Sketch Challenge for Friendship's Garden

Hello again!!
Things in the Deeply Rooted house are in full packing mode, which means chaos abounds! If you missed my last post, my family and I are packing up house and moving out of state...new job, new home, and hopefully some new crafty friends!!! There are a million things to due with half as much time to do them in, more projects in my head than hours on a clock face (am I describing most of your lives?!), and did I mention we're having a birthday party this weekend?? Yikes!! Little Miss O will turn the big 0-2 during the move, so we're having some family and friends over this weekend to celebrate a bit early.
You know, "Just another manic Monday"...and Tuesday...and Wednesday...

In the midst of the chaos of it all, I managed to sneak through my packed-into-boxes craft lair (that's a whole depressing post all in it's own!!) to mellow out and make a card for the sketch challenge over at Friendship's Garden.

Becky, our resident botanist, has given us a great sketch to create from this week:

I love the simplicity of this card! It would have taken no time to make, had the thread not run out on my bobbin and pierced holes where thread should have been! Yeeeeahh, with that being the last element to add to my card (and not wanting to start completely over!), I reloaded the bobbin, lined my card back up on the machine, and painstakingly cranked the hand wheel to exactly line up with the holes so lovingly punched the first go round. Live and learn, right?!


I can't wait to see what you come up with using this sketch!! Use the link on the Friendship's Garden site to show us your Valentines card. While you're working on that, I'll be trying to get "M-I-C-K-E-YYYYYY, M-O-U-S-EEEEEE" out of my head from this party!! I promise to do a post about it (and the cake...always the cake!) so you can share in my misery celebration! :)




Materials used in this card:
Cardstock base: Hollo's Papercrafts
Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye - Union Square
Letters: Thickers
Image: Vintage sewing pattern
Staples: Making Memories
Hearts: Doodlecharms Cricut Cartridge, paper scraps from stash
Sewing machine with green thread

Creating Keepsakes Sketch Challange

I've been looking at a set of pictures for weeks now, having the desire, but no inspiration, to get them onto a page. I'd lay them out, sort through paper, dig through embellishments, just to put it all away again, getting nowhere.

This is where sketches and sketch challenges spark my motivation and creativity.

Creating Keepsakes (a magazine I love, but the way) posted a call for a family themed page following a provided sketch:

 

Ok! This I can do!


I pulled out my troublesome (but oh so cute) photos of our family game night and went to work.

The paper I started with was the basic idea of what I wanted, but to make something appeal to my tastes, it has to be distressed beyond recognition, soooo.....

I took one of my small $1 ink pads (that I use more than anything else, really!) and lightly (and accidentally not so lightly in spots!) rubbed it onto the page. There are many, many ways to achieve this distressed look: using chalks you'll get more of a lighter, more controlled look, and using a spray mist is also another option, just to name two.

My Mind's Eye - Alphabet Soup Boy Cardstock Accessory Sheet

I sorted through my embellishments (again, and for the last time for these pictures, I might add!) and pulled out the little darlings that would fit on this page. I found a My Mind's Eye sheet of cardstock accessory shapes that matched perfectly with my newly distressed paper:

I loved the 4x6 frame of circles, but, following the sketch, needed a ditty to go above the pictures at the top of the page. I cut apart the sides to look like this:

The next embellishment I wanted was a pennant banner, and I knew I didn't have any pre-made. Luckily for me, these aren't too hard to figure out.

I took a piece of coordinating paper and gave it the same ink distressing treatment (a little gentler this time!). I cut one inch(ish) strips of the inked paper, and cut the strips into triangles.

With all of my embellishments ready, I started putting all of my elements onto my page for a rough idea of where I wanted everything to go:

 

This gives me an opportunity to set everything out, walk away from it (ok, you caught me...the kids woke up from their nap, so now I have to wait until bed time!) and come back to switch around anything that looks out of place.

