Colorful Aquarium Layout

My kids love going to the aquarium to see the shows and the sharks, and my hubby and I love the big tanks of marine life, so it's a favorite activity for us, especially when it's cold out and we can see all the inside stuff. I took quite a few pictures on this January 2018 trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific, so I ended up putting a bunch in a pocket page (not pictured here) that will go between the two pages. Even though I used a double page sketch as my base, I didn't feel the need to be perfectly matchy-matchy since the pages won't actually appear side by side in my album.

I included a card for my journaling into the pocket page, so here it is along with the photo of my son with the penguin mascot, his absolute favorite part of the day, and the cool lion's mane jelly:

Recipe:
Watercolor papers (Recollections)
Color Kaleidoscope & Let's Wander papers (American Crafts)
Turquoise fineliner pen (iBayam)
Let's Wander cardstock stickers & Thickers (American Crafts)
Fish Tales Elements stickers (PhotoPlay)
Cool Summer Night enamel dots (Altenew)
Pattern: Stick It Down January 2025 Double sketch (revised for 2 columns of photos)

Challenges: Park Hopping My Happy Place - the fish stickers remind me of visiting Sea World!

The Story Layout

I was asked to guest design for Heart's Quest Challenges Blog's latest challenge to use white, purple, and/or pink hearts. I decided to go with the white and purple, and even threw in a blue one just for fun! The photos are from a birthday party my kids attended (complete with a roasted pig), and I copied my original post from Facebook to tell the story of my son's humorous answer to a request I made.

Recipe:
Story FYI, Whooo's Your Valentine & Just Be You stamp sets
Watercolor paper (Recollections)
Color Kaleidoscope paper (American Crafts)
Sparkle & Shine paper
Black, Lagoon, Grape, Mulberry & White Daisy cardstock
Black, Eggplant & Juniper ink
Black marker
White gel pen (Sakura)
Black glitter tape
Purple glitter gems
Liquid Glass
Triplets Butterfly Dies (Sizzix)
Nested Stitched Rectangles dies (Cottage Cutz)
Cricut Artiste cartridge: hearts, pennants
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: banners
Pattern: Sketch-n-Scrap #48 using papers over a year old

Challenges: Double Trouble #183 Recipe - 3 Images of your Choice (I chose a butterfly and 4 types of hearts) + 2 Patterned Papers + 1 Sentiment that Makes you Smile (Treasure the now); Cut It Up #322 Have a Heart

Birthday Boy Layout for Lasting Memories #735

Greetings and happy Sunday. It's challenge time over at Lasting Memories, and this is the last challenge for January. Hopefully you have had a chance to join us, but if not, this may inspire you to dig out some photos and get scrapping. We are getting deliberate about our designs, so I asked everyone to focus on their finishes by adding three groups of embellishments. I added a large group in the upper left corner on my journaling card, a medium cluster with my balloons and the sentiment over to the right, and a tiny grouping with the ribbon and metal tag. 

Recipe:
Artiste Birthday & Noted Backgrounds stamp sets
Grandpa's Attic paper (SEI)
Hawthorne paper
Almond, Barn Red, Black & White Daisy cardstock
Almond, Barn Red, Sky & Black ink
Black marker
Washi tape (Recollections)
Everyday Moments pocket card (Scrapbook.com)
Metal Badge Buttons
Beetle Black Puffy hearts (Doodlebug Designs)
Metal tag
Blue/Black ribbon (Michaels)
Ebony Black Nuvo Drops
Tim Holtz Dot Fade stencil (Stampers Anonymous)
Circle Double Stitched Steel Die (Art Impressions)
Cricut Artiste cartridge: title, balloons
Challenges: Crafter's Cafe #315 Anything goes with optional birthday theme; My Time to Craft #552 Masculine theme

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day Layout for Lasting Memories #734

Greetings everyone, and thanks for visiting my blog today. Hope you are having a nice January so far and are enjoying scrap-able moments! I am hosting the  challenges for the month over at Lasting Memories, and this week we are focusing on scrapping multiple photos while making one our obvious focus photo. Hopefully you can tell which one is my focus photo! We would love to have you play along at Lasting Memories this month, so click on the link above to join this and our other challenges.

Recipe:
Let's Wander patterned papers & Mixed Media papers (American Crafts)
Capri, Black, Ponderosa Pine, Canary & White Daisy cardstock
Capri ink
Black marker
ShinHan Touch Twin markers
Color Kaleidoscope Thickers (American Crafts)
Illustrated Faith Go! ephemera (Bella Blvd)
Field Notes ephemera (American Crafts)
Let's Wander stickers (American Crafts)
Tag Types adhesive tags (Sticko)
Amy Tangerine puffy stickers (American Crafts)
Smoothie baker's twine
Lagoon washi tape
3-D foam tape
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: vines
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: banner, sun
Cricut Artiste cartridge: cloud
Challenges: Heart's Quest Challenge Blog #69 Anything Goes with multiple colored hearts;  Colorful Options rainbow colors; The Outlawz Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone

New Smile Layout

I'm finally getting started with scrapping my photos from 2018 (only 6 years behind now!) and this seems like a great place to start: my daughter getting braces for the first time in January 2018. Although I know it wasn't a complete success and she ended up having to remove them early since her poor dental hygiene was putting her teeth at risk, I tried to journal what I think I would have been feeling at the time. Can anyone relate? Actually, she now has braces again and we hope to finish the job, but even the first round did help a lot so her bottom teeth weren't cutting into the roof of her mouth!

