I can get this scrapping urge out of my system because quite frankly I really need to clean my house! Then again, I guess it's my solace while I'm doing single mommy week.

Anyhow, I started this interpretation of the Peridot 1 Mid Week Mojo sketch at ScrapbookSteals.com. My goal is to get all 10 of this series done! I was the Mojo Mama at ScrapbookSteals for nearly 4 years and never completed an entire series.  Could Melodee finally be my inspiration to do so?

You can find the sketch and Melodee's lovely layout here.

And of course, here is mine.

Now to scrap today's Mid Week Mojo and keep on track!