Let's Get Sketchy 5th Monday of December

Happy Monday everyone! And welcome to another challenge for Let's Get Sketchy. Whenever there is a 5th Monday in the month, the challenge is usually is something a bit different and this time we are being challenged to use the below Bingo card.

I used the top row - misting, alpha, 2 photos, banner & mask to create the following layout:

The background paper was created with two different Crafter's Workshop masks and lots of Glimmer Mist. I then used a third mask and some white acrylic paint on the dark blue cardstock to add some texture & dimension. Even when I use Bazzill, which is a textured cardstock, I find that it's a little too "flat" for my taste. I just love everything to be distressed. Everything else is scraps and leftover tidbits from other projects. I think I've been saying for a couple years now that I am determined to use up my scraps, which I actually am quite good about doing, but the scraps just keep multiplying every time I cut into a new piece of paper lol.

Please make sure you check out what the rest of the Let's Get Sketchy Design Team created using the Bingo card. Since we didn't have a sketch to work with and there are twelve different ways to use the Bingo card, I am sure you will find a huge variety of very unique layouts to inspire you.

Sketch Inspired Magazine Christmas Edition

I hope everyone had a merry, merry Christmas! Ours was low-key, but I'm still exhausted. This was the first year that both kids totally understood the concept of Santa bringing gifts, which meant that neither one of them wanted to go to bed, and then Santiago woke us up at 2:45am to ask if Santa had come yet. We put him back to bed, but at 5am he was back in our room again. And every 10 minutes for the next hour. We finally gave up, woke Paolina and let the kids open their gifts. The rest of the morning was spent assembling an enormous Playmobil castle for Santiago and playing with Paolina's new dolls and dress-up. Later in the day my parents, brother-in-law and sister-in-law came over, and we had a very casual dinner of chicken enchiladas with flan for dessert

Needless to say I'm so glad that Paolina is at school today and Santiago is at his "Winter Camp" so that I can have a quiet day to recover. And of course I'm having a blast browsing through all the photos that we have taken over the last few days. Have you had a chance to do the same? Are you looking for some inspiration to scrap those Christmas photos? Well I have a great way for you to do just that. Let's Get Sketchy's online magazine Sketch Inspired has a special Christmas edition that is bursting with Christmas projects and ideas. Check it out here.

And here is the project that I have featured:

For this card I used papers from Kaisercraft Mint Twist collection and some older KI Memories Joyful collection. The giant Santa came from a package of Christmas gift tags I purchased on clearance at Sam's Club last year. I do that almost every year...the package usually has about 100 dimensional tags that I find work well on Christmas cards and layouts. Or I could even actually use them on gifts lol!

Thanks for looking I hope you find lots of inspiration with the rest of the projects in the special Christmas edition of Sketchy Inspiration Magazine!

Let's Get Sketchy December Week 4

Wowzahs! Not only is it already Monday again, but it's the end of December too! Good grief...is Christmas Eve really tomorrow? And next week will be a new year! I remember back in the day, hearing my parents talk about "time flying" and wondering why "old" people always talked like that. Seriously. As a child you think that time would just drag on and on, from birthday to birthday or Christmas to Christmas. Summer seemed to be the only time that went by too fast, and then back to school we had to go. Great. Apparently now I'm one of those "old" people, as I just can't figure out why time seems to go by so fast. So for that I'm grateful to be a scrapbooker...I can flip through my scrapbooks or pull out some old photos to use on a layout, and I can reminisce about sweet moments that literally feel like they were last month but in reality were three or five years ago. I hope my kids will look back at all the pages I've made with the same fondness.

So. Back to it being Monday. You know what that means...a new sketch at Let's Get Sketchy. Check it out!

I used just one photo and came up with this...

I'm proud of myself for doing what is "decent" journaling...for me anyhow. Usually as far as I get is a title and date. And I've even been known to *gasp* not even use a title. I'm not the only one who struggles with the verbal aspect of scrapbooking right? Anyhow, this is a photo of Santiago just after he turned one. At this age he went through a phase when I knew it was his naptime without even looking at a clock because he would reach into his crib, pull out his blankie & binkie through the slats, and lay down on the floor with them. Then he would look up at me with his huge brown eyes and just stare, almost as though he was wondering what on earth was taking me so long to put him in his crib to go to sleep. Now we can hardly get him wound down enough to go to bed at night. And forget naps...he gave those up before he turned four lol.

