No Sketch This Week...

Because Life has been so hectic. I am still washing machine-less, so all my spare time has been taken up by doing laundry elsewhere. Ugh!

I figured that this was a great week to start adding other sorts of challenges to my blog, so I am starting this week with an Ad Challenge. Pretty much, I Googled "Ads" and looked at what images popped up to see what caught my eye. This particular ad I guess had been banned for some eyelash controversy, but I love the circles behind her, the way the title was done, everything! Even the color scheme is cool! So, my challenge is to use this ad as a "Sketch" of sorts and see what you can come up with. I will post my own take on it as soon as I get a chance to get it done.

Rickafrackin Power outage... And a question.

So, the one night where I had time to post some new layouts and sketches, the power goes out. That was Wednesday night. I haven't had time to do anything since then because I've been working late, so cross your fingers that I can get some done tonight.

I also have an idea to those of you that read my blog: Would you enjoy it if I put some other challenges up as well as my sketches? I am thinking of ad sketches, how much is too much, journaling, colors, etc. Let me know in the comments for this post so I can let you in on some of my other creative boosters.

Back from Vacation

I am soooo ready to go back, already! I told Joe that we need to win the lottery so we could just continue our vacation :) Anyhow, I did bring back some inspiration from the World of Disney. They sell these frames for several of the attractions, but the Haunted Mansion is my favorite, so I had to post this one:

 

This is something I could totally see doing even as a child's name. Very cool idea.

Anyhow, I go back to the grind of work tomorrow, so I will be posting new sketches and stuff on my usual Wednesday schedule.

A Relaxing Day

I spent today (mostly) with the family. We took the dog to the beach for a little while and he loved it! I can't say that I have ever seen a dog that liked to swim quite so much. He won't even catch a stick, but he'll dive right in to  the water. We went to Howarth Park, which looks like this 

on a sunny day. Today, it was pretty overcast and not nearly as many people. Perfect for us! So, my inspiration today is from this wonderfully relaxing day. 

I also have a couple of sketches to share, since it's Sunday and all... and to make up for the fact that there will be none during my vacation since I will be at the Happiest Place on Earth!!! (Though I may post pictures from my phone if I remember to).

Happy Scrapping!

Since I am ot scrapping at the moment...

I thought I would peruse Flickr while I am updating my album (I know... it's been like a year since I have uploaded any pics to it), I would explore it. Today's inspiration comes from a photo I found:

I love the colors on this pillow and the patterns remind me of Sassafras. I also love how the design is! I could totally see using this as a design for a layout!

For today's sketch, I figured I ought to start planning for my vacation pages, so this one is in anticipation of Mad Tea Cups photos :)

Can you tell I'm excited? You can be sure I will be updating my Twitter & Facebook often.

Have a creative day!

Inspired by my kids on this Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day! I know I did! Today, I am inspired by my kids. My son has a very unique perspective on things, and a great sense of humor, my daughter is very original and colorful (What can I say... she's an artist!)

 

I also have a bonus sketch for you this Mother's Day... consider it my present to all you scrapping moms out there! It was meant to be a round layout sketch, but it shows up as rectangular on my computer, which actually looks pretty cool if you ask me.

Hope you had a great day!

Two Quick Sketches & some inspiration

A couple colorful sketches for your enjoyment today :) I am playing around with Inkscape lately, so I used that to create these. They are both formatted for 8 1/2 x 11 layouts, but could easily be used for a squared layout or even cards!

Today's inspiration is just to be silly! I had so much fun reading this site in prep for vacation: Disney Lies

Have some fun & be silly today!

See how bad I am...

I already skipped a couple days of Inspiration. It's not entirely my fault, though. I really haven't been on my laptop much. Most of my internet browsing has been done via my phone recently. I did find a nice one for today, though. This one comes from a site called coach4u.net.

I have also made a decision... not an easy one, but a decision. I will be posting sketches, but, until we get back from vacation, I can't do any scrapping, other than finishing my Mother's Day projects and stuff. The reason for this decision is that I don't want to use all my new papers and goodies and then get around to scrapping my vacation photos and find that I already used what would be the perfect paper for those photos. I know, I'm a little batty, but I already used some paper that I was going to use for vacation photos and can't get any more of it, so I'm just playing it safe.

Have an awsome Sunday!

Spring is in the air!

I am so happy that my laptop is working! Not only that, but we were able to get Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 working on it :) As you can guess, I am an RCT junkie. I can spend hours playing the game!

