Let's Go Layout

I am a sucker for a double page sketch, so I was very excited to see a double pager on the Sketches in Thyme Facebook group this month. Although I had 9 photos, far more than the sketch called for, I made it work by using Flip-Flaps to hold 4 additional vertical photos. The vertical photo and the card with the bicycle on it both lift up to reveal more 3 photos. Score! The sketch also inspired me to fire up Cricut Design Space to create the slightly off-center ring, and I think it makes a great focal point for the layout.

Recipe:
Chantilly & Harmonious Patterns stamp sets
Central Park papers
Glacier, Topiary, Pacifica, Ballerina, Poppy & Black cardstock
Topiary, Pacifica, Ballerina, Poopy & Canary ink
Mars Black fineliner pan (iBayam)
Love This & My Happy Place Shape Sprinkles (Doodlebug Designs)
Petticoats & Pinstripes enamel dot (Echo Park)
DE Signage Chipboard shapes
Cricut Design Space: rings, triangles
Cricut You Are Here cartridge: Let's Go
Pattern: Sketches In thyme #714 from Facebook

Challenges: A Cut Above Anything Goes with a die-cut: Heart's Quest Challenge Blog #86 Anything goes with hearts; The Outlawz Anything But a Card; Inkspirational Challenges #370 Leftovers - the patterned papers and all of the cardstock except the base pages and the one I cut the largest ring from were scraps - a great way to use up some leftovers)!

SVK Layout for Lasting Memories #760

Today's Lasting Memories challenge gave me a chance to get nostalgic about a much loved but now defunct scrapbooking company: Close to My Heart. Jill was asking us to create a layout using a favorite brand or designer, and CTMH has long been a favorite for me. I was so sad when they went out of business a couple of years ago, but fortunately, I have enough of their products to last me for the next ten years! What about you?  If you have a favorite designer or brand or company, feel free to hop on over to Lasting Memories and share a layout using lots of their products.

Recipe (unless noted, all products are from CTMH):
Connections, Washi Wonder, Chantilly, Take Note & Picture Perfect stamp sets
Splendor papers
Canary, Candy Apple & White Daisy cardstock
Goldrush, Canary, Candy Apple, Topiary & Black ink
Black marker
Ruby Red fineliner pen (iBayam)
DE Monograms chipboard S, V, K
Red enamel hearts
Dot Fade layering stencil (Stampers Anonymous)
Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: notepaper
Pattern: Splitcoast Stampers Sketch17Mar

Challenges: Heart's Quest #75 Anything Goes with red or blue heart); Can You Handle the Pressure? Anything goes with an embossing folder - I used one to add dots to the red circles; Colorful Options July - I used the four suggested colors, although my green is a little darker like in the photo.

Banners Birthday Card

I whipped up a quick masculine birthday card today. I originally had three stickers on the right side of the card, but they didn't quite look right, so I used the numbers die-cut instead. While inking the edge of the one sticker I used, I got some ink smeared on the sticker, but it worked out okay because I was inspired to use the sentiment banners to cover it up - win win!

Recipe:
Chantilly stamp set
March/April 2021 Mix-In paper
Kraft cardstock
Orange & Peacock ink
Orange ribbon
Party Hat Frame sticker (Pixie Press)
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: numbers
Pattern: Try a Sketch on Tuesday #670

Challenges: AAA Birthday #73 Anything birthday

 Double Trouble Challenges #191 - pink ticket for birthday + used kraft cardstock as my card base + used TSOT sketch.

Woodland Themed Birthday Card

My mother-in-law's birthday is this week, so my hubby asked me to make her a birthday card. I dove into my challenges list for inspiration and came up with the following card. Thanks for the inspiration, all you wonderful challenge blogs!

