Sunday Sketches at Studio Calico

I may have gone a little crazy when Studio Calico assigned me the Sketch challenge for this week. I may just have been in a scrappy frenzy when that email came in! So instead of choosing which one of the three sketches I wanted to interpret (each week they have a layout sketch, card sketch and Project Life sketch) I decided to do all of them!!

First up was the layout sketch which looks like this:

It's drawn as a 8.5 x 11" layout, but was easily interpreted into a 12 x 12" style. I'm a fairly literal interpreter of sketches, and I tend to follow the design pretty much exactly as it's drawn. I love the clean lines and central placement of this sketch and wanted to keep that the focus in my layout.

But I still like to change around a few of the details, just so I can make it my own. I shuffled the placement of the photo and text block so the photo was at the bottom, and then instead of filling in the middle space with journaling I filled it with patterned papers instead.



I took direction from the colours in the photos to choose which papers to use, and ended up with this mix of brown, green and beige from The Underground Main Kit. Ultimately I really am a journalist at heart as well so I still included the block of text, I just hid it behind my photos instead!

You can pretty much read the story here for yourself if you're able to interpret my handwriting?!

Next up was the card sketch:

I love that this allows room for so much interpretation. You really could make this fit any theme and any style you wanted... which is exactly what I did! As you may have noticed recently, I fell in love with the flowery stamp set from Piccadilly and once again wanted to make that the real focus of this card.

I stamped it repeatedly on white cardstock and embossed it in white also. At first I thought I might leave it like that. You know, a real tone on tone look? And then I thought I'd just add one soft colour, like painting in the leaves with Going Green. Which I did. Then I thought perhaps just one little pop of colour in the flowers, maybe I should add the Sunny Day? So I did that too. Next thing I knew the entire image was coloured in this rainbow of Color Theory Inks! Plus a touch of Wink of Stella over the top for a hint of sparkle too!

By this point I figured it just wouldn't be fair if I didn't do the Project Life sketch, so I gave that a go too!

I have to admit, I always find these sketches just a little bit difficult to interpret. I figure it's just supposed to help you with one card for the spread? Since I'm doing a Handbook for my Project Life the amount of pockets I have to fill for each spread is more limited anyway, so I was able to turn this sketch into my main title card for this simple page.

I started with one of the 6x4" cards from The Underground PL Kit which read 'Harvest' - clearly not what I was going for with this photo! But that was easily fixed by covering it up with a punched circle and the stamp. On the other hand, the washi tape from the Chelsea Add On really was perfect in both its theme and colour, so it became the anchoring point for my title. The brads and puffy diamonds was just the right amount of texture I was after to finish this off.

Now it's your turn! Make a project using one of this week's sketches as a starting point, then share it in the Studio Calico gallery. The post with all the details is here, and that's where you need to leave a comment with a link to your project. You've got until November 3rd to be entered to win a $5 GC to the Studio Calico Shop.

Studio Calico CHA Online Crop Extravaganza

I tell you one thing that's true... there's no-one else that throws an online event like Studio Calico! While the head-honchos are off at CHA we're having a bit of a celebration on the boards and blog. For a start we've got challenges that go up every 2 hours and I got to host one of them. Here's the layout I made for it...

It's a simple challenge to make a layout based on this sketch below..

I love that this sketch is built upon a block design which allows you so much creative freedom to fill each of the 4 quadrants with pretty much anything you like. It's a great opportunity to show off some of your favourite patterned papers, such as the October Afternoon woodgrain paper from the Copper Mountain main kit, and the Basic Grey birds from Fremont Glades.Well, they were my choices anyway!

Another option for filling a quadrant is to cluster some embellishments such as I've done here (love those Chic Tags Happy Place Clips from Fremont Glades), or do a whole lot of journaling.

My layout tells the story of my daughter's school-time activities. It seems she might want to follow in my footsteps after all, as she's been telling her friends at school she's knows how to be a doctor and pretends to perform surgery on them at lunch break! She's always claimed she never wanted anything to do with medicine.... but perhaps not hey?! At the very least it's a lovely form of flattery from my 7 year old :-)

All 10 challenges have now gone live. There's challenges to suit scrapbookers, cardmakers and project-lifers alike. And there's plenty of time left to enter as we're keeping it open until the 16th. Every entry that's posted in the gallery or on Instagram with the hashtag #SCCROP2014 goes in the draw to win a 3 month Studio Calico subscription!!! Here's a link to the main post with all the challenge details.


Supplies:

Copper Mountain Scrapbook Kit Add on 1: Fremont Glades Add on 2: High Point Add on 3: Slingshot More Gray Glossy Accents Martha Stewart Glue Pen Glue Glider Pro Tim Holtz non-stick Scissors Precision Pen

InLinkz.com

Page Drafts Christmas Sketch Release

The Christmas scrapping continues here as I whip myself up into a festive frenzy! I really love this time of year!

Today is the release of the new bunch of Christmas sketches from Page Drafts, and to celebrate we've put together a sleigh-ful of inspiration from a bunch of designers around the world.

Em makes such wonderful sketches that really drive me to create, so I couldn't help but play along and I chose this particular sketch below to inspire my page.

I struggle a little with the concept of round photos so I scrapped with my usual square Instagram pic, but apart from that I tried to stick to the sketch as closely as possible. With so much detail included in the sketches it's really not hard to find direction, and you don't have to do a lot of thinking for yourself! Especially useful in this busy season where creative time is commonly in short supply ;-)

So I added some clusters of October Afternoon banners top and bottom, plenty of bling and sparkle of course (how fabulous is that American Crafts gold glitter corrugated cardstock I mounted the layout on?!) and a fair sprinkling of Studio Calico paper and Evalicious tags.