As you can tell, I have been Tweeting like crazy... mostly because I can use my phone for it and can access them pretty much anywhere. Expect Tweets from DisneyLand (we'll be there in a month yayyyyy!!!!)

In addition to my weekly sketches, I have decided to try to have Daily Inspiration. This is as much for me as for everyone that reads my blog. Not only is it a great thing to try to do, but it also will let me have all my inspiration in one spot which I can easily access :) We'll see how I can keep this up lol! Anyhow, the Daily Inspiration may be a quote or a picture or it might even be an ad or a magazine layout from somewhere. Feel free to put your own inspiration in my comments :) I love comments!

Today's Inspiration comes from a site called Quotes Arcade

And now on to my sketch and layout for today. I wasn;t able to get a 2nd sketch, but I may post a bonus as soon as I think up a few more.

For my layout, I used papers from My Little Shoebox. This is a company that I am really liking... almost as much as I love Sassafras! I just got some of their newer lines, and I can say that Imaginary Friends is soooo cute I may not be able to use it... but I will try. I also used a different technique on here... I wanted the rainbow letters to look painted and didn't want to deal with using several pieces of paper through my Cricut, so I used some Chalk Pastel Pencils and sketched a block of color for each letter, then I smeared my fingers across them to blend them. After I cut them, I traced each letter with a super fine black pen and filled in the inside with iridescent craft glitter glue. 

I also must share with you another layout I did using My Little Shoebox... no sketch for this one because I made this one up as I went along... I cut along the inside of the shaped paper to make the basket, except the part that I left for journaling on. The Flowers are Prima & the felt is Queen & Co. I cut out the chocolate bunny using an Easter font I found (sorry, don't remember the name or where I found it... I think I just Googled it to find it).

Have an inspiring day!

For the beautiful blogs out there...

I got this awarded to me by The Lady Wolf (a/k/a my sister lol!) Thank you, Amanda :) A great end to a great day today :)

Terms of the award: Must list 10 things about yourself, thank the person who gave it to you and pass it onto 10 wonderful bloggers:

10 THINGS ABOUT ME

1. I have a zoo- 4 cats, a dog, 2 turtles, a bearded dragon, 2 birds & a ball python

2. I am living in the house I grew up in.

3. My cat's full name is Rascal Kanga Roo, but we call him Roo Roo for short because he hops when he runs & he doesn't meow, he roos...

4. All of my pets have multiple nicknames.

5. I drive a red Mitsubishi Montero Sport named Ruby.

6. My scrap area recently relocated to a corner of my bedroom.

7. My lawn needs mowing.

8. I love chocolate, but am addicted to sugar free popcicles... even when it's freezing cold outside.

9. I prefer tea over coffee.

10. I am a rock n roll chick.

And now, my turn to pass this on to 10 other wonderful bloggers!

1) The Elf Queen

2) Dalovely Damanda

3)Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

4)My Next 30 Years

5) Loquacity of Latharia

6) Life as a Scrapper

7) Crazier in Real Life

8)Wooo Hoooo!

9)Living Out Loud

10) Mickey's Pics and Scraps

Hope you all keep it going & recognize your fellow bloggers/scrappers!

A different kind of inspiration

Sorry, folks, there's no sketch today. Instead, I am sharing a layout created using one of my favorite sources of inspiration- ads. Our friends in the consumer advertising world have provided us with years of inspiration! I just use Google Image Search to find an ad that I want to use! Of course, now that I am posting this, I can't find the ad I used, but I hope you enjoy the layout!

For this layout, I used paper from Die Cuts With A View and also some tage cut from some BoBunny paper. The stars are actually some mini tree garland that I bought after Christmas a couple years ago.

Have fun looking for some ad inspiration!

Finding inspiration in the odd & (slightly?) (in)sane

So, not too long ago, I stumbled upon this website- Gublerland - that caught my attention not only because of the odd art, not only because of the animated home page, but because it was, well, fun! I looked at a few things and continued on, but I bookmarked it because it was interesting.

On a short, little side-note, you who know me all know how much of a crime-drama junkie I am... here's the kicker...

As I perused this website, I found that this is actually the website for Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays the very quirky but genius Dr. Spencer Reid on the show "Criminal Minds". How awesome is that?  I don;t know what's cooler... finding that out, or turning the volume on while looking at the "Website" section & hearing a recitation of Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee."

Anyhow, check it out- it's all sorts of awesome.
Here's my favorite: