Page Maps Sketch Challenge - Oct 20

Page Maps had the following sketch this week:

Here is my take on it:

I really wanted to go with a whimsical, beachy feel for this one... and I really think I got there. This is a mis - mash of products.... the Hawaii themed papers are DCWV Travel stack and the background is DCVW Photo Stack 2. The journal card is a cut up card from Creative Memories Cheery.

Hope you enjoy and leave a comment!!

Sketch Inspiration Sketch #243 Oct 23-29

The sketch this week over at Sketch Inspiration is shown below.

When I first saw this sketch I really was not sure what I should do with this one.... the hearts and flourish made me think wedding... but I really wasn't sure where to go from there.... so I got out my photos.

I find that is often the best way to work at a sketch. If you like the sketch but don't know what to do with it, get out your photos. They should be organized already with all of the same topic or the same "page" together. Typically I end up having a few more photos than I want, but thats OK because it gives you more flexibility when you get to actually creating.

So I pulled out the photos and started flipping through them, and came to a great vertical of the bottom of my dress and putting on the garter.... that photo actually didn't make the layout, because I liked a different one better, but it got me started and inspired me to work on this sketch.

I find that when inspiration hits me on a sketch, its a bit like a whirlwind. Things go flying til I find the photos I want and all the other bits... so that was me this morning, with the kittens looking on and wondering what the heck their momma was up to! The only reason I stopped was that I didn't want to be late for work....

So here is the final product. : )

Papers, chipboard, rub on and journalling card are all Cosmo Cricket. The brown stamping is with Tim Holtz stamps (I think) and with Distress Ink - Walnut stain.

Enjoy!

2SF Gobble Gobble Challenge

This is by far the most original challenge I have seen at Two Scrapbook Friends! Design team member Christa provided us with a list of foods to pick for our Thanksgiving menu. You had to pick a minimum of 4 items, although most of us picked 5 to have a rounded meal with meat, veggies, potatoes and of course dessert :)

The things I had to include based on my menu were:

• chipboard
• handmade flower
• distressed edge AND distress ink
• handwriting
• white trim or lace

And this is what I came up with!

The chipboard element is from Cosmo Cricket's Everafter collection and coordinates perfectly with my Everafter papers as well.

The handmade flower was crocheted for me by Aunt Elaine. I used chalks to take the flower from white and give it the green and orange coloring. There are 2 oranges and 1 yellow on the flower, and 2 greens on the leaves. Without the coloring it was too bland on the page

The edges of both pieces of patterned paper were distressed and inked with Tim Holtz Walnut Stain distress ink. I did not have a distressing tool at this point, so I distressed with baby wipes - saw this on some random blog and it does work well! The wipes are also good for lightly applying the ink to the less distressed areas :)

For handwriting, there is the ring blessing prayer and the ring exchange vows that we said on the left border. Also some random words and doodling.

Finally, for white trim/lace, I included a white trim piece holding an orange ribbon which Aunt Elaine also crocheted for me... Thanks Aunt Elaine!!

So far this is has been the best challenge for me to expand my horizons. This is my first attempt at distressing (I did the HMITM LO after this one) and also I never use white trim or lace. Chipboard is also something I don't have much of, and use less of, preferring dimensional stickers. Really the only chipboard I use regularly is letters, which to me, doesn't really count.

Creative Scrappers Challenge Sketch 178

Creative Scrappers provided 4 sketches this month, with the challenge being to make a LO for at least one of the sketches. Here is sketch 178 and my take on it:

This layout is honoring my Grandfather who passed away in 1997. My sister and I miss him very much - we lived with him for several years with our mother. I had, in the programs for the wedding, a memorial to my grandfather and a few other family members who had passed more recently (I was married in 2009). My mom, when she did her speech, chose to read the memorial I had written out loud to everyone. A good portion of my guests were crying but my sister and I were the worst. I really love these photos because they show exactly how we were feeling.

This sketch was really perfect for these photos as it brightened up the page a bit. I will do a matching page with the program, a photo of my grandfather and the photo of my mom reading it at some point.

One thing I do still want is a stamp or rub-on of a white-tailed deer buck. When we were younger and missing Papa at Christmas, we saw a bunch of deer in the field. Mom said it was Papa come to wish us a Merry Christmas. Since then we always see deer on important days, on Christmas and some Thanksgivings, and when we need some guidance and inspiration.(Crying as I write this) The stamp will go next to his name.

