Let's eat lots of candy to celebrate the New Year!

A day late & a dollar short?

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday because it was, in a word, crazy! I ended up cleaning the house. Mostly. So, here I am, on a very wet and windy Thursday, posting the sketch I should have posted yesterday, but didn't get done until this morning.

I sometimes have people ask me where the inspiration for my sketches comes from, and , honestly, they are mostly created out of necessity. Since I am a photographer, it is usually my goal to jam as many photos relating to the event on one layout as possible, without cropping them down too much. I do have a couple double-pagers I should post on here so you can see what I mean :)

For this layout, I used papers from Die Cuts With a View Far East Stack and K & Co. The journal card is from Bo Bunny and the smaller card behind it is from Provo Craft. The Flowers are from Darcie (I need to find more of them... these were my last 3!)

I may have to have a Prima buying binge...

Check out all the major yumminess they are coming out with! http://prima.typepad.com/prima/2009/10/prima-product-picks.html  I think the butterflies are my absolute favorite!

It's still Wednesday where I'm at...

So that means, there's still time to post a couple of the promised sketches. I also have an altered item and a mini book that I am working on that I will post when I am done.

Again, I have been trying to sketch things differently than I have before, pushing the limits and I am so loving how these are all turning out. I have no examples yet, so if you have a layout you have tried using my sketches, please post a link in my comments so I can see :)

I had the day off today and there was so much that I ended up having to do. I ended up dealing with 2 loads of Charlie's incredibly stinky laundry this morning that needed immediate attention. Normally, I make the kids do their own laundry. This was an exception. You know that when the smell wafts down the hallway and into the living room, there's some stinky stuff going on. These offending loads required bleach just to help rid them of the smell (at least they were socks and undies, right?)

Well, I then had my own laundry to wash, so I plopped in my one load of laundry, which is mostly all black due to work clothes dress code. Apparently, my wonderful washing machine decided to save some of the bleach for my load as well... thereby rendering half of my laundry black with yellow splotches. As Murphy's Law would have it, the half that was attacked was also the newer and most comfortable half. Needless to say, I am now waiting on my washing machine (at 10:30 at night) to finish the soak cycle so I can run it on the wash cycle with a nice vat full of black dye. Don't you just love surprises?

To tide you over...

I couldn't resist posting this sketch this morning & I can't wait to try it out (alas, I can only do that later because I have to get ready for work now...). Also, I am almost done with my font, so as soon as I am finished, I will post it!

Monstrously Adorable

I got this layout done last night for a page in our Book of Weird and I couldn't resist showing it off!

Does anyone remember Harry & The Henderson's? This is near where they filmed it and this wood carver decide to have a park dedicated to the big guy himself. I totally couldn't resist using some of my Monstrosity on this, but there is also some chipboard from Scenic Route, some stickers from K & Co. and 7Gypsies, and even some other miscellaneous stuff.

Stay tuned & I'll post some more sketches on Wednesday. I have had a ton of them just rolling around in my head!

In Memory

Something told me it was time to do this layout today. I'm not sure if it was because there were several of both their movies on TV last night, or just because it is the season for remembrance of the dead, but I did get it done. This was a hard layout to do because I have never scrapped anything like this before, and I wanted it to be special. I think I accomplished that. It all fell together with the sketch, so that's the one I am sharing this time.

For the layout on this, I used papers from the Die Cuts With a View Far East Stack in the background and some Scenic Route textured cardstock for the title. I cut out the title using a font called Parseltongue. The crow was cut using the KR Crow font and the dragon was cut using  a dragon dingbat font that I now can't find. The flowers and bling are from Darcie. For the journal spot, I used a stamp from Autumn Leaves and the flourishes are from JoAnn (got them in the dollar spot there).

For you fellow SCAL users (and digi-scrappers that use CU), I have found an awesome blog! Check out the Scrappin' Cop's Blog (it's in my blog list on the right). She offers a bunch of freebies for personal use and the fonts are to die for!

Fall is my favorite season!

And this is why... on Sunday, we went to the Arboretum & took some beautiful fall pictures!

Concentrating on me...

I am taking a little break. I'm not sure how long it will be, but I have been suffering with a large amount of melancholy as of late. I think it is because I have been pushing myself hard at work and hard at home. My brain is tired, my body is tired. Therefore, I am taking a break. This is not to say that I won't be visiting my usual haunts, I will just be visiting them less frequently and not participating in any challenges. I have been pressing so long to get things done, that I am tired of working on a time frame. I am trying out for the design team over at Scrap-Tastic, so this little mini vacation will help if I get on it :)

That being said, it doesn't mean that I will be abandoning this blog. Far from it. I will be posting my layouts and sketches here more than anywhere else. And here's a couple layouts and a couple sketches for your enjoyment...

I did my example layout for this sketch because I was toying with some ideas for the photo I ended up using. Sometimes photos will tell you an immediate story, and sometimes, you just have a hard time figuring out how you want to tell that story with what items you have to use. This was one of those. I love the end result, though!

For my layout, I used papers from (background) Die Cuts With a View, (Dots) Crate, and Sassfras. The Journal Spot is also Sassfras. I used some flowers from Prima and metal ornaments from JoAnn. The flourishes are actually fussy cut from some organza ribbon I got at Michael's a while back. And, the chipboard is some flocked letters from Amanda Blu that I bought a while ago, but never used. I really didn't like the colors on this page, but the texture went just right, so I painted them with some acrylic paint and then used my black fine-tipped Zig pen to outline them.

My second sketch has no layout at the moment, but I did this one as an homage to one of my favorite scrappers... who has inspired me to climb out of my comfort zone and pile on the embellies :)

 

Her name is Toni and she is one of the DT Girlies at Scrap-Tastic. I can't recreate her style at all, but I absolutely ADORE it! Make sure you check out her blog and leave some love for her! It's Life as a Scrapper.

My last little thing here is another of my Sassafras explosions. I love love love how this came together... and yes, I did realize that I spelled "eighth" wrong... only after I got it all done and scanned in.