Recipe:
Chantilly, Bugs and Hugs & Wild About Love Stamp sets
Kraft, Olive, Honey Butter, Goldrush & White Daisy cardstock
Honey, Autumn Terracotta, Olive, Garden Green & Chocolate ink
Yellow paper flowers (Recollections)
Woodgrain washi tape
Heart punch (EK Success)
Cricut Artistry cartridge: leady frame & mat
Pattern: Sketch-n-Scrap card sketch #271 (reversed)

Challenges: AAA Birthday Cards #64 Critters; Farm Quest Challenge Blog #57 Forest or Woodland Things;  Inkspirational #321 Woodland; Tic Tac Toe Challenge #253 (used the middle row with flowers  + scoring + die cuts)

Nautical Birthday Card

My hubby's birthday is coming up, so I whipped up this card for him today in between the Mother's Day festivities. He doesn't sail, but I didn't have any fantastic ideas for a card, so I decided to play along with a nautical themed challenge and a few other challenges and came up with this card. Hopefully the next year will be smooth sailing compared to the last few rough years!

Recipe:
Chantilly stamp set
Majestic Blue papers
Kraft, Sapphire, Bamboo & Colonial White cardstock
Heavenly Blue textured cardstock
Sapphire, Outdoor Denim, Crystal Blue, Desert Sand & Bamboo ink
Natural hemp
Edge distressor
Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder
Cricut You Are Here cartridge: sailboat
Pattern: Try a Sketch on Tuesday #646 (I added paper strips in place of the square because the super old paper pack I used had mostly scraps!)

Challenges: Allsorts Challenges #780 Spots and Stripes (embossed spots on the corners + center strip of paper is striped); Retro Rubber Challenges #230 Out to Sea (stamp is from 2013); The Color Throwdown #792

Happy Birthday Brian Layout

I am still working on getting some layouts done for the Five for Five challenge over at Scrapbook.com, so here's my latest. This time, I rotated the sketch to the left and then flipped it before moving the elements closer together to overlap. Then I pulled out some old supplies and stamped a bunch of embellishments to finish it up.

Recipe:
Perfect Fit Birthday, Chantilly, This Happened & Highlight Reel stamp sets
The Stack 4 papers (DCWV)
Goldrush, Blush & Colonial White cardstock
Goldrush, Blush & Fern ink
Raw Sienna fineliner pen (iBayam)
ShinHan Touch Twin markers
Green epoxy bubbles
Fern & Blush ribbons
Blush rick rack
Pattern: Splitcoast Stampers Sketch16May1

Back Lot Tour Layout for Lasting Memories

This month, I have the privilege of being a guest designer for Lasting Memories Challenge blog! The monthly theme is wedding inspiration challenges, so here's the first challenge, based on the "Something old" portion of the wedding tradition. First I pulled out an old sketch that I created for Splitcoast Stampers back in 2015 (see below) to go with photos from 2016. All of the products used on my layout are at least a year old, with the oldest being a piece of vellum (in the half circle window) that dates from 2001. Although it's not the oldest item in my stash - I still have some CM stickers and die-cut triangles from back when I started scrapbooking in 1998 - this piece of paper predates my oldest child, so it's pretty old! Check back every Sunday this month to see a new challenge, and hopefully you will play along.

Recipe:
Chantilly stamp set
Central Park papers
Watercolor papers (Recollections)
Paper Pizzazz Pastel Vellum (Hot Off the Press)
Glacier, Mink & Pacifica cardstock
Glacier, Mink, Pacifica & Baby Pink ink
Cobalt Blue fineline pen (iBayam)
Hopscotch PML journaling card
Let's Wander Thickers (American Crafts)
Slice of Life mini puffy stickers (American Crafts)
Petticoats & Pinstripes enamel dots (Echo Park)
Cricut Southwest cartridge: wheel
Cricut Design Space: title using Parade font
Pattern: Splitcoast Stampers Sketch15Jul1

Challenges: Lasting Memories #597 - Something Old; Retro Rubber challenge #181 Tic Tac Toe (I chose the top row across with watercolor {background} & rectangle {photos} & patterned paper, plus I included vellum and a die-cut, and my stamp is the cloud one from 2012)

Where the Wild Things Are Layout

For my other Natural History Museum layout, I tried to create a very earthy feel because my pictures were taken outside and showed lots of foliage, but I went in a completely different direction with this layout because the pictures were taken inside and focus on kids and animals. The dinosaur themed paper from CTMH's Something Fierce collection was a great background for these photos, and I had fun experimenting with the Illustrated Alphabet stamp set for my title. The stamp set includes the base letter in a block style, which can be stamped over with a pattern. I ended up using a combination of the included patterns (for W and D) and a couple of patterned stamps from another set (for I and L), and combined it with handwritten strips to complete the title.