Recipe:
Alphabet Solos N & Take Note stamp sets
Teen Spirit Girl papers (Echo Park)
Gypsy, Capri, Honey & White Daisy cardstock
Gypsy, Capri, Honey & Raspberry ink
White gel pen (Sakura)
Crafting tape - washi & glitter (Recollections)
Lavender check ribbon (Michaels)
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: tag, stars, banner
Star punch (EK Success)
Pattern: Sketch-n-Scrap #312 - includes twist of old papers + new embellishment (washi and glitter tape)

Challenges: My Time to Craft #551 & Let's Craft and Create #215 - both had challenges to use a sentiment, so in addition to the cute sentiments on the patterned paper, I used a smile stamp as part of my title)

Celebrate Christmas Again Layout for Lasting Memories #733

It's been a crazy week here in Southern California, with wildfires burning out of control and a family sheltering with us following the loss of their home, but things are slowly starting to get back to something approaching normal. I managed to get a layout done, my last one from my 2017 photos, and it is also my Lasting Memories design team entry for this week's challenge: do something a little out of your comfort zone for your journaling. I decided to go with hidden journaling, which I do use quite often, but I also added a moving piece, which I seldom do. I plan to laminate the top ornament for added protection, and then punch through my page protector to hang it on the brad. The top ornament will slide to the side to reveal the rest of the journaling. Hope this inspires you to jump out of your comfort zone with your journaling! Please join us over at Lasting Memories for this and the other challenges this month.   

And here's a view of what the back journaling looks like:

Recipe:
Jingle All the Way & The Holiday Life papers (Simple Stories)
Timeless Stripe paper (Daisy D's)
Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas paper (Echo Park)
Ruby, New England Ivy & Black ink
Ruby, Olive, Ponderosa Pine, Canary & White cardstock
Black marker
New England Ivy Bigger Brad
Primary Stars epoxy shapes (Bella Blvd)
Top Dog epoxy stars (Doodlebug Designs)
Be Merry & Bight mini tag set (Couture Creations)
Paper crimper (Fiskars)
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: Christmas title, ornaments
Cricut Artistry cartridge: Christmas trees, again
Pattern: Pagemaps sketch found on SB.com

Challenges: Cut It Up #321 Something New AND The Outlawz Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone with optional twist of try something new: my new is punching through a page protector - still freaks me out a little to do that! The Outlawz Festive Friday Challenge - Christmas + use blue (stars)

Let's Take This Outside Layout for Lasting Memories #732

Who's ready for a new challenge? Here's the second Lasting Memories challenge for January; this time, we're deliberately focusing on our title. There were lots of options to use, but I decided to go big for the key word "outside" while keeping the rest of the title small, and I also stamped and fussy cut a few of the letters from patterned paper to match the rest of the layout. My final touch was to use foam tape to pop the big title up and give it more dimension. Hopefully that inspired you to come check out the challenge over at Lasting Memories and play along before the end of the month!

Recipe:
Posterboard Alphabet stamp set
6"x 6" patterned papers (from my stash, source unknown)
Pebble & White Daisy cardstock
Black ink
Black marker
Hello Darlin' PML card
Red baker's twine (recycled from around a present!)
Merry Little Christmas Ephemera - Words (Bella Blvd)
Great Lengths sticker (CM)
3-D foam tape

Celebrate 16 Layout

After scrapping mostly Christmas layouts for the month of December and using pre-made embellishments, I seem to have lost the knack of  creating my own. This layout celebrating my son's 16th birthday certainly didn't come out as cute as I envisioned, but I guess it is finished and I will not worry about it!

Recipe:
Good Times papers & My Stickease
Buttercup, Sweet Leaf, Chocolate, Twilight & White Daisy cardstock
Buttercup, Sweet Leaf, Chocolate & Twilight ink
Brown fineliner pen (iBayam)
Garden Green brad
Starry Night stencil (Simple Stories)
Cricut Artistry cartridge: celebrate title
Pattern: EMS Sketch Challenge #31

EMS Sketch Challenge #117 + Christmas Layout

There are many fun ways to start the new year, so I am hoping you will enjoy my special treat for you: a brand new double-page sketch! If you are anything like me, you take a ton of photos at special events like Christmas, and then you have to decide which ones to scrap. Well, this sketch can hold a whopping nine photos, and if you have more, you can do what I did and place the extras in a photo storage page. Of course, if you are not a multi-photo scrapper, I invite you to check out any of the other sketches here on my blog; they are made to be shared and used. Just click on the label in this post that says EMS Sketch challenges, and it will show you all my sketches.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my layout, staying pretty faithful to the sketch:

Recipe:
The Holiday Life papers (Simple Stories)
Almond & Fern cardstock
Ruby, Fern, New England Ivy & Black ink
Black marker
Ho Ho Ho puffy stickers (American Crafts)
Pear & Partridge PML card
The Holiday Life Journal Bits & Page Pieces (Simple Stories)
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: hearts