A New Year's Tradition

It's always fun to dig through pictures from the past winter when the weather is getting hot and humid!
This month over at About a Girl Scrapbook Challenges the challenge is to scrap a page using the word "new". I immediately thought of New Year's Day and our tradition of going to the American Girl Store for the Doll of the Year Reveal and waiting outside in the freezing cold.

I used a sketch from PageMaps June sketch contest for inspiration:

Red, White, and Blue

With July kicking off with the Independence Day holiday, I had a great time digging into my stash of Fourth of July papers!
I used Paper Secrets Sketch with a Twist Challenge as inspiration for my layout:

I used My Mind's Eye paper as part of their July blog challenge, using red, white, and blue.

 I also entered this in About A Boy Scrapbook Challenge using red, white, and blue.
Also using red, white, and blue this month is S.W.A.T. for their Red White, and Blue Blog Hop!
And also over at Scrap It Girl, the July challenge also featured the patriotic red, white, and blue theme!
And don't forget to check out Scrap Our Stash's challenge using red, white, and blue and some premade stars like the chipboard ones I used.

The Paper Girls Challenge

With tons of pictures from Hannah's ballet recital, I was finally able to use some of the ballet paper I had been hoarding this year.
I really liked Echo Park's mini kit with elegant designs and fresh colors.

I used the June sketch challenge at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog for inspiration.

And here is what I came up with.

I traced a template on the striped paper to create the scallop design and with only a scrap of this pretty blue crocheted ribbon left, I split it and hid the gap with some oversized flowers. I stapled bits of ribbon to the top edge of the photo to tie in with the bold black letters and some bling to create depth and movement.

My Scraps & More Sketch Number Four

The last sketch for June over at My Scraps & More featured lots of layers...

I used hexagons punched using my newest tool, the Fiskars hex punch, to embellish the layout design where the stars are featured.

Our Ballerina

As an avid scrapper knows, sometimes an outfit is just perfect for the paper you have!
When I saw Hannah's ballet costume for this year, I immediately said (yes, out loud) "It goes with my Bo Bunny Isabella paper!

The pretty pinks and of course, the elegant ballet feel, was just perfect!

I added metal butterflies to add to the printed ones. I glimmer misted a doily in a deep gray and added gray and black flowers and some black bling flourishes.
The layout inspiration comes from My Creative Sketches June sketch:

Playing with Scraps

I love all the beautiful paper designs and because of that, hold on to all the scraps.

I had some great end pieces from these cute papers from Cosmo Cricket. I love how using scraps created a page with lots of white space, which I added a walnut stain circle to, to frame the photo. I added wood butterflies in the same stain to bring a color variance to the layout.
The sketch inspiration comes from Scrap Much? and their Sketch-y Friday sketch:

And another layout from my scraps from this collection:

I used Scrap Our Stash's sketch using only scraps, a premade tag, and twine.

My Mind's Eye June Sketch Challenge

I loved Hannah's vintage cowgirl costume for her ballet recital and I printed some of the photos in sepia to give it a vintage touch.
My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline collection had the perfect feel with the woodgrain and pretty flowers and doilies.

I used the June sketch on their blog for inspiration for my layout.

I also used Scrapbook Challenge's Get Messy Challenge for inspiration. I misted the background with glimmer mist, then painted the wood butterflies in coordinating dye. My fingers are green like kermit but I love how they turned out.