A layout and a sketch

I am a big fan of sketches and have acquired quite the collection. I find them useful when I have a creative block and need a jumping off point. I also find that if I take them to a crop, I get so much more done since I can be chatting with friends and following the sketch at the same time.
As part of my crafting goals, I thought I would start documenting my own sketches and sharing them with the layouts I've been creating.

My first sketch is a simple layout that focuses on fitting multiple photos on a layout, in this case five 4x6 photos. By using large pieces of background paper, you don't hide the fun patterns! 

I'm super excited to create some more sketches for both myself and to share!

New Year's Intentions!

With the new year one month in, I've been very successful in getting some crafting time in each day, even if only for half an hour.

The benefits have not only been getting more of my photos in my books, but I find intentionally setting aside some time for me each day is rewarding and puts me in a relaxed mood.

It also made me so happy to look at my photos from the recent season and I actually have scrapped all my Halloween season photos! 

This one, featuring The Paper Loft was a page from a Dino themed corn maze. The Funkysaurus Collection was a perfect fit!

A Truly Scrumptious Recipe Book

Welcome to another stop on the CardMaker and The Paper Loft Blog Hop! 

Today the CardMaker Designers and The Paper Loft Designers will be showing you some wonderful projects featuring papers from The Paper Loft. 

Today I'm sharing a fun mini album I made using The Paper Loft papers!

One of our favorite parts of summer is the wonderful foods that we share with friends and family! We try new flavors, sample seasonal fruit, and grill fun treats!
This year I wanted a way to document those recipes so we'll remember to try them again.
I made a keepsake recipe book using The Paper Loft Truly Scrumptious collection.The pastel papers are perfect for girl pages, spring and summer themes, and for here, sweet treats!

I used a pattern for a waterfall album with a pocket on the front page. The pocket will hold recipe cards and the flaps will feature pictures of the fun and fruity foods we've tried over the summer!

Thanks for visiting my blog! Make sure and comment on each of the blogs in the hop! One winner will be randomly chosen to win a $25 Gift Certificate from The Paper Loft!  The winner will be chosen on August 31^st at 9pm CT and announced on The Paper Loft Blog on September 1st. 

Blog Hop List:

CardMaker Blog
Jeanne Streiff

Theresa Momber

Vicki Garrett
Anna Wight
Piali Biswas
Debbie Seyer
Jeanne Jachna
You are here: Andrea Eason
Kelli Hull

Noelle McAdams
Lori Iwanowski
Mae Nazareth

Alicia O’Bryant
The Paper Loft

Island Sun Mini Album

I love doing mini albums for events like Christmas and vacations so I was super excited to find out The Paper Loft had chipboard albums! The heavy weight chipboard is easy to work with and makes a great foundation for a mini album.
Since we took tons of pictures on our vacation to Hawaii, the newest Paper Loft line, Island Sun, was just perfect for this album!

The cover, to which I added a cut out embellishment, flowers with button centers, and fussy cut starfish from the same paper.

The cover of my album was inspired by this month's sketch at The Paper Loft:

The wonderful cut out embellishments were great additions to the pages with the beach theme!

I love the starfish papers that is the same as the cover and the cute coordinating title piece, "a walk along the beach".

The pages are large enough to add 4X6 photos and on this spread I cut them down a bit and fit multiple photos!

The realistic shell and sand paper were perfect for the Hawaii pictures!

The plaids coordinated perfectly with the patterns!

I added bunches of fun ribbon to the binder rings!

Thanks for looking! Now don't miss out on your chance to be a guest designer for The Paper Loft and win some fabulous product! Visit the blog for The Paper Loft or check out The Paper Loft Facebook page for details!

Black and White and Add Some Color

I love black and white with one other color and this month, About a Boy Scrapbook Challenges blog and About a Girl Scrapbook Challenges blog each hosted a challenge to use black and white and one other color.
For About a Boy, I used a sketch from Sketch N Scrap...

And for About A Girl I used a sketch from My Scraps & More...

Jet Setter

This month, the first challenge over at Scrap Our Stash was to create a travel themed layout using a premade travel embellishment as well as travel signage. This was perfect timing since I'm busy scrapping pictures from our trip to Hawaii!
I created this layout, Jet Setter, using fun photos from Simple Stories.

Plane Fun

For the month of August, Rochelle Spears blog challenge was to create a travel themed page. I used some great shots of Jack at the airport watching planes from the airport window.

This was combined with GrandDiva's Creative Corner sketch challenge using the following sketch:

...as well as Kristi B's recipe challenge using stripes, wood, and mixed alphas.