Playing with Angel

This is October's sketch challenge...actually a two-page layout this time. All materials are CTMH. Background cardstock is Dutch Blue and White Daisy. The thin strips and scalloped strips are Moonstruck (the scallops are created with a Paper Shaper corner punch). The flowers are hand drawn with a Moonstruck marker and cut out, using silver brads to hold them in place. The date is stamped with the Tiny Typewriter alphabet set and embossed with white embossing powder. "Playing with" is also stamped with Tiny Typewriter in Dutch Blue and "Angel" is stamped with the Spunky alphabet set (retired) in Moonstruck. The paw prints, bone and dog are done in Dutch Blue, Bamboo and Chocolate, respectively, with the Puppy Love stamp set.

The pictures are now real ones (replacing temporary paper copies). It is my brother-in-law, Scott, playing with his dog, Angel, and his niece, Julia.

Mom

This layout is from a workshop my friend did. The supplies are all CTMH. I didn't have any pictures for it when we did it in honor of Mother's Day, but this summer I dressed the family in clothes that would work well with the colors in the layout and my sister graciously used her new camera to take these pictures of us.

Two Little Monkeys

My two little monkeys, having so much fun together!

This layout also uses all CTMH supplies. The striped paper and the circle paper are preprinted, but the rest I stamped.

Mother's Day

My sister wanted to celebrate her first Mother's Day at the Garden of the Gods, so we packed a pot-luck lunch and headed down to Colorado Springs. Everyone had a fun time climbing up rocks after we ate.

This is another sketch challenge answer (at least the first page is). The paper is CTMH's Life Delights, the colors of which work perfectly with the colors of the rock, trees and sky. The alphabet is stamped with the Elegant Script set (and accented with Playful Petals on the second page.)

Honeycombed! at the Butterfly Pavilion

These are answers to another sketch challenge from my friend. The sketch is used in its original form for the first page, then used upside down for the second.

The first page uses paper I had on hand. The alphabet stamps are one of the few non-CTMH sets I have. I bought it because it was such a pretty alphabet, but the stamps themselves are very flimsy and hard to work with. The butterflies are punches I bought to go with Julia's butterfly baby scrapbook. The large bracket was printed off the computer and turned over and stamped in ink to coordinate with the yellow-gold color scheme. I have since found an acrylic stamp set with various large punctuation symbols to complement my collection of CTMH's Solos line.

The second page uses almost exclusively CTMH products. The background butterfly paper and the pink striped paper is from the Discovery pack. The circle and butterfly stickers are from the coordinating "My Stickease."

That 'Mazing

This is what Aaron said when he got his first remote-controlled GeoTrax train: "That 'mazing" or "That's amazing."

The title is traced from a template and cut out. The ovals are cut with the CM cutting system and the "Choo Choo" and train are stamps from CTMH.

Spread Your Wings

This is the last page of my daughter's baby book, the theme of which is butterflies. I thought the quote made a perfect ending to the book. The paper is Creative Memories' Cabana Power Palette, with some other white cardstock "lace" (cut with a decorative rotary cutter blade). I loved this picture of my husband kissing then one-month-old Julia, so I changed it to a B&W, so the bold colors of the paper wouldn't distract from it, and added just a touch of a red tone to it. The quote is computer-printed on vellum and embellished with butterfly and dragonfly shankless buttons.

Julia—First Twelve Months

These pages are similar to the ones I did for Aaron. The two pages above are some favorites that I didn't get a chance to use or just had to put in again. The stickers are another set of "Wonderful One." It opens into the four-page spread below, and the pictures go from left to right in two rows for the first three pages and the last picture is One Year Old!

The floral/paisley beige and purple papers are Making Memories Lauren, as is the green dots. The other paper is stuff I bought that matched or cardstock I had on hand. The month labels are printed in a computer font in black, and then I stamped over them a bookplate and attached it with blue brads.

Aaron Can Sleep About Anywhere & Eating an Apple

This first layout was a challenge by my friend. She posted a sketch from pagemaps.com on her website and challenged her friends to make a layout from it. I took up the gauntlet and came up with this.

Except for a small piece of CM blue paper, all materials are from Close to My Heart (CTMH). The blue diamond paper is preprinted, but all the rest is cardstock stamped in a coordinating color. The title is also stamped using acrylic alphabet stamps (making it very easy to line up and space letters).

The second layout I came up with because I thought that the facing page should be at the same crazy angle. Again, all materials are CTMH.

Grinning Girl

This is another one of my favorite layouts. At this point in time, whenever Julia got to laughing, she would wrinkle up her nose, too. To take this photo, I focused the camera, and then did something silly to make her laugh, and snapped the picture.

The patterned paper, and the orange and pink paper (not the title) are from a Rob and Bob paper pack. The colors were a bit "out of my box" but they were cute enough to try and worked perfectly with her shirt and bib. The quote is another vellum Quote Stack by DCWV, held on by two spiral clips. "We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body. —Ralph Waldo Emerson"

The Hawaiian Dress

For this layout I tried to mimic the pattern in my daughter's dress. I started with a red strip of cardstock, then used a flower punch (Paper Shaper large retro flower) and a circle punch to make the flowers. The leaves are a large heart template traced and cut out, then artfully cut in half and decorated with markers. A few extra flowers and leaves were used to fill up blank space on the next page.

Julia's Hearts

My daughter during one of those rare moments when she would nap, under a quilt made by her grandmother.

For this layout I took several copies of two pictures of the quilt (front and back) and cut them up into one-inch squares. Then I alternated a front picture with a back picture to create the background frame. The inside frame is random squares of just the front, and the edges are mitered quarter-inch strips of cardstock. The lower picture is the label on the back of the quilt.

