Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-15-12

I have been taking lots of pictures again this week, so I was able to pull together 5 shots for this week's scavenger hunt.

Water
It has been hot out lately so we have been spending lots of time playing in water. On Wednesday, we went to the zoo with some friends to play in the splash pad area there. Here is Ellie and our friend Annie by one of the spouts.

Petal
The hot weather has not been very good to the flowers... well, my flowers anyway, so this photo is from May; irises in my in-laws' backyard.

Fresh

More water, keeping my little guy cool and "fresh."  This photo was also taken on Monday, his birthday so he is a "fresh" two-year-old... you can take that however you would like.  :)

Eight

We spent last Sunday at my sister and brother-in-law's house and their neighbor brought over a horse for the kids (and anyone else who wanted to) to ride.  My mom was the eighth (and last) rider.

Calm

This is another shot from last Sunday, my oldest and her second cousin playing together.  With 5 little kids around, the day wasn't always very calm, but I thought these two playing together in the dirt quietly seemed pretty calm.

My Scraps Got Talent II

My Scraps and More currently has a contest running this summer called My Scraps Got Talent II.  There are layout challenges posted each week as well as mini challenges.  I had done a couple of the mini challenges a in the last couple of weeks for some cards, but I finally got around to doing one of the layout challenges.  Challenge #5 was to use the sketch below along with 3 different punches for a layout.

As you can see, I added a couple of photos instead of having a large photo on the left side.  I also played around with the embellishment placement.  For the background, I wanted something subtle, so I used a Crafter's Workshop mask and three colors of Glimmer Mist: Blue Skies, Slate, and Golden Terra Cotta.  To balance the extra photos, I felt the title and journaling should both be moved to the right side of the layout.  As for the three punches, I used a scalloped circle punch, a border punch and a flower punch.  These are the photos I entered in the county fair competition in 2010.  I didn't win any ribbons, but they do look nice together on a scrapbook page!  :)

Materials

Cardstock- Bazzill, American Crafts

Patterned Paper- My Mind's Eye

Mask- The Crafter's Workshop

Spray Ink- Tattered Angels

Ink- Tsukeniko

Pen- marvy

Punches- EK Success, Marvy, Tonic

Gems- Prima, Hero Arts, Target

Die Cuts- K and Company, My Mind's Eye

Canvas- Prima

Rub ons- Making Memories, We R Memory Keepers, American Crafts

Sticker- Fiskars

Die Cutter- Provo Craft

Cartridge- Cricut Classic Font

Sketch by Julie Bonner

Happy Birthday Will!

Will's 2nd birthday was Monday, but we are celebrating with family today.

 I made a card for him using this week's Mojo Monday sketch. I made two so that I could contribute one for the "I Feel the Love" project this month which is to make children's birthday cards for Sheffield Place which is a shelter for homeless women and children. Each month the staff throws a birthday party for the kids there. If you want more info, click on the link above. The Cooking With Cricut blog's challenge this week is to make a card for the IFTL project, so I put my Cricut to work. I used papers from Echo Park's Little Boy collection (with the exception of the green polka dot paper, that is Doodlebug) and my "Boys Will Be Boys" cartridge. I switched the side of the sentiment and thought it would look cool as a flag so I added a toothpick as the pole.

We had a water play date with some friends on Monday. We had much and Elmo cupcakes. Here's a picture of the cupcakes.

 For his cake for his party today, Will wanted a tractor. So I went online and we picked a coloring page of a bull dozer. Will is also a big fan of M & M's so I decided to incorporate those as well.

Nuts About Sketches #220

Hi all!  Today is Monday and that means a new sketch at Nuts About Sketches!  This week we have a sketch with space for a 5x7 photo. I decided to use Ellie's class photo from preschool this past year. I'm really glad I got this one scrapped now because I still remembered everyone's name! I used mostly Bo Bunny Learning Curve papers and stickers on this one. For the side strips, I decided to fussy cut the book stacks from a sheet of patterned paper. Can you believe Rick called me crazy when he saw me carefully cutting out those books?! Yeah, me too, in fact that was my initial thought when the idea came to me, but I am glad I decided to do it! I also used the book paper for the striped strips.
I found a font that matched the words on my patterned paper for the names underneath the photo (which I have blurred, but you can see it in the words "front row", "second row" and "back row".