Recipe:
Illustrated Alphabet & Chantilly stamp sets
Something Fierce papers & stickers
Raspberry & White Daisy cardstock
Bluebird, Caroline, Baby Pink, Lagoon, Whisper, Raspberry, Sunny Yellow & Clover Meadow ink
Black marker
Pattern: EMS Sketch Challenge 66
Challenges: The Studio Challenges Title & Journaling (used 2 fonts for the title and included journaling); Heart 2 Heart Into the Wild challenge

P Is for Play Layout

I haven't scrapbooked in the last week, so I played along with a few challenges in order to kick start my mojo! I've been hoping to use some of the alphabet themed cards that came in the Childhood PML pack that I bought a while back, but they never seemed to fit my layouts, so I'm glad I was able to use two on this layout.

Recipe:
Chantilly & Noted Backgrounds stamp sets
Splendour, Stardust & Zippidee Level 2 papers
Honey, Moonstruck, Desert Sand & White Daisy cardstock
Honey, Moonstruck, & Goldrush ink
Honey & Moonstruck markers
Childhood Picture My Life cards
Honey triangles washi tape
Yellow grosgrain ribbon (Offray)
Yellow enamel dots (Studio Calico)
Let's Go embellishments (Chic Tags)
Cricut Artbooking cartridge: sun
Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: banners, scalloped frame
Pattern: Allison Davis Life Documented Sketch
Challenges: Rochelle Spears April This or That challenge (I used 2 Picture My Life cards); Scrap Our Stash book inspired challenge + use 2 or more clouds (I was inspired by the layered clouds and the yellows and oranges on the book cover. I only had a small scrap of cloud paper in my stash, so I pulled out a stamp I haven't used for a long time and stamped a few clouds); Clear It Out Nature + Greenery challenge (I used leaf/flower/ladybug paper from my stash): Heart 2 Heart "Four" challenge (I thought the four banners on the sketch I used fit the bill perfectly!)

Skylark Cards

I finished the cards for my Skylark workshop just in the nick on time (my workshop is tonight), so I thought I'd share. I usually use sketches as a guide for my cards, but this time, I went with some Pinterest inspiration plus a couple of ideas that just happened as I was pushing pieces around on the card bases.

Uses Wild About Love & Balloon Talk stamp sets

Uses Thank You stamp set

Uses Art Philosophy Tags stamp set

Uses Chantilly WOTG stamp set

Recipe:
Skylark Level 2 papers
Lagoon, Desert Sand, Juniper, Sweet Leaf, Bamboo & Colonial White cardstock
Lagoon, Desert Sand, Juniper & Sweet Leaf ink
Chocolate & Cotton CAndy markers
Lagoon Houndstooth washi tape
Colonial White grosgrain ribbon
Topiary mini chevron ribbon
Seam-binding ribbon
Teal Shimmer Trim
Aqua Dot
Liquid Glass
All die-cut shapes are cut using Art Philosophy & Artiste cartridges

Babycakes Birthday Card

My Babycakes card workshop is tonight, so I wanted to show off a few more of the cards I created. I'm still trying for a non-baby look for this set of cards, and I think I succeeded on this one. I also discovered that if you stamp on seam-binding ribbon, it looks pretty distinct at first, but by the next day, it pretty much bleeds together and you end up with a vintage looking ribbon. Not exactly what I was going for, but I can live with it!

Recipe:

Chantilly & Celebrate the Everyday stamp set

Babycakes Level 2 papers

Buttercup, Sunset, Chocolate & White Daisy cardstock

Buttercup, Sunset, Chocolate & Slate ink

Color-ready seam-binding ribbon

Cricut Artbooking cartridge: scalloped circle

Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge: banners, star

Spots & Dots embossing folder (cuttlebug)

Pattern: Retro Sketches #96