The layout tells the story of our family Christmas last year. For the first time ever we stayed put and celebrated at home just the 4 of us for Christmas Day. Usually we are travelling to the country to spend it with family as I have been blessed with many years of not having to work the Christmas week. Unfortunately that wasn't the case last year, and it won't be the case this year either :-(

However, I have to admit that in some small way it was nice to be able to just relax at home and not be worried about getting to the next location on time. It was also lovely to be able to watch the kids open their presents from underneath our own tree for the first time too. And it didn't mean that we skimped on all the 'essentials'... we still had a proper roast turkey and all the trimmings for lunch as this photo proves!

Now this is only one of the fabulous Page Drafts sketches that have just been released. You ought to see what the other designers have created based on the other designs. Check out all the details on the Page Drafts blog here, and get inspired to do a little Christmas scrapping for yourself today!

The Story of the Journey

Catching up on a few of those photos that need to be scrapped because they're important life moments (even though they actually happened quite some time ago and I just haven't got around to it yet!)

I was inspired by the October challenge at Once Upon a Sketch 'cos it's been just as long since I last played along there too ;-) I love how Nadia's sketches push me in ways I wouldn't go by myself, and I love LOVE that she always encourages (in fact, demands) that her challenge participants journal a meaningful amount on their layouts.

I used my July JBS Papercrafting kit to put this one together. It's filled with lots of Basic Grey Carte Postale goodies which seemed appropriate for the theme of 'journey' which is what the OUAS challenge is about. At first glance you might wonder what the photos have to do with this theme, but here's what my page is about....

At the end of her first year of school Munchy was awarded the "Shooting Star of the Year" which recognises her Confidence, Organisation, Persistance, Resilience and Getting Along. Chosen from amongst all her classmates it was a great honour and I'm super-proud of her. This girl of mine is strong-willed and has a strong sense of direction. She knows what she wants from her future already and I anticipate that this award will be the first of many.

To some I know that might sound a little cocky, but I don't mean it that way. I merely see that she has the God-given talent and drive to strive for everything and anything she wants from her future. To that I say, "Let the Journey Begin"!!

The Story of My Affectionate One

I'm the mother of 2 girls. But they're quite completely different from one another.
In summary, Munchy is a miniature version of me (in both appearance and personality) and Moodles is a tiny version of her father. Which also tells you a little bit about my marriage. I think for the most part we're a case of "opposites attract".

By nature my little Moodles is the more affectionate of the two. She's quite cuddly and will use any opportunity to be near me. She'll sit on my lap watching TV, she'll hold my hand and stroke me, and she loves it when I pat her hair and smooth it down. Yep, that's pretty much a reflection of her father, although thank goodness he doesn't sit on my lap as he's much MUCH bigger than I am ;-)

Although I'm not too much of a touchy-feely kind of person myself, I do love it when she comes to snuggle.

I put this layout together using a lot of odds and ends, but with a focus on some Fancy Pants products (as I'm entering this layout into their competition with Gossamer Blue this month). I used their Artisan Filter Papers as a highlight on my page, colouring them with my new Gelatos and typing my journaling on them too. What a versatile material!

I also used the sketch below from the July challenge at The Scrapbook Store as my starting point too. As usual I took a few liberties. The main one being that I only used one photo instead of two. But I'm getting more comfortable with looking at sketches like this and just deciding that I can interpret it to fit as many (or few) of my photos as I choose! And it's quite easy for me to replace the photos with journal spots instead.

Happy scrapping
xx

The Story of the Medical Jargon

Sometimes there are stories that just need to be recorded. Even if the photos of the event aren't that great, and the layout you eventually come up with will never make your 'top 10'.
This was one such occasion.

Now I started off right. I began with an awesome sketch by Em that's forming the July challenge at Paper Stories. And I rifled through my collection of papers and found this lovely background piece by Cosmo Cricket, and some green and blue papers by Basic Grey and Echo Park.

My usual stack of linear paper layers wasn't cutting it for me and I wanted to add a splash of red to coordinate with Munchy's shirt in the photos. That's when my brilliant idea of sprinkling my leftover Thickers came into play. Not only is it quite a trend at the moment, but it's also helpful for someone like me who has trouble throwing stuff away! It was particularly poignant because the whole layout is about when Munchy couldn't speak for a few weeks, so having the letters as embellishments was perfect.

Aaaaannndd.... another bonus.. (which everyone in the world has probably already figured out) but these Thickers make an excellent replacement for foam tape! Just add some glue on their non-sticky side and you're good to go. I'm so about to go though my stash and put all my packets of letters that no longer make words into my adhesive pile instead ;-)

I have to admit I really second-guessed myself about whether I really should use medical jargon as my title. But then I figured... hey... I am One Scrappy Doctor after all! Dysphonia means an impairment in the ability of the voice to produce sounds. And my poor little Munchy suffered with this over the Christmas period. For the first week I ignored it, in the second week I figured it would still go away. By the time we eventually made it into the ENT doctor's office it had been going on for over 6 weeks. After several disastrous attempts by the doctor trying to visualise her vocal cords in his office (let's just say the gag-reflex is a mighty force not to be reckoned with!!) she was booked in to have the procedure done under an anaesthetic.

Ultimately nothing was found, and it was explained away as 'voice strain'. Which basically means she's like every other 6 year old and throws too many tantrums for her own good. It's quite a relief really. Well.... not about the tantrums, but nice to know there's nothing seriously wrong with her. Hopefully next time we don't have to go to the extent of a medical procedure to figure out our kid is normal!