Viva Las Vegas.

We are coming to the end of the half term holidays here in the UK and whilst the weather has not been great it was lovely not to have to rush around getting ready for school in the mornings!
Last weekend I attended a crop and managed to finish a page for the current sketch challenge over at Scrap365.

Here is the gorgeous sketch.

Here is my layout and as you can see I turned the sketch to accommodate the landscape photo of my brother and his family living in Vegas at the time.

I noticed a layout in blogland recently that featured rosettes and decided to make some for my page as I haven't used them in ages! They are quite effective and I will probably make some again soon.

I decided that as I had used glitter brads for the middle of the rosettes and sequins scattered around that I would cut my title from glitter card (I haven't done that much lately either!).

Well that's it for me today I am off to finish another page and perhaps get out in the garden to tackle the weeds!

Thanks for stopping by. xx

Beat The Heat.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend, it has been a Bank Holiday here in the UK and I had organised a crop weekend with my scrappy friends! Wonderful time spent crafting, eating and laughing with not a care in the world except how quickly the the hours flew by!
Among the pages I completed was one for the sketch challenge over at The Studio Challenges blog.

Here is the sketch.

Here is my layout featuring my youngest daughter spending a little time out of the sun.

As you can see the sketch was mostly followed with the odd change here and there.

This hand stitched sun replaces the words and chevron at the top of the sketch.

A close up of the bottom corner.

There is still time to play along with The Studio Challenges sketch or they have a selfie challenge too. Check out the amazing DT inspiration and get all the details on how to play along HERE.

Thank you for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your day. xx

Rock Pool Critters.

Hello and how is your weekend shaping up! I have been enjoying a whole weekend of scrapping with my croplets (my crafting friends!) and I just love creating among like minding people don't you?

For today's post I have the layout I created for the Sketch Challenge over at Scrap Our Stash to share with you.

Here is the sketch.

Here is the page I made for the challenge and as you can see it's not my normal white and bright style but I am pleased with how it came out.

I had actually made a double page as I had so many pictures so here is the right hand page.

I had one pre-made starfish (the little pink one) and I made another from felt, stitching and sequins.

Another hand made starfish this time out of card. I had some really old stickers that I mounted and inked to tone down the whiteness of them.

This cute little crab was fussy cut from a whole sheet of underwater critters.

As usual all the details and more DT inspiration can be found HERE on the Scrap Our Stash blog.

Thanks for stopping by. xx 

Design Team Call!

Hi there scrappy friends,
Sketch N Scrap is excited to announce we are having another design team call!
We are looking for both layout design team members and card design team members!  If you love creating with our sketches then please consider applying.  No experience is necessary and international members are welcome to apply!
I am sure you can tell from our Birthday Bash that Sketch N Scrap is a fun and dedicated challenge blog and we want to add some more amazing talent to our team - so what are you waiting for?

Click Here for all the details of how to apply.

Champagne Time?

I hope you have been enjoying all our Birthday Bash challenges and inspiration so far! I carry it on today with a drop of champagne - well sparkly stuff anyway!

Today my challenge is to use some glitter on your layout BUT in a way you have not done it before! You can glitter-up your layout as much as you like as long as there is one technique you have not tried before!

Of course I challenged myself too and found it more difficult that I imagined! But looking through my stash of all things glittery I came across some 3D glitter glue and that got things moving!

First I painted some white circles onto some background paper.

Then I started squirting the glitter glue on the paint - but as it came out of the tube it curled up and I ended up with squiggly lines instead of the straight ones that I anticipated!

Quite messy and not what I was after, so I now had the dilemma of leaving it like this or going over with a brush and flattening it all out. I took the plunge and went out of my comfort zone! I now have glittery spaghetti on my page!

Here is the layout all finished and as usual when being creative on the background most of it got covered up by photo's and papers!

I just had to have a glittery title and this Sizzix die worked beautifully for what I wanted.

These fussy cut flowers have also had the sparkle treatment with some trusty Stickles!

Now if you would like to play along with my Glitter challenge or my Tic Tac Toe challenge from the 4th May there is a prize up for grabs for a randomly picked participant from both challenges combined. It is a surprise package that contains some yummy scrappy goodness.

TO THE RULES (there are always rules!)

Only layouts created for this challenge will be accepted (no back linking).

You must become a follower of my blog and Sketch N Scrap's blog.

You may combine this with another challenge either on the Sketch N Scrap blog or on another challenge site. 

There MUST be a link back to my blog in your post.

Leave a link to your post in the comments of this post.

If you don't have a blog you may email a picture of your created layout for an entry into the prize draw to me at - kerry.bruce@btinternet.com

The dead line for all entries in this challenge is the 31st May. 

OK, now that's all sorted it's time to create!

Can't wait to pop along to see what your glitter technique will be , just leave a link to your page in the comments and I will be over to take a peak.

Have fun!  

Run, Leap, Splash, Repeat.

Back today with Sketch N Scraps 2nd layout sketch reveal of May.

We are still reveling in our Birthday Celebrations with fun challenges happening daily! 

This beautiful sketch was designed by Kelly Holifield.

I made a double page layout and used the sketch to design the first page.

A closer look at the sketch inspired page and you can see I used water splashes in place of the triangles! I also squeezed in two photo's instead of one. (I'm learning from the best Wendy!).

I had so many fun photo's that I wanted to have on these pages so I cut them all with a rectangle Nestabilities die and placed them in photo strips. I used some more strips of  paper from the first page for cohesion although there wasn't a lot of 'white space' left to fill! 