If anyone knows of a good manufacturer to get this from, please let me know. So far I don't recall seeing any. I will stamp it in my white chalk ink to make it a little fadey and ethereal feeling.

Thanks so much for looking and commenting.

Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday Challenge - Colors - October 21st

The Fabulous Friday over at Frosted Designs this week was to use the colors from the inspiration photo, and only those colors - but you didn't have to use all 4.

Here is the photo:

And here is my take on it

The purple color really didn't work for me, although I did pull out some purple cardstock entirely intending to use all 4. However, purple is really not a color I like or even use, and with the green, orange and red, I thought it was great as it was and decided against adding any purple.

The journal card and photo mats are from the Creative Memories Reminisce collection. This is really a great pack because you get full size (4x6) journal cards and half size (2x3) cards as well, oriented both vertically and horizontally.

I'm looking forward to the next Fabulous Friday challenge to see what they have me doing next...

Sketchy Thursdays 10.20

The newest sketch over at Sketchy Thursdays is:

And here is my take:

The journalling on the right provides details of the USS Arizona and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. My left hand journalling describes the feelings and atmosphere you encounter on your visit to the USS Arizona and the over 1000 bodies interred there in her hull.

2SF October Sketch Challenge

The October Two Scrapbook Friends Sketch challenge was based on this sketch from Pebbles.

I absolutely loved the whimsical, girly feel and decided not to change much...

I did go back in and add some StarDust Stickles to the flowers to glam and girly it up a bit more after taking this photo.

Hope you enjoy and please leave a comment!

2SF September Sketch Challenge

The July Two Scrapbook Friends Sketch challenge was based on this sketch from Page Maps 2010.

I actually had a difficult time deciding what to do with this one.... I don't use butterflies at all really and they sort of threw me for a loop. After sorting through my pics I decided it would be great to use for my oldest flower girl Madisyn... and this is what I came up with!

I am really happy with how it turned out.... its so special for a special girl :) 

Sketch Along Tuesday #26 Challenge

UPDATE: Thanks to Frosted Designs for placing me in their Top 3 for this challenge!



The challenge at Frosted Designs this week for their Sketch Along Tuesday was to make a layout according to this sketch.

When I saw this sketch, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it...

The background grey paper (which has the pattern element on one side) is what I used for the left pattern.
Chipboard from the Cosmo Cricket Everafter collection was used to make the flourishes around the photo.
I also inked the edges of the page to add to the rustic, faded look it had and tie in a bit more black.
I think this LO may be one of my favourites ever :) Thanks Frosted Designs!

I really love this sketch and think it is one I will come back to again and again!

Moxie Fab World - Tuesday Trigger - Finesse the Dress

This week's Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World was to make a project based on inspiration from this dress:

And here is what I came up with:

This is my page about my ring bearer. The pages for his sisters will be exposed later on this week.

The inspiration I had was the colors mainly. The background paper is more teal and less blue IRL and there is a very lightly chalked background similar to the pattern on the dress. I may go back and draw over it with my Copics. There is also some teal in the star stickers. The two grey accents were both punched with the new Creative Memories border punches. I was at a crop, and I don't have a lacy punch and neither did anyone else, but I like the "picket fence" punch as its a little more masculine anyways.

Once I had it on the page it needed some brightening up, so I added the orange accents as that was the wedding color and it would make this page blend in better with those of his two sisters.

I am really happy with how this turned out and how cute my little man is!

How Much is too Much challenge #182

The Oct 10 - 23 How Much is Too Much? challenge was to use a list of items on one LO.

• Leaves in some form
• Distressed edges
• Something orange
• 10 jewels, pearls or brads
• 10 ribbons

I was really excited about this challenge because I love ribbon and generally only use a small amount on my layouts. Also, with the requirement for something orange, it fit perfectly into my wedding theme colors, so rather than doing a fall layout as this was intended, I went with a layout for the wedding.

The only thing I was originally stuck on was how to incorporate the leaves. I flipped through all my paper stacks until I got to the DCWV Photo Stack 2. Inside I found this lovely green ivy wall sheet, and decided to use it for my background.

I distressed the edges on the ivy leaf photo stack, and inked those edges plus the base cardstock with Tim Holtz Walnut stain to tone down the color.

My something orange is all over this page - orange ribbons and orange flowers...

I used 10 brads total - two to anchor the photo of me & dad, two on the vertical ribbon, 3 at the end of the arrow and  3 more as the dots on the RHS.

I used 10 ribbons in a variety of places on this LO, including on the top and bottom of the photo in front of the house.

