At The Lake

This week's issue challenge at Club CK is to use the colours navy blue, lime green and yellow, like was used on the layout on the cover of this issue of CK.  I knew exactly which papers I'd be using - Echo Park's digi kit that I picked up at Jessica Sprague.  I hadn't used it yet but I knew it would be perfect for this.  I based this layout off a sketch from Page Maps, July 2010.

I did pictures of A at the lake last summer.  I love, love, love that centre picture with Uncle D showing A how to fish.  It's so sweet!

Decorate

I did this layout for the colour challenge for June.  The colour combo?  Grey, red and cream.  I knew I had a digi kit with these colours so I dug it out and used it for the first time.  It's a wintery kit from Katie Pertiet called "Joulunaika" and I love it.  I just hadn't used it before so it was the perfect time.  These pictures are from the Breakfast With Santa that we went to last year.

The title font is CK Heritage and the journalling font is Santa's Sleigh, from Dafont.com.  It's based off a sketch from Page Maps.

My Sis & Me

Over at Skrap 'n Chat, Karen challenged us to use no patterned paper or pre-made embellies.  We could use stamps, mists, border punches, anything to make our own patterned paper.  I didn't make my own patterned paper but I did break out the stamps to help me with this layout.

The green border is a stamp from a sentiments stamp sert from Close To My Heart.  I hadn't ever used it on only part of the page so I made some boo-boos with the ink going over where I wanted it to, but I figured out what I needed to do after a couple times.

All these little bugs are stamps from Close To My Heart.  They are just so darn cute but they are so darn tough to cut around, especially the antennae.

The little flourishes here are stamps from the same set:

Here, I wanted to add something with how long K's legs look, especially compared to teeny tiny A.  So, out came the Stickles.

It's All in the Details

I love Allison Davis's sketches.  And I love Jennifer De Wolfe's scrapbooking style.  So, what better thing to do than to scraplift one of Jennifer's layouts based on one of Allison's sketches?!  Here is my layout, called "It's All in the Details".

I have so many photos left to scrap from our road trip last year so I decided to use some of them for this challenge.  Instead of a "typical" travel page, I chose to focus in on some of the details.  I used Katie Pertiet's "Grass, Sand n Sea" papers, the flowers are from kits by Julie Billingsley, Melissa Bennett and Eva Kipler and the border punch is from Splendid Finns.

And here's Jennifer's layout, "Starting Now":

And here's the link to the original sketch (#11).

Jamaica Day Pre-K Style

I did this layout for the weekly challenge at Club CK to lift a layout posted to the Layout Lottery thread. I chose to lift this layout by my friend, Laurie:

I love the simplicity of it and how classy it looks.

For my layout, I did the left-hand page as my lift and then made a second page to go with it to incorporate all the pictures I wanted to use.  My layout doesn't have the classy feel that Laurie's has but I really like how it turned out.

I did this layout about K's first school-wide event back in October.  The whole school had prepared presentations for the parents to celebrate Jamaica Day.  K's class danced the Maypole Dance with the Grade 5 students and it was the sweetest thing!  And our sweet little girl who was so terribly shy and still crying every morning about going to school surprised us so much on stage.  She came out with the other kids and skipped across the stage and had an absolute blast doing their dance.  She had a big grin on her face the whole time.  That's when we realized that she must be the kind whose place is the stage.  :)

I used a mish-mash of products from several of the digi kits I have:  "Animal Farm" and "Festive in Green" by Heather Roselli; "Mouse Mania" and "Find Your Wings" by Julie Billingsley; "Artistic U" by Melissa Bennett; "Tutu Cute" by Just So Scrappy and "Hobby of Memories" from JDS.


I took the same yellow alpha I used for the first part of the title and recoloured them for the second part because there was too much yellow had I kept it.  I love so much that I've learned how to do that!!!

Technique Tuesday

Over at Club CK, we are going to start doing Technique Tuesday.  Every week, a member will share a technique that she developed or found.  It'll be a fun way to share different scrappy things.

I came across a tutorial on making Ric Rac flowers over at Skrap 'n Chat.  I loved how they looked so I thought I'd give it a whirl.  I have to admit that the first one was really tricky and I had to start over about three times.

What do you need for the flowers?
* Hot glue gun
* Circle (mine was 2" for the first one; the smaller the circle, the tougher to wrap)
* A lot of ric rac
* Something to finish off the flower - button, brad, paper circle, etc.

Here are my tips before starting:

* Use ric rac that isn't too stiff.  For the first flower I did, I used bigger ric rac and it was pretty stiff.  It made it tough to wrap it tight.  

* Use just a little glue at a time.  I found it better to just squirt a bit at a time and then wrap slowly.  That way you can get the ric rac more even and avoid gaps.  

*  You don't want the ric rac straight up or flat so you need to play around a bit with how you want it.

Step 1:  Squirt some glue in the centre of the circle.

Step 2:  Start wrapping the ric rac from centre.  Keep it tight to start.   Keep the "v"s tight at the bottom.  

Step 3:  Just keep wrapping it around.  Try to do it tight enough to not have gaps but not too tight or it will get quite thick.

Here's what it looks like as you're going:

Step 4:  When you've finished, just trim the ric rac and then trim the cardstock back so you don't see it.

Step 5:  Finish it off with a button or brad.

The flower on the right was my first one.  You can see it's standing up more than the one on the left.

Juicy Goodness

This was for a fast scrap challenge over at Skrap 'n Chat to do a scraplift of one of Kirsten's layouts.  I got the layout done in less than an hour, which is great for me.  (Doing that 15-minute challenge must have helped me!)

The initial layout didn't have the stitching on the strips or the circle, which is why I was able to get it done in an hour.  However, I felt like something was missing, so I decided to add the stitching to add a little more texture.  I used Lynn Grieveson's "French Summer" digi kit.

I don't usually do a layout with so much white space but I am happy with how this turned out.  

Daddy & Me

This layout is of D with A on our hike at Las Siete Tazas in Chile.  It was such a great hike and I got some good pictures of the two of them.  I'm getting D to think of the journalling he wants on this page and write it himself.  I want the kids to have a few samples of their daddy's handwriting, not just mine.