One touch that I added to ALL embellishments going on the page (and on every page I do, really) is what I call 'edging'. I use the broad tip of my pens to ink around each piece on the page, before they're adhered. This gives a great definition to the pieces and adds cohesiveness, too.

I ended up switching a few things around, adding a few more elements, and finally adhered everything down with Glue Dots and with my sewing machine to top the banners, as well.

Completed page

So when you feel like you're getting nowhere, go somewhere!! Ask a friend, look at a website, or, better yet, keep stopping by here to get the best of both!!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas?? Already???


I'm not a chronological scrapper. I pick and choose my projects as I feel inspired to do them, rather than forcing myself to creating something I'm not really feeling. So therefore, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas in my scrap room!
It's kind of fun to get everything Christmas out when it's just starting to get cooler, leaves are feeling the urge to become a bit more gorgeous, and my mind starts to dream about everything Fall.

I tried to challenge myself a bit on this page: to not use the traditional 'Happy Christmas' color scheme. I rummaged through my paper stacks and found the Love Letter Designer Series Paper from Stampin' Up!:

This set uses 'Vanilla' instead of white, 'Red Riding Hood' (which is more of a brick red) instead of bright red, and throws a twist of black in there to switch things up a bit, as well as make it a little more 'grown up'.

I played around with a layout for a few minutes (which is a few minutes too long for me!) and then dug out my Creating Keepsakes magazine from Nov/Dec 2010 for some inspiration. I turned to the article called Recipes for Quick and Easy Layouts (p. 68), thinking, HEY!. This is what I need!! Mandy Douglass' Christmas Morning layout popped out to me, and so I used the sketch of her page:

I knew my pictures didn't lend themselves to the grid design that Mandy used, so I altered that concept of the sketch on my page. I really loved the large brackets that she used, however, so those were the first thing that I began to make.

I love dimension on a page, so I knew I didn't want to use paper for the brackets. I considered chipboard, but I didn't have brackets large enough (and didn't want to cut my own). Looking around my materials, I had a stack of 8.5" x 11" pieces of felt that I'd picked up from my local hobby store when they were on sale (they were 12.5 cents each!) and knew that they would give me the 'pop' I wanted.
Being a reformed perfectionist, I went to my Cricut first and cut out a bracket at 10 1/4 inches (random, but this was the largest size it would cut on my 12" x 12" mat). I traced this twice onto my felt, and cut them out.  I sewed (very roughly) around the edges with my sewing machine to add some texture, too:

 

The next element that I made was the tag Mandy used for her journaling. I already had some journaling in mind for the overall page, so I decided to make this a journaling pocket. Again, not having anything purchased that would fit this color scheme, I dug into my scrap paper bin and pulled out a remnant piece that started as a 12" x 12" and cut it to 3" in width. I folded it unevenly so it would make a perfect pocket, used a bit of (my favorite!) walnut ink to make the colors blend a bit more, and sewed the edges together to form my pocket:

Next came my lettering, and of course, chipboard!! I knew I had some pre-glittered chipboard letters that might work with this page, but once I pulled them out, the color was just horrible with my papers.
But I wanted to use that chipboard.
So I pulled out my handy-dandy Old Olive Stampin' Write Marker from Stampin' Up! and used the feathered end to re-color the letters. I also used a darker marker to ink the chipboard's edges:

Following the basic guidelines from the sketch, I started putting my page together. I used dimensional foam adhesive to adhere the chipboard lettering, and double sided tape for the rest of the elements (I was out of Glue Dots!! Ahhh!!).
I added (and added...and added...) ribbons, rub-on's, clear stickers, brads (and added...and added...) until I came out with my finished product:

Journaling: Westin's gifts all marked with 'clues'

Journaling: I will never get over how wonderful it is to see your faces light up on Christmas morning!

2011 Tag: Inked Chipboard, Grungeboard numbers, pearl brad

(ps- although this page was listed under Quick and Easy Layouts, it was more easy than quick! It took me my normal a few hours one night and a revisit the next day for minor fixes...some old habits never die!)