MAGICAL

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  For this challenge, we were asked to use yarn, string, or twine on a project.  Recently, my mother gave me a batch of pictures of my oldest flying a kite when she was two years old.  She's now seventeen and getting ready to graduate from high school.  Needless to say, I've been a little nostalgic here lately, so I decided to use one of my favorites for this project.  To mimic the kite in the picture, I used a gold die cut, added a gold brad to the die cut, and strung a piece of gold and white baker's twine through the brad to make my own kite on the project.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Crate Paper's "Carousel" line along with its corresponding embellishments.  

SALTY BUT SWEET

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following sketch.  With the sketch calling for an 8x10 picture, I knew I needed to find a terrific snapshot.  I decided to use a picture taken from one of my favorite photoshoots.  When my girls were small, we had family beach pictures taken at Sullivan's Island, South Carolina.  As I was going through my CD of pictures, I came across this one.  I hadn't seen it in a long time, and it literally took my breath away. My sensitive older daughter was walking along leaning on me while my happy go lucky younger girl skipped along the ocean's edge holding her Dad's hand.  We look so happy, so relaxed.  It's a picture that I never looked closely at until the other day.  And with my oldest graduating this year and my youngest finishing Middle School, it made me realize how fast time flies.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Authentique's "Sea Maiden's" collection.

SO MUCH FUN

1. This is my latest project for Creating Inspiration's April Mini Crop.  My task was to create a project with an Easter theme.  I decided to use untraditional colors for this project.  Recently I discovered Amy Tangerine's "Shine On" collection.  Part of the paper line is a black sheet of paper with bunnies in a variety of shapes and colors.  I was completely inspired by the paper and used a few of my favorite pictures from Easter 2017.  It was a gorgeous Easter Sunday, and my daughter and her cousins had a blast looking for Easter eggs and playing with my puppy Penny. I decided that the "Shine On" collection would be the perfect backdrop for an Easter project even it if wasn't intended to be. To pull this project together, I used a past Creative Inspiration sketch.
   

A WOMAN IS MOST BEAUTIFUL WHEN SHE SMILES

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  I was completely inspired by the pictures featured in this layout.  My friend recently took incredible photos of my daughter on a gorgeous late winter's day.  We had so much fun posing my girl in a variety of places around our town.  These are some of my favorite shots from a local walking trail.  I loved the field of wheat she is posing in front of for several of the pictures.  But my favorite is of her in her yoga pose at the bottom of the page.  That's my girl; she can be serious one minute and a hoot the next.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Authentique's "Poised" collection along with "shiplap" paper from Hobby Lobby's "The Paper Studio" line.

PLAY BALL

This is my latest project for Creative Inspiration using the following sketch.  With baseball season beginning, I decided to dip into my picture archives and feature a picture of my daughter at the baseball field.  My brother in law is a pitching coach within the Detroit Tigers organization, and fourteen years ago, he got married and had his reception at the Erie Sea Wolves Ball Park in Erie, Pennsylvania.  My daughter had a blast playing on the baseball field throughout the day.  She was an especially good sport posing for me on the baseball frog.  To create the baseball theme, I used a variety of papers from Doodlebug Design's "Homerun Collection."  In addition, I used a tag I created for my design team Use Your Stuff as my main embellishment.  Finally, I used the attached sketch to pull the project together.

TRUE FRIENDS

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  This week's challenge was the create a project that featured flora and fauna.  In other words, create a project that includes flowers and animals.  I knew exactly what picture I wanted to use.  Fourteen years ago, we used to live at a lovely Cape Cod house that was the perfect locale to grow hydrangeas.  I fell in love with hydrangeas during a visit to the Biltmore Estate, so I knew I had to have this plant wherever I lived.  Well this particular house was ideal location to grow these majestic purple and pink flowers.  Before we moved, I posed my then four year old daughter and her best friend, our cat Nugget, in front of the blooming bush.   Flora and fauna!  To pull this project together, I used a sheet of American Crafts herringbone paper as background with some scraps I had in my stash from Authentique's "Meadow" collection.  Finally, I used the sketch found below from my former design team "2 Broke Girls" to pull the project together.

HAPPY

This is my latest project for Creative Inspiration using the following sketch.  With this project, I was inspired by the circle in the middle of the sketch. I wanted to create a page with a circle theme.  And I had the perfect pictures for it; my daughter and her friends at The Island's Ferris Wheel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.  This ride lights up a rainbow of colors at night; it is truly stunning.  While I followed the sketch, I decided to use a few more circles and some paper strips to keep the pictures grounded in the circles.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from American Craft's Shimelle "Starshine" line.

HELLO SUNSHINE

This is my latest sketch for Sketchy Boards Challenge using the following sketch.  I'm so excited for Spring to finally erupt in the Northern Hemisphere.  Right now, we are experiencing rain, gusty winds, and snow on the back end of a cold front.  Needless to say, it's nasty outside. So when I was putting together this layout, I was trying to will Spring to arrive.  This is truly one of my absolute favorite pictures I have ever taken of my youngest daughter.  It was a gorgeous Spring day, and she was living THE LIFE!  She had dressed herself in a patriotic tank top on top of an orange t-shirt with a pair of silky pajama pants from a box of summer clothes I had just brought up from the basement.  Her sister had helped her climb our Bradford Pear tree in the front yard.  She felt like such a big girl.  And as you can see in this picture, she was happy.  Big beaming smile happy. So to pull together this project, I decided to use Carta Bella's Spring Market by Carta Bella along with chipboard butterflies from Michaels's "Recollections" collection to give this project a spring vibe.

BASEBALL ALLSTAR

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  With Major League Baseball season starting this week, I decided to go with a baseball theme for my project.  My daughter has never played a day of baseball in her life, but she loves to go to baseball games.  Perhaps it's the game...perhaps it's the players...Who knows...But these are a few of my favorite pics of her and her friends (and her parents and her favorite player) at our local minor league baseball team's games the past two summers.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Carta Bella's "Baseball Collection" line.