This was another fun one that I found challenging, just because of the requirement for so much stuff. I sat down and planned this layout out first as I would be attending a crop, which is where the difficulty came, however it made me think more about how to use everything strategically. :)

2SF August Sketch Challenge

The August Two Scrapbook Friends Sketch challenge was based on this sketch from Scrapbooks etc.

When I saw this sketch, I absolutely knew what I had to use it for. It was just so perfect for telling the story of how the cake, rather than the cream pie, ended up all over me at my Buck and Doe!

The red and yellow patterend papers are from an old Creative Memories school collection. The navy paper is actually jean and is from the DCWV Photo Stack 2. The ribbon is some $1 bin stuff from Michaels.

This is a great sketch I plan to use again as it was so much fun but a little finicky! Next time I am going to try either rotating it or maybe even shrinking it down to a 1 pager?

Enjoy!

~Tory

2SF Challenge for September 27th

This challenge was to repurpose papers etc from one theme and use them for a completely different theme. This is something I do all the time so this was an easy one for me - no out of the box here.

Since my stash is smallish, I am always repurposing papers and embellishments for other themes. Its necessary, and it forces me to use up everything I have. I find as long as there isn't anything obviously themed (i.e. the word Easter all over the page) you can go ahead and use it for something else.

This layout is a prime example. All the paper used is from an old Creative Memories School collection. Repurposed, it is very useful for vacations, arcades etc. Here we are at an arcade in Hawaii on our Honeymoon.

Another great example comes from the pages I did for my bridal shower. All the patterned background paper is from a holiday/seasonal stack, specifically from the Easter and Spring sections. Journalling tags are mostly from the same Creative Memories school collection and the foamie letters are "Hippy" style.

2SF July Sketch Challenge

The July Two Scrapbook Friends Sketch challenge was based on this sketch from Stuck?!

This was one of my first forays into the world of circles... or using circles, and one of the first layouts I did with a lot of negative space. This and the August 2SF challenge really were the challenges that started me on the journey of maturing my style. This one was done in August, but I hadn't glued it down and added the title until recently because I wasn't sure if I wanted to add additional items.

The patterned papers and chipboard are Cosmo Cricket EverAfter and the black and cream papers are Recollections. The buttons were brown but I colored them orange with my YR07 Copic. 

I added a gem to the centre of each ribbon rose (I got them out of a grab bag) to bling it up a bit :) 

I really wanted journalling somewhere on the page, so I made a little pull out card of the same cardstock as the base.  Essentially the short version of the story is that when we finally found a dress they agreed on (good thing I only had two bridesmaids) we then had to pick the color for the tops. Kelly liked one color and Krissy liked the other. We picked Krissy's choice as I liked it better too. When the dresses arrived and were picked up, Kelly now liked the top color, and Krissy didn't. It was frustrating to say the least... but they both looked fab so I don't know what they were worried about!

Thanks for looking, please comment and follow!

Welcome!

Welcome to my first scrapbooking blog! I am looking forward to sharing my creations with you!

I started scrapbooking in 2007ish by making my mom a few pages for each occaision that happened, as an attempt to preserve the multitudes of photos she had stashed all over the house :)

Now I have graduated on to scrapbooking my wedding and honeymoon, as well as the occaisional page still for my mother.

I really felt the urge to mature in my techniques and to learn some new ones, so this blog will follow that journey.

My plan to get to this "mature" scrapbooking place:

1. Do as many challenges as possible. I have started with the challenges on the forums at my local scrapbook store, Two Scrapbook Friends in Waterloo, ON. The fantastic design team there puts up challenges, group projects etc. They are really great at getting you out of your comfort zone and into uncharted waters.
2. Start using sketches! My pages really follow a few "sketches" I have in my head. They are great but it gets a little old....
3. Learn new techniques! Exploration of new techniques and products helps expand the creative boundaries.
4. Take a few classes - specifically I plan on taking some Copic classes. Not sure what else at this point.
5. Scrapbook with new people - I have already sort of started this one on the Two Scrapbook Friends forum. There are tons of great ladies there who post different techniques and provide daily inspiration.
6. Read some scrapbooking magazines! Believe it or not, I have ONE copy of Scrapbooks etc from 2009 and that is the only scrapbooking magazine I have! I am not so up on the trends at all, but I am not a trend-follower anyways.

The goal at the end of this is to eventually get published/join a Design team. I would love the opportunity to share my work and love of the hobby with the world... and this blog is the first step!

So thanks for reading and please follow my blog!

~Tory