A New Design Team

I just received news this morning that I will be joining the Nuts About Sketches Design Team for March- August! I just discovered this sketch blog, but I really like the sketches! Many of them use multiple photos and there are lots of 2 pagers!!

Part of the application process was to make a layout based on the sketch below. I took Addy to Nickelodeon Universe on Sunday and I thought this sketch would work great with the photos. The photos are a little blurry (two of them are REALLY blurry) behttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcause I just used the camera on my phone, but I wanted to use them anyway.


I used the voucher with our credits on it as part of the design and worked off of the bright colors on that and in the photos. I used my Cricut to cut out the big purple flower shape and then stitched around the whole layout and the flower with my sewing machine. I discovered that I am much better at stitching in a straight line than I am around curves. There is some pretty awful stitching hidden behind those photos! :)

February Calendar and Practical Scrappers Update

I finished the February layout for our calendar/ Project 12 today. I used another Sketch Support sketch. I am really liking these sketches for this project because they allow a lot of space for lots of photos and it is easy to squeeze even more in. For this sketch, I ended up putting three photos on the left hand page instead of 2 and divided one of the 4x6 spaces into two 3x4s. I am using the right hand page for the calendar this month.

This layout also qualifies for Margy's "Flakey" Challenge at Back Porch Memories. The challenge was to simply use snowflakes on your layout.

In other news, I did not make it to the third round of the Practical Scrappers contest. :( Thank you to everyone who voted for me anyway! I had a lot of fun participating in the first two rounds and preparing a layout for the third round. The challenge for the third round was to be inspired by one of the three quilts they posted photos of and to use at least 4 of the following items: Ribbon, Button/s, Banner/s, Tag/s, Eyelet/s, or Chipboard. (I used everything but the tags.) Here is the quilt that I chose to inspire my layout:

I decided to make diamond for my background to mimic the diamonds on the quilt. I then used my sewing machine to zig zag stitch between the squares.

30 Days of Hands on Play Challenge: Day 18 and others

We only had one of the last three days' activities given to us as Elizabeth, who I have been following on this journey, has been sick. :( (I hope you are on the mend!) We came up with our own activities for the other two days.

Wednesday we decided to: play with shaving cream. Ellie has been begging me to get the shaving cream out again so that's what we did. Will was not a fan at all. I have worked with many kids through my previous jobs and his reaction is pretty typical for a kid his age. They are very particular about not getting their hands dirty, unless it is under their conditions.


Addy played for a little while, but she was dealing with the start of a cold and a constantly runny nose and ended up leaving the activity so she could wipe her nose.


Ellie stuck with it for a while, writing in it, scooping it into dishes and squishing it between her fingers.


Thursday's activity was: rough housing. Ellie really wanted to go outside and it was another warm (for January in Minnesota) day so that's what we did. Since it was warm out the snow stuck together wonderfully. First we made a snowman, which was knocked over quickly by bulldozer Will. Then we got into rough housing and had a snowball fight! I didn't bring the camera out for this one because it is easier to participate when you are not holding a camera worried about it getting hit with a snowball. We had a lot of fun!

Today we took another field trip with friends, this time to the zoo. The kids had a great time looking at the animals and playing in the "Beehive" which is the play room for toddlers and preschoolers.





Will started doing something that his big sister Addy has enjoyed doing for quite a while, collecting leaves. It took us a while to get through the end of the Tropics Trail because he was constantly stopping to pick up leaves.

Scrap Fit: Fun at the Fair

This week's challenge at Scrap Fit is to use kraft paper on a layout. I don't use kraft that often for some reason, but I had a lot of fun with this page, so I think I will be pulling it out more often. For the background on the top of the page I used some Ranger Snow Cap Distress Stain on some bubble wrap and pressed the bubble wrap onto the background. I really like how it turned out, it added just the right amount of texture! For the flower border I fussy cut flowers from a sheet of patterned paper and attached them with differing thicknesses of foam adhesive. Finally, for the chipboard flowers, I used various colors of mists to color them. I added some pink Stickles to the pick parts of the flower for even more glittery shine.