There is a design team call currently out for Nuts About Sketches for the September through February term. You can check it out here.

Materials:
Patterned Paper and Stickers- Bo Bunny
Cardstock- Close to My Heart
Rub Ons- Scrap Works
Ink- Clearsnap
Buttons- Oriental Trading Company, Jesse James Co., Rusty Pickle
Gromlet- We R Memory Keepers
Font- Century Schoolbook

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-8-12

I took a ton of photos this week and was able to easily fill the prompts this week for the Photo Scavenger Hunt.  Today the link up for the hunt is here.

Patriotic
I experimented a bit with taking photos of my in-laws flag on the 4th of July. I decided I liked the angle of this one.

View From Above
I know I could've been a lot more creative with this one, but I just love this shot of Will and his grandpa in the pool.  I bought that "puddle jumper" life jacket for him earlier in the week and he loved it!  He was so comfortable in the water with it and was even able to float around on his own with it for a bit.

Mosaic

I kind of forgot about this one until I was preparing my photos.  Again, I could have done something more creative, but I ended up using a mosaic filter in Photoshop Elements on one of my flag photos.

Something Tiny

We went to the horse track today and one of the races was the "Weiner Dog" championship.  I guess a Daschund isn't necessarily tiny, but it is in comparison to the horses that are usually racing on this track!

Vibrant

Little Miss Addy getting ready to jump in the pool in her polka dot swim shorts and pink and blue life vest.  I love kids' swimwear!

This Week's Cards

I "only" had three cards to make this week, I actually managed to make a couple of pages as well! Today I am sharing my cards.

This first card is for my brother-in-law who celebrated his birthday on the 4th of July. I have made red, white and blue cards the last few years so I decided to mix it up this year and go with a different color scheme. I used the final sketch from Card Patterns (sniff, sniff). The stamps are from the Close to My Heart set I bought at the church garage sale. I am really enjoying these stamps! I used a tear drop shaped inkpad to ink the "party" stamp and I guess I didn't to a very good job of inking it evenly, because I got a bit of a distressed look when I stamped it. I'm okay with it though because I think it looks like denim. The large dark blue block I ran through my Texture Boutique and then edges with some white Distress Stain.

Next is a card I made for my brother and sister-in-law for their anniversary, also on the 4th of July. Again I decided to forgo the red, white and blue and this time I went for a more "romantic" color scheme, using the Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection. I used last week's card sketch at Let's Capture These Sketches.  I cut the layered flower out using my Cricut and the Cindy Loo cartridge.  I sprayed two of the layers with  Golden Terra Cotta Glimmer Mist to make them stand out and then sprayed all of the layers with Perfect Pearls Mist.  The scroll is Grungeboard that I sprayed with white Mister Huey mist and then Perfect Pearls Mist.  The small flower I fussy cut from some patterned paper.

Finally I have the card I made for my sister-in-law whose birthday is today.  For this card I used this week's sketch from Mojo Monday.  I tried a technique on the scrolly piece of paper, but it didn't work how I was hoping it would, so I ended up with a kind of mottle red, blue, and silver effect on glossy cardstock.  The flower and sentiment I stamped with Versamark and then poured purple embossing powder over it.  I wanted to add a touch of red to it so I brushed off the purple in places (before heating it) and then poured red embossing powder over those areas.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-1-12

I didn't take a ton of photos this week, but I felt like most of the prompts were pretty easy, so I really wanted to participate in the Scavenger Hunt. This week Sarah is hosting because Ashley had her baby- Yay!! Here are my photos for the week:

Sunset
This photo is not from this week, in fact it isn't even from this year, it is from last year on the 3rd of July. I don't have much for sunset photos, and this isn't a real vibrant sunset, but I love the light pink you can see starting to appear.

Sweet
My three kids giggling together after the youngest went down the slide at the park. It's so fun to see them playing together and getting along!

Hanging Around

Ellie hanging upside down while swinging.  Yes, I love swing photos!  :)

Funny Face

This is what you get when you ask and almost 2-year-old to make a funny face... I think it's a little scary!

Space

I struggled quite a bit with this one and this photo is kind of a stretch, but there is a lot of space between Addy's feet and the ground...