One of my blogging friends Wendy has inspired me lately to get cracking with my double pages as she usually uses the sketch challenge for the first page and then fills her second page with the rest of her photo's in a PL style. So thank you Wendy for the awesome inspiration! 

I love the look of enamel dots but I haven't got around to buying any yet as I have an abundance of brads to use up first - they are what I have used under the title.

Come and join in the fun over at Sketch N Scrap with three layout sketches to choose from, one card sketch with another reveal on the 20th! Then of course we have the DT challenges especially for our Birthday Bash! As per usual all the details on this challenge and all our other challenges can be found on the SNS blog along with our TWO sponsors details and all the DT challenges.

CLICK HERE.

I am so Happy you stopped by. xx

High Jinks.

Hi crafty people!
Today I have another double page layout to share and this time it was created using the Make it Monday sketch challenge #16 over at The Memory Nest. They have such awesome challenges and the DT are a very talented lot! This challenge runs until 2nd June so there is no excuse for not playing along!

Here is the gorgeous sketch.

My double page with more pictures of last years holiday (anybody would think we had a great time!). The right hand side is where I used the sketch.

A better look at the right. I used arrows in place of the circles but kept to the sketch because hey, it's awesome!

A closer look at the left hand side too.

The arrows and the letters were all cut with Sizzix dies and I lost one of the dots above the i's so I swapped both for little wooden stars.

I recently purchased some great stickers by Simple Stories and used a couple on my layout after mounting them on white cardstock and punching out using a Martha Steward punch.

My holiday album is filling up fast now that I have resigned myself to doing double pages, so a sense of achievement is great motivator!

I will be back tomorrow with yet another double page! I'm on a roll!

Hope you can come back and see it. xx 

Sweet Sundaes.

Sketch N Scrap are having a 2nd Birthday Bash (in case you hadn't heard!) and DT member Jennifer has challenged us with a scraplift. Her page - which you can see HERE is absolutely gorgeous and even if you don't play along it's worth popping over to Jennifer's blog just to see her beautiful work.

This is my take on Jennifer's Birthday page and I have used it as the left side of a double page.

Here you can see both pages, as you can see the photo's were all portrait and fitted all across the two pages, so as I  loved Jennifer's design I mirror imaged it.

I was lucky enough to find a cocktail umbrella in my kitchen drawer that matched in with the colour scheme of my page. These Thickers in black glitter foam were just the sort of font style I was after for my title (thanks mum!).

On the other page this is what I used to embellish the corner, couldn't not have a doily!

Now if you haven't joined in with Jennifer's challenge you still have plenty of time as it runs until the end of the month. All the details can be found here on her blog.

There is a link to all the DT challenges so far on the Sketch N Scrap Blog and of course all the regular features HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. xx

Dr Seuss Inspired Challenge.

Hi there scrappy friends!
My friend Helen and I have had another get together for some scrappy happy time! I love taking a few items of stash and a cake around Helen's house and filling the day with scrapbooking, chat and lunch. Helen has a log cabin outside for her scrap room (not jealous much!) and we spend a good few hours catching up on each others family and helping out when either of us gets stuck for an idea.
This month we had challenged each other to use a Dr Seuss quote on our pages. Don't you just adore some of the wonderful and sometimes wacky sayings from the children's books and they make awesome titles for scrapbooking.
Let's move on to the pages that we created.

I had these pictures of my girls on a banana boat on holiday last year and thought the Dr Seuss quote 'These things are fun and fun is good' was perfect for my title.

I have been creating a lot of double pages lately and so keeping it easy I mirror imaged my first page design and basically copied it on the right.

I wanted to make a statement with the word 'FUN' so I cut it out with a large Sizzix font and added the lines with a white gel pen.

I wanted a slight change to the design on the right side so I added this vertical border strip that I punched out with a Fiskars edge punch that has a wave pattern.

Here is Helen's awesome page! 

I love the bright colours that co-ordinate with the photo and the dark blue used for the huge title! 

Using a white background with just a splash of ink makes all the wonderful elements jump off the page.

These cute little wooden butterflies and the twisting twine are just great, adding movement and an ahhh factor!

Helen likes to use circles to anchor her embellishment clusters and don't they look good teamed with the chevrons?

 I hope you enjoyed seeing our challenge and for our next one we will be using a shaped piece of patterned paper on our page. I have acquired several over the years ( including this one )and need to use them or lose them, so I am hoping to find some inspiration for creatively using them. Any ideas?

Thanks for popping by. xx

  

  

Water Bombs.

I'm here today to share the page I created for Scrap Our Stash. This stash challenge (#14) was so much fun as there are so many ways to interpret the required elements.

Create a layout and include:
Something Old: Patterned Paper or Embellishment that you has been in your stash 6 months or more
Something New: Patterned Paper or Embellishment that you purchased within the last 6 months
Something Fussy Cut
Something Blue: Patterned Paper, Cardstock, Embellishment, Alphas, Ink/Paint, your choice!

I love the originality of this challenge!

My design was based around the multiple photo's and my 'new' Sn@p Summer Cards, so I created a grid pattern with some lovely stripey paper from Pebbles down one side.

This jelly heart and the three jelly dots at the bottom of the journaling are my 'something old' stash as I have had them for so many years I can't even begin to work it out when I bought them!

This little cluster are my 'fussy cut' elements, the camera and cloud are from Bella Blvd papers and the banner is just from my scraps.

Lastly these mini alpha stickers are by Echo Park and represent my 'something blue'.

So you want some more details I here you say! All the rules to play along, the rest of the DT inspiration and prize draw conditions can be found on the Scrap Our Stash blog HERE.

Thanks for stopping by. xx