When you have a house full of sick kids and a pounding headache, what do you do?? Scrap, of course!

I'm on a roll.  Today i've got the creeping crud and don't feel like doing anything but sit around, but when i saw the sketch at Citrus Twist  i knew i was going to scrap- NOW.  So i did!  i want to do the beautiful sketch again, and make several more that all look different, (the beauty of sketches!) and i'm wishing i added more layering at the bottom of this one, but I still like it.  I tucked hidden journaling into the pocket that i show in greater detail below.

I also made this layout earlier this weekend, but i don't really like it so much...  I think having all the same paper line makes it look kind of plastic.  Ah well, live and learn.  I did this as a sketch challenge over at the Scraptastic kit club so i'm still posting it, but yeah, better luck next time :)  I should add that it is a BEAUTIFUL sketch, and one i hope to retry again soon.  I love that it uses 2 4x6 pictures, a common increment in scrapping for me. 

a funky technique photo doubling

So i was working on this sketch, with my new Citrus Twist kit, from the boys rule blog, and i broke the rule of the spray ink- DO NOT spray over pictures without covering them.  OOPS.  So, i thought, i'll replace the picture later.... but then I got a better idea.  I tried to find an identical pic, which i didn't have, but i had a similar one- EVEN cooler,  i cut out the body of the new pic of Nik, and pop dotted it to the original green covered Nik.  LOVE IT!!! whatcha think?

another layout and finally doing a project life layout.

so first, i did another layout with my citrus twist kit-

It was taking a chance when it came to the circle, i used the sketch at Creative Scrappers and i think it turned out pretty good!! my favorite part, besides the wild hand drawn circle was the raised embellishment from the flat tags that came with my kit.  i love doing that! 

Next, i'm sharing my early october layout for my family album.  I make albums for each of my children and one for our whole family, and this year since i've been having such a hard time making it happen, i decided to do a project life-ish album for our family album.  Well, i was well intentioned anyway- my album goes from January to October :) i do plan to fill in the gap, but its a lot harder when you don't have the memories right on hand.  in the future i think i'll write journaling cards riight when i get the pics, that way if i do fall behind, it will still be easy.   i made these bigger for in case if you want to read the journaling.  I'm not very god at this style yet, so these are purely functional ;)

i made a layout yesterday!

And I had to share!  i got my new kit from Citrus Twist  and its such a beauty! Yes, i signed up for a kit club again! i totally can't afford it, and I totally don't care! i've reached that point!!!! :)

Anyway, i was scouring my stash of challenge blogs for a good challenge or sketch to use and I came across The Scraproom's blog, and their AWESOME challenges.  I used the October sketch for this layout.

How do you do color challenges??

This has always baffled me, and i've tended to shy away from color challenges, because i'm primarily a kit user- I like to buy coordinated kits and save the brainwork of coordinating everything, and besides, how can you resist all the GORGEOUS kits out there?! and furthermore, why would you want to?

I'm off on a tangent.  Anyway, so when i saw the challenge at the Color Me Scrappy blog I knew i had to do this challenge! what a beautiful color combo!!!!

Right?? its awesome! 

BUT, the thing about color challenges, is that they don't always neatly fit into a ready made kit's scheme.  Usually, there's another prominent color that isn't in the color challenge, or the kit has most but not all the colors in the challenge...   A dilemma indeed.  

But i found a solution to this problem and thought i'd share in case anyone else had the same conundrum.  

Step 1:  flip through your kit stash and try to find kits with at least a few of the same colors

Step 2:  If that fails, or produces less selection than you'd like, take your remaining kits and try to pick out the specific colors in the scheme.  Pull the cardstock and/or patterned paper out, and set it aside.  

Step 3: narrow down the papers you pulled for the most attractive combination of colors and prints.  I like to choose a dominant color, a secondary color and then a couple of detail colors.  I also try to have some solid colors, big prints, small prints, etc.  so there's variety.  

Step 4: flip through first the kits with compatible colors that you set aside, and if needed all your other kits, to fish for embellishments.  I only pull out the ones i'm pretty sure i'll use, as pulling out all that patterned paper has created mess enough!  

Step 5: put it all together, and clean up the mess! Voila! you have a color challenge!!!  

Here's what I created with these beautiful colors- (sorry about the cruddy picture, I was too impatient to wait for sunlight!)  And because i am JUST that much of a nerd- i even used the color grid itself as inspiration for the design of this page!