Hand drawn lines with UYS

 We have such a simple challenge for you this week at Use Your Stuff.  We just want to see some hand-drawn lines on your project.  It could be a faux border, a squiggle, part of a design, a mat around a picture, lots of possibilities.

 I like using lines to anchor my journaling and add a pop of color.  The yellow lines I drew are perfect for that.  I stretched myself a little more with something a little different as I drew the cross-country logo.  The arrow is a bit funky but it fills an otherwise blank space.

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.  Make sure to join us at Use Your Stuff

Borders with UYS

 I'm not one to typically use borders on my projects and when I do I tend to alter them like I did on this card. 

Use Your Stuff is challenging us to use borders on our projects. ( top, bottom, side, decorative or plain)

CM NSD bundle had a lemon/ lime border which I cut shorter for the card front then cut a few pieces to flip to the lemon side to bring in more of the yellow.  I stilll have a few chunkc that I can use on another project, but for now I just need to fill in the message before I head out on my next trip.  Little surprise for my husband

Thanks for stopping by to take a look.  Make sure you also stop by https://useyourstuff.blogspot.com

Vintage with UYS

Hey all.  I intended to have a project to share for the current challenge at Use Your Stuff but I just got back from a week in Victoria BC.  I might get a layout done with the photos from High tea at the Empress hotel but for now pop on over to Use Your Stuff for the Vintage challenge (add some sort of vintage element, think lace, pearls, image, etc.)

My tea was blue- "Blue Suede Shoe"

COLD SMOKED SALMON
upland cress, lemon cream cheese, brioche
HAM & CHEESE
shaved grandfather leg ham, aged white cheddar, tarragon-apple mayonnaise, sourdough
CORONATION CHICKEN SALAD
house-roasted farmhouse chicken, curry infused sweet onions, brioche
EGG MAYONNAISE
free run egg salad, fine herbs, horseradish, butter croissant
SUN WING FARMS ENGLISH CUCUMBER
dill whipped cream cheese, fennel pollen and pink peppercorn, marble rye
FRESHLY BAKED EMPRESS RAISIN SCONES
served warm with house-made clotted cream & strawberry-vanilla preserves
CARROT CAKE 'OPERA'
spiced carrot cake, cream cheese mousse, walnut praline crunch, apricot glaze
CHOCOLATE & CHERRY TEA CUP
creamy ganache, cherry confit, ruby blossom mousse
STRAWBERRY RICOTTA & OLIVE OIL CAKE
soft ricotta butter cake, mascarpone chantilly, fresh strawberries
CARAMEL PECAN TART
caramelized pecan, vanilla short dough, maple crémeux, white chocolate shavings
LIME & YUZU MACARON
lime meringue almond cookie, white chocolate yuzu ganache 

Recycled element

  Use Your Stuff theme is Recycled, Upcycled!  Your challenge is to add something to your project that was once something else! 
It could be cardboard, or perhaps you used some saran wrap or bubble wrap to do a mixed media element, what about a napkin technique, or maybe even cutting out some elements from magazines or flyers as die cuts.  Lots of exciting possibilities for this one! 
I love repurposing things so this challenge is something I try to do regularly.  While this project isn’t paper it sure is recycled/ repurposed.

I've been doing a bunch of hiking this summer.  

Every Friday I head out to hit the trail.  My goal is to do 4-6 miles each time. I always carry the ten essentials with me plus a few extra items.  My 5x7 tarp  is one of those helpful items I carry.  For the longest time it has been riding around in a plastic bag, but I made it a custom pouch from an upcycled shirt.

wish I had taken a before photo but this is the best I could do.

I loved the graphic on the shirt but not the banding on the sleeves as it's tight on the upper arm and I wasn't a fan of the hoodie either

finished this pouch off with a small piece of paracord and a toggle.

I hope I inspired you to upcycle or recycle an item in a crafty way.

Make sure to share it with us at Use Your Stuff

Small clusters with UYS

 I'm back again with another Use Your Stuff challenge tiny items to make small clusters.
Not going to lie this one is hard for me because I like to use a variety of sizes to build my clusters.  

I'm currently working on documenting my son's freshman year before the next year starts again.  Hopefully, I'll get it done soon but have been slammed with finishing details for my daughter's cottage remodel project.

I wouldn't classify my embellishment items as tiny, in fact, I used a small, and two medium-ish pieces to make my cluster.  Now show us your clusters at Use Your Stuff

Summer mood board with UYS

 

Now that we are well into summer it's time for the Use Your Stuff summer mood board challenge.  Make a project inspired by the board.  It could be the bright bold colors, beach, pool, water, sunglasses, flipflops.

