Sketchy Thursdays 1.12 - World War II Bunkers

Well, sad announcement over at Sketchy Thursdays this week, accompanied by a great sketch. This week will be their last challenge, so everyone, get over there and participate to give them a proper goodbye.

Here are the layouts I have made for their challenges since I started this blog in October:
Psyclone
Down the Aisle
My Veil
Freeze the Moment
USS Arizona and Pearl Harbour

And here is this week's final sketch *sniff sniff*:

I know! Not more banners!! Lol! I actually had a fairly easy time with this one because I knew I needed two photos, one that I could make into a little circle...

These are the bunkers left up from World War II that were erected on Kualoa Ranch to protect Hawaii from the Japanese. Will walked out to explore them, which I regret not doing as I stood back to take more landscape photos (I did get some fabulous photos). This was one relic no one seemed interested in exploring at the ranch, which we were all too interested in.

I used two different "photo" papers from DCWV Photo Stack 2 - the small piece at the top left and the background to the 4x6 photo, which is like a dried up creek bed or something like that. I also used some black corrugate (I love this stuff, where do I find more!) and a couple star brads to keep the page feeling all American! Its really bad me not being an American as all I can think of for my America themed pages are stars, red, white and blue! I guess its OK since most Americans think of Canadians as Inuit :) 

I really didn't have stickers that I liked enough for the title on this page, so I wrote it myself. I used a book I have called Scrapbook Lettering and the "font" is called Pinstripe which I freehanded. I used pencil fo rmy lines and to sketch out the top line of text, then did the bottom line without a pencil guide. I really need to get a better pencil or a better eraser! The letters didn't stick out very well, so I added the red and the blue after they were complete. It really changed the look and brought the title from the background to the attention getter, which was what I wanted. 

I really can't print neatly without a line lol! Look at that terrible journalling card! I have a collection of these I will be using on the photos I took in Hawaii about the military and at Pearl Harbour. I love the American feel they have without being Crayola red and blue :)

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for the fun Sketchy Thursdays!!

Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge & Sketchy Thursdays - Photo with Santa

Well, this week I decided to combine two challenges, something I rarely do. Another Freaky Scrapping Challenge had a challenge to scrap a Christmas Past, while Sketchy Thursdays had the below awesome sketch, with the added requirement to use blue and silver.

I found this old Polaroid of a little me with Santa. I am going to assume it was either Christmas 1990 or 1991 since my sister is not in the photo, and therefore she must not have been born. I started out picking the pink background paper, and decided pink, blue and silver was a great combo to make a non-traditional Christmas color set... and thats really how the two challenges combined. I did not set out with that intention at all in the beginning :)

The background paper is Momenta, and essentially the rest of the stuff came out of the stash. I decided to put the journalling part on the background circle off centre to give it a bit more attitude :)  I left it blank for my mom to fill in because I certainly don't remember this occaision!

I colored the centre of this glitter star with an Elmer's glitter gel pen and added a bling to make it more fun.

Here's a closeup of the details, all the silver stuff is from the same package. I really like how the Polaroid looks - too bad we didn't have a Polaroid camera because the photos are so cute!

Sketchy Thursdays 12.8 - Psyclone

Another great sketch this week over at Sketchy Thursdays:

 

Pretty cute! I liked the stitching down the centre but didn't include it because I don't have a tons of colors of thread unpacked and I couldn't decide on one that I liked lol!  I went to these photos from Canada's Wonderland in the summer right away for a few reasons - I had already used banners on other layouts from the theme park and I knew I would be able to trim these small enough.

In terms of variations, I omitted the stitching, moved the journalling to the circl, changed the size ratios of everything, and added the little swooshy tab thing on the bottom right corner. I just felt the page needed something down there to balance it out...

Thanks for looking!!

Sketchy Thursdays 11.17 - down the aisle

Right away, this sketch from Sketchy Thursdays inspired me to use my flower girls and ring bearer.

Since there were three kids it made perfect sense...

I really wanted to keep the warm feeling of the wood so I used a DCWV Photo Stack 2 wood grain background. I don't have mists yet so I instead inked flowers through stencils behind the photos with Studio G pink chalk ink. I added a butterfly paperclip and a big colorful title, matching the ribbon I used. Finally I added a Deja Views vellum quote, anchored with ribbon scraps.

Let me know what you think!!

Sketchy Thursdays 11.3

Sketchy Thursdays brings us another great sketch this week... so get on over there and check it out and join us!

I really liked this sketch and the fun feel of it. I don't have many photos that can be cut down to a small size, so I specifically printed the small photo for this LO. I really thought this was a good sketch to focus on something special - a special moment, a special gift, a special friend, a special tradition.

I finished a layout of the girls getting me ready for the wedding for a Sketch Inspiration challenge you can see here, but purposely left off placing the veil.

My sister called me maybe the Thursday night or even the Friday night before my wedding (either way it was very late) all in a fuss. She is very superstitious - I'm not... I own a black cat lol... and she found this very important superstition - a bride's veil must be placed by a happily married woman...

Not to get into my family dynamic, but my mom was never married and "happily married" actually caused us both to panic a bit... who did we know? No one... what were we going to do?

So we are thinking and thinking and finally we come up with the answer... our cousin's wife, Etta, who, with her family has come all the way from the Orkney Islands for my wedding! Perfect!

In retrospect, the mother of my child attendants would also have been a good choice, but like I said, we were panicked!

I love the intimacy in the larger photo and just the feel overall.

A challenge that has been annoying me over at the Two Scrapbook Friends forum was to use a paper tole technique on a page.I managed to do it here and love the little pop it gave to that orange flower (and I used up a little scrap of paper so bonus points!)

I journalled in silver on a tag and on a Creative Memories flower punch. I also used pearls (left over from my Moxie Fab LO)  to anchor the two tags I used. I didn't have large enough brads (add that to the xmas list!).. but in retrospect I love the pearls on there (good thing I have a whole necklace's worth left!)

Hope you all enjoy and leave some comments... and there's still time for you to get in on the Sketchy fun!

Sketchy Thursdays 10.27 Sketch Challenge

The sketch this week  over at Sketchy Thursdays was gorgeous!

I knew right away I wanted to use it to showcase a nice photo of myself and DH on our wedding day... but that was as far as I got.

I got to thinking about the song that played while I was getting ready - Freeze the Moment by Jordin Sparks... and hence the title was born.

I then had to search through the photos to find the perfect "frozen moment" to compliment the title... and this is what I came up with:

Cardstock is DCWV. Paper is Cosmo Cricket Everafter. WeR metal letters.

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.