A Mother's Arms

This is one of the few times I actually went out looking for a particular piece of patterned paper to complete a layout. I wanted something that would work with the orange and yellow in the kids' shirts, and I found it in the clearance rack even! The striped paper is my bargain find, and the other cardstock is stuff I had on hand that matched.

The quote by the 5x7 reads, "A mother's arms are made of tenderness and children sleep soundly in them. —Victor Hugo." Both vellum quotes are from DCVW Quote Stacks.

This is also one of the first pages where I used Quicklets. Quicklets, from Eyelet Outlet, are eyelets that are pre-scored on the back, so one can literally set them with a ballpoint pen! Yes, eyelets that don't need a hammer! They come in a wide variety of colors at eyeletoutlet.com. They have "regular" eyelets, too, so be sure to look for Quicklets.

Daddy's Shoes

Aaron tried on Daddy's dress shoes one day.

This is not an original idea. I think I first saw it on DIY's scrapbooking show, and the templates were on their website, except for the legs—I had to make those myself—and I added a bit of shirt at the top. The title is traced from a template and cut out.

Hold My Heart, Hold My Hand

My newborn daughter, Julia.

This is the first page I made after I got into stamping. My friend became a consultant for Close to My Heart, which had just come out with clear acrylic stamps. I loved the idea that one could actually see what one was stamping and the fact that they took up less room to store than traditional rubber stamps.

The paper, except for the tan cardstock, is Creative Memories. The cardstock is CTMH Bamboo, stamped in Indian Corn Blue and Outdoor Denim. The handprints behind the quotes are stamped on the cardstock, as is the red heart, and overlaid with vellum, on which the quotes are printed in gray in various fonts. The title quote is printed in black.

I knew I wanted to use a quote on this page, and looked up all sorts of quotes about hands. I couldn't decide on one, so I chose to use them all!

Daddy's Dirty Hat

This is the hat my husband wears to mow the lawn so it's a bit stained with sweat. Aaron found it in the closet one morning and tried it on.

The hat is hand drawn and accented with a silver pen and silver letter stickers (both CM). The "eyelets" are dots from the letter stickers, then punched through with a small circle punch. The football is cut using the CM cutting system's oval template, but the paper was shifted to make more of a football shape after half a cut. It is accented with a white opaque marker.

The Joker's Wild

This is one of my favorites. We were playing cards at my parents' house and of course 21-month-old Aaron wanted to play, too. My father found an old deck of cards for him, and in this particular picture, he's mouthing the Joker! To highlight the evil grin on his face, I didn't eliminate the red-eye and used red paper (from CM). The title is traced from a template and cut out, and "wild" is traced with a silver pen (also CM).

New Slide

This is a simple layout using primary colors to highlight the blue and red in the slide and the yellow of Aaron's romper. The title is traced from a template and cut out. I used somebody's new CM star punches and layered them and I also used my new pentagon template for the CM cutting system (but I had to cut my own white one for a journaling box).

Mommy & Me

One night I had the crazy notion that I wanted a picture of Aaron and me in our bare feet and blue jeans. I set up the camera on a tripod for my husband so he could take the picture. For some reason it is a bit grainy, but somehow that just adds to the image, in my opinion.

The picture is a B&W 5x7, with a color 4x6 torn on the sides and placed on top of the B&W. (Hint: spray any torn pictures with a sealant, like Krylon's "Preserve It!", or the torn edges will keep disintegrating and get white lint all over.)

I shopped around for some denim accents to make this page. The stripes at the top are a piece of patterned paper. Another piece of denim patterned paper serves as the background. The letter stickers are clear, printed in brown, so I backed them with white cardstock so the letters wouldn't be striped. The overalls strap is a clear sticker that also came with some button stickers, which cover up some unwanted clutter in the background of the photo.

Aaron—First Twelve Months

The first two pages actually open up to a four-page spread, which are the last four photos.

These pictures are basically ones I liked that didn't fit elsewhere on previous pages. They are accented with "Wonderful One" stickers from a large sheet.





This four-page spread uses paper and buttons from Laura Ashey's burgundy collection. I loved the colors and using the plaid made it look fit for a boy. The smaller pictures are in order across the rows, from birth to 11 months, and the last large one is One Year Old!

Mommy Let Me Have the Spoon

Ten months old, and he wanted to hold the spoon himself for his morning cereal. Well, why not? He has to learn sometime, right?

Well, he made the biggest mess I'd seen up to that point! As a result, the third page: "Then Straight into the Tub." Our Lab, Tucker, had just as much fun cleaning up as Aaron had making the mess, and I found out that fresh peaches don't wash out well.

The first two pages use paper and cardstock from various sources. The larger letters in the title are traced from a template and cut out; the smaller letters are written with a blue marker on white cardstock and colored around with a yellow-gold marker. The spoons and bowl are hand drawn and pieced together. The quote is my first computerized quote, printed on acid-free paper.

The third page uses Sharon Soneff letter stickers that I traced with a purple pen to help the letters stand out, and the "into" and "the" were done by hand to mimic the letter stickers. The tub, soap and duck are Jolee's. The curtain and rod are cut from corrugated cardstock. The puddle underneath is cut from regular cardstock and the tiled background (it doesn't show up well in the picture) is white cardstock scored every quarter inch to make tiny squares.

Sweet Dreams

My son, three days old. This page is actually the last one in his baby scrapbook; I thought it would be a good ending to my project, the first scrapbook I'd made in at least five years.

This page was made in February 2005. The paper and stickers are all Daisy-D, I believe (it was long ago so I'm not sure I remember correctly), and the title is hand-drawn and colored in. This was my first attempt with tearing paper to create a border.