I've had a busy couple of days with travel/ hiking and getting ready for summer school.  I'll try to get some inspiration up for you in the next few days.  Till then have fun with this fantastic mood board

Scrapbook and Cards today fall sketch

 As much as I wanted to submit a layout for publication I couldn't figure out how to make my photo file size small enough.  If I had more time before the deadline I might play with it a bit more but for now I'm sharing it here with you.  The sketch is supposed to be fall themed which wasn't hard to do as I'm working on  the kids school albums.  Hopefully they will be done before school starts up again in September.

I just finished Eric's page for his first homecoming dance freshman year.

And here's the sketch that inspired the layout

I switched some things up as I'm using an 8.5 x11 album for the kids school albums.  They are the perfect size to keep all the awards/certificate, report cads and team photos without having to fill in a bunch of blank space.

Maybe one of these days I'll try to post an album flip through.

Till then trust me that this size is perfect but it meant altering the deminsions of the sketch.

I kept the photos at 3x4, elminated a layer behind the photos but popped the photos up so that just a bit of the patterned paper peeps through the cut frame.  I also staggered and stacked the banners as well as shifted everything up. Clusters and journaling moved a bit too but it was all inspired by the sketch.

Maybe next time I'll try for publication this winter

Hearts at UYS

 This week's challenge at Use Your Stuff is  HEARTS.

Create any project you desire, as long as we can see some hearts on it

I made this card for my mother out of only scraps left over from a bo bunny kit.  

So glad to have used some more scraps but still have some left to make a few more cards.

It's mostly paper but I do have a little ephemera left too.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to join us at Use Your Stuff

 

Flowers with UYS

   Sorry for the mix-up earlier, if you saw my post then you got a sneak peak at the next challenge.   The actual challenge at Use Your Stuff is FLOWERS.  Show us your flower-inspired projects.  I'll be back later today with a flower project to share. I'm back with a layout featuring flowers and the June 1st sketch from sketches in Thyme

 

I finally used the last of my CM black and white paper flowers and paired them with CM "magic awaits" paper line.  The color scheme and embellishments are Disney-ish but worked perfectly for my photo of my charcuterie board.  Since my flowers didn't have leaves I doodled some in and added black Nuvo drops in place of the splatters

Thanks for stopping by and make sure to join us at Use Your Stuff

Anything goes at Use Your stuff

 We have an extra Monday this month everyone so our theme at Use Your Stuff is Anything Goes.
I used Sketches in Thyme May 15th Sketch to create this layout.  
I rotated the sketch to accommodate the photo orientation and took some liberties with the placement of the different elements as well as replaced the big circle with lots of punched snowflakes.
The title is a bit of a joke as my son spent at least a 1/2 hour on Valentine's Day this year romping in the snow in his shorts and tank top.  I guess swimming outdoors all winter toughened him up a bit

and here is the sketch I used

Thanks for stopping by to take a look and make sure to join us at Use Your Stuff

TSR- Jumpstart

 This is the second layout I created in the surgery center waiting room I used the jumpstart sketch from the scraproom.  I changed the sketch up just a little with a larger mat behind the photos and the strip across is on top instead of under.  I did that as the photo mat is actually 2 pieces of 2x 9.5 inch paper, but when tucked behind you can never tell. Got to use up some more scraps and almost finish off a kit in the process.

Aside from the photo mat being different, I choose a word background paper instead of the mixed media idea of the sketch.  I also added a few embellishment clusters to try to use some of the stickers from the kit too.  Still have a bunch left which might make it onto a card.

Anyway thanks for stopping by to take a look

S.O.S- May

 Today my middle daughter had surgery to remove a screw from her ankle and I thought I'd pass the time waiting by creating a layout or two.  I printed the Scrap our stash sketch this morning and got started before we left by mounting the photo and figuring out what papers I was going to use as the challenge called for patterned paper circles.  I brought my CM cutting mat and my project display board to use as a work surface in the waiting room.  There was a table but I didn't want to monopolize it with crafting when patients need it to fill out paperwork.  Keep my bag in front of me on the floor to keep tools and items easy to access.

I picked Imagine that collection from CM as the colors were close to the school colors of my husband's lettermen jacket.  Most of the sketch is there other than the tag which I swapped with a journal card and added a few extra embellishments for the pops of black to create a visual triangle.  Not bad for a waiting room creation.

Thanks for coming by to take a peek

Relax

 Sometimes I need to remind myself to Relax.  
I've been on the go a lot recently as we enter the end of the school year and all that it entails.

Today is my second oldest 21st birthday and tomorrow she goes in to have pins/ screws removed from her ankle, this weekend is the district track meet for my youngest daughter and a wilderness first aid campout for my son.  Plus we have a construction project going, set up the pool for the summer, and are working at getting our hobby farm established with a starts/seedling sale.