30 Days of Hands on Play Challenge: Day 16 and 17

Okay, I'll be honest, I was not thrilled when I saw yesterday's activity: play outside. Yes, we went outside a couple of weeks ago and we didn't have to, but it has since snowed and it is 20 degrees colder.

I told the kids that was our activity and they were so excited so I had to just go along with it. And you know what?! It was fun! I got the kids (and myself) all bundled up and we grabbed the sled and headed to the front yard. Will walked outside before I had a chance to get mittens on his hands and ended up falling and getting his hands covered with snow. Once I got his hands brushed off, I put his mittens on. The first thing the girls did was lay in the snow and make angels.


Will fell a couple more times and ended up with snow covered mittens and lots of snow up his sleeves. I thought that may be the end of his and my outside time. I told the girls to head to the backyard and I brought Will into the house. I took off Will's mittens and realized that his hands were still pretty warm so I just found a different pair of mittens and pulled his sleeves way down over them. We headed back outside and found the girls in the backyard going down the hill on the sled.


I took a couple of turns with Will and then suggested that we head to the front yard again because the hill was bigger there. We all took some more turns sliding down the hill. I then decided to shovel the driveway while the kids played. We were out there for an hour and a half!! The kids had fun sledding, playing with some of their wheeled toys on the driveway as I cleared it, and rolling around in the snow. Maybe I need to take them out more often...


Today's activity was: build a reading tent. I decided to set a up something similar to a fort in the living room facing the window for lots of light. The girls climbed right in and looked at some of the books from our trip to the library last week. Ellie had fun relaxing and looking at books. Addy was a little more interested in figuring out different ways to destroy the tent...


Right after I got the tent set up, Will woke up from his nap. Once I got him cleaned up (this is a story in and of itself...) we all got in the tent and read a few books.

I'm in Round 2!!

Thank you to everyone who voted for me in the Practical Scrappers contest! I made it to the second round!! The challenge for the second round was to make a layout using one of two sketches. Most of the people who made it to the second round chose the first sketch, but I chose the second because it had room for 4 photos and I liked the flowers on it. Here is my layout:


I had a lot of fun making this layout. I did some fussy cutting on the photo mat to frame the large photo. I also used lots of mists on this one. I misted the background with purple mist to give it some interest and I misted the flowers for some shine. For the flowers I wanted to mimic the flowers on my photo mat so I cut out circles in different sizes, crumpled them for some texture, sprayed them with some Perfect Pearls mist, Inked the edges and ridges with purple ink, and then stacked them.

If you like my layout, you can vote for me to advance to round 3 here.

30 Days of Hands on Play Challenge: Day 14 and 15

We are half way through! It has gone so quickly! I am already trying to come up with ways to continue this after we are finished. I'm thinking of maybe putting each thing that we've done (I will probably add other things I come across to keep it interesting) on a slip of paper and then putting it in a jar that we can draw from each morning... We'll see.

Yesterday's activity was: plan a party. I was a little unsure of what to do with this at first, but I decided a tea party of sorts would be fun. So after the kids got up from their naps we gathered around the dining room table and I made hot cocoa and graham crackers with Sunbutter and raisins. I set out a tea cup and saucer for each of us. We all had some cocoa and a snack and we chatted.



The kids and brought some of their animal figures to the table to join us. Will pretended to have them drink cocoa from his cup.

After we finished our treats the girls got out some pencils and paper and did some drawing. They had me draw some pictures for them too.

Today's activity was: mega doodles. I had looked through some of the activities when I was deciding whether to do this or not and I remember seeing this one and thinking, "Cool!" We got out a roll of paper and laid it out on the kitchen floor with some crayons and colored pencils. We all drew and doodled for over an hour. (Okay, Will didn't stick with it for that long, and while he was there, he was usually trying to scribble on what the girls were drawing, which led to some extra drama.)


In the end this is how much we colored:

Ellie LOVED this activity and said repeatedly that we should do it again sometime. We are definitely looking forward to what the next few weeks hold.