Now as far as product, the background paper is Colorbok Homespun and the rest is Fancy Pants Trendsetter, Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm, and My Mind's Eye Life Stories. Thanks for looking...I hope you will take the time to check out the other girls' work at Let's Get Sketchy and play along as well!

Inspired Blueprints

We're still iced in...which means another day of no school for the kids. But at least we have power. And thank goodness for the internet, as Santiago has been able to do some online classwork. Being home with him an additional two days is also giving me a chance to work with him reading in English. In the short time he's been in kindergarten his reading (in Spanish) has really taken off, but unfortunately by the time I've done homework with him and we've eaten dinner it's practically bedtime, so I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on his reading in English. It's also been good for Paolina to sit beside him while he does schoolwork, as she's been picking up quite a bit. It hasn't all been work either...we built a dining room "fort" and wrote letters to Santa.

Well I've gotten quite off topic haven't I? I actually just wanted to pop in and post this layout that I did last week and didn't have time to put up until now. I used the following sketch from Inspired Blueprints...

And I came up with this...

We were truly blessed to have had the opportunity to live in Southern California for 10 years. The climate was amazing. But even there we did have a winter of sorts, and despite its reputation for being sunny we had rain as well. I took these photos of Santiago back in January of 2010, enjoying the rain as any toddler boy can...jumping in all the puddles and mud.

Thanks for looking...and for those of you who are also experiencing inclement weather please stay safe and sane!

Let's Get Sketchy December Week 2

Another Monday which means it's time for another sketch at Let's Get Sketchy! I seriously didn't think I was going to get this one up for the reveal. Last week we were enjoying some glorious weather...sunny and in the high 70s. And then out of nowhere an ice storm came through. Needless to say I couldn't go outside to photograph my layout, and I struggled to find a place indoors with the perfect lighting. Then to make matters worse we lost power so then even with my photos taken I had no way to get them uploaded to my computer. We're still pretty much iced in, but our power is back so here I am!

Here's the fun sketch we have to work with this week...

And here's my take on it...

This is one of my last photos of Santiago in his Halloween costume in 2009. He was just 19 months old. This was taken on our trip home after spending the day at the pumpkin patch which totally wore him out! Most of the supplies are paper from an older Basic Grey Halloween line and glitter chipboard from My Mind's Eye (also a few years old). Thanks for looking and don't forget to check out what the rest of Team B at Let's Get Sketchy came up with this week!

Sketchabilities

Happy Hump Day! I finally feel like I'm back in the swing of things after the Thanksgiving holiday. I will admit that I had my reservations about having Santiago home for the week, but it turned out he was less stir-crazy than I envisioned so we ended up enjoying our time together. It was also nice to sleep in until 7am since I didn't have to rush to get him ready for school in the mornings. However I would be lying if I didn't say I missed my scrappy time. Noé totally supports what (I know he thinks is my crazy hobby), but I'm pretty sure he doesn't realize how much my creative time is therapy for me. The last year and a half has been so crazy for our family, with two moves and Noé losing his job. There has been a large amount of that 18 months that my scrappy supplies have been packed or I just haven't had the time to use them. It's been good for my soul to get back to having a consistent hour or so, five days a week to escape into my creative world... and when that routine gets interrupted it makes me feel all off kilter. The only thing worse is when I do have time to scrap and I've lost my mojo. I'm fairly certain that only other scrappers know what I'm talking about here lol. Anyhow, this Monday was my first time to scrap for about a week and I got two layouts done...whoo hoo! The below page used the following sketch from Sketchabilities.

I used the photo of Santiago and (part of) his soccer team that the league gave to Noé because he was the team's coach. The kids chose their team name on the first day, which was the Wild Animals. I've had the background paper for years...it's Flair All Star which was in my inventory when I still had my scrapbooking store. I'm not a sports fan, and I'm pretty sure Santiago wasn't even born yet when that line was on the store shelf, so I doubt I ever thought I would be using it for my own scrapbooking. Of course I used to think I would never use pink since I dislike it so much, but now I have a three-year old daughter who is obsessed with anything pink and/or sparkly so it appears quite often on my pages these days. And since Santiago loved playing soccer so much I predict getting more use out of those sports lines in the future as well. I couldn't resist using some animal print papers on this layout since I used their team name as the title. I don't often use themed paper but I feel like this layout really came together well without looking cheesey. Thanks for looking!