Yikes I'm tired, but just had to make this card for a friend of mine that is struggling with the single-parent role as her partner is on the road for the next 9months. 

I used up some more of my scraps and random bits to put this card together.  Jazzed up the butterflies and the sentiment card with some green glitter glue.  Added in some small paper flowers and sequence as well to round the whole thing out.

So what's on your summer to-do list?

1. Summer school support as an instruction aid July- August, then freshman bridge program
2. Help my daughter and Sam set up the cottage after the bathroom construction is finished
3. Maintain the garden and do some canning
4. Go to Canada with one if not more of my kids
5. Maybe start running again.  Currently in physical therapy so we'll see.

Anyway I'd love to hear what you're planning

Jessica's Birthday card at UYS- Technique

 Today's challenge is using a technique at Use Your Stuff.  Show us a project that has some kind of technique on it.  Could be stenciling, mixed media, or masking, just be sure to tell us what it is in your post. 

I went with embossing and dry rubbing ink over the embossed area.

I made this card for my daughter's 21st birthday

the design base is 4x6. I used the honeycomb folder from Sizzix and rubbed it with sunny yellow CTMH ink.  Then outlined the edges with a gold CM pen and then a thinner brown pen.  Layered up a bunch of die-cut leftovers and added a few stickers to finish off the card.

UYS- inspired by water

 

Welcome to our first challenge for May at Use Your Stuff where we are sharing projects inspired by water.

My original thought was to use Allison Davis sketch support #31 for my layout but I couldn't narrow down my photo selection as I had so many from our first day of hiking during spring break in Red Rock Canyon.  I was going to do just photos from Lost Creek as that fit the "water theme but if I broke it out that way I'd be scrapping my Las Vegas pictures forever.  So I went with a few from multiple places within the canyon.

Here's my take on the sketch.  I used a photo of the park entrance sign as my title and flipped its location.

close up of left side and bullet journal of stops we made

hidden pocket with the park map and trail descriptions

The left side is the water-inspired half of the layout with the creek and waterfall that we hiked into.

  Thanks for stopping by and make sure to join us at Use Yor Stuff

LM- Sketchy seasons-winter

I'm back for the final Lasting Memories sketchy season challenge- winter

 I originally thought the photos were from New Year's Eve but as I shuffled through them more I found the photo with the food and one with the kids watching Macy's Day parade.  I cut the TV photo and overlaid it on top of the other image that was on the screen, Thanksgiving it is and not Winter at all.

 So I created another layout with Winter photos this time.  For my January Birthday celebration, I booked a brunch trip on the Santiam Steam Train.  I used some super old CM paper that was originally a 6x6 paper album that I pulled apart.  I used the ticket as both the title and as an embellishment

Thanks for coming by to check out my two layouts.

 

CM "leave nothing behind"

I'm up to my last layout from this past weekend's crop and want to thank you for coming back again to see what I did.  This time I used the "Leave nothing behind" collection.  I did a little tearing to create the border.  One of the ladies I was sitting next to asked how I did it to create the white edge.  We had a lengthy discussion about the CM tearing tool and how that could be used to make something similar as I did mine free hand

Thanks for stopping by to take a look

 

CM 2021 NSD paper

Following along the use it or lose it theme I dug into some older stash to create these layouts from the  2021 National Scrapbook Day kit.  It's very heavy in greens and shamrocks but worked perfectly to document my oldest daughter's Birthday dinner.

The layout below is a work in progress.  I still need a title cut for it.  

I'm thinking along the lines of "Who wears them better?" as my son had my daughter's glasses on.

The larger heart is actually cut from the packaging backer card, love using packaging for additional embellishments

Thank you for stopping by to take a look

 

Super old CM Halloween

 I'm really not sure how old this paper is other than it came as 8x8 sheets which I spliced together and hid the seams.  The vertical seam is under the right-hand side photos and the horizontal is covered with the pumpkin cutouts and banners.  I also used some 3D elements from another CM Halloween kit.  I'm challenging myself to get rid of the old stuff.  Either use it, share it, or pitch it.  What I don't use will be heading out soon for a flatRAK with my fellow FB use your scrap group

Thanks for stopping by, hope you're inspired to use your older stash

April 15 SIT

 I thought I'd share a cute kitten layout inspired by Sketches in Thyme
 April 15th layout

I interpreted the angled element as a torn piece of paper, but it could be a stamped or stenciled element as well.

I also opted not to use the embellishments clusters in favor of having more of the background matting show and added the cute little journal tag and tiny banners that I cut from the paper branding strip