SEM July Sketch Challenge and a Special Thank you!

Hello my friends... Happy day!

Scrapping Everyday Miracles is a blog I really love.  They have great challenges that are very tied to one of the things I love more about scrapbooking... which is you can scrap about ordinary things and document your life...  with all your blessings and things that are not things... you know what I mean?  I really love to scrapbook about special days, and birthdays and so on... but also about the table we've had for so many years, or the feeling I've got when I was sick...  and the blessing to have a house... the acceptance of less positive things you have to live with, and so on.

But anyway... They have a sketch challenge going on and I thought it was cool to participate since it's been a while that I don't contribute to their challenges.  You can find about it here:   July Sketch Challenge, and following is the inspiration sketch:

Ok... putting that aside, I have to tell you that I received all these goodies from friend Tameko.    She's a real artist and I know her from Friday Friends with Flair at Unity Stamp Co. since she usually participates and I do too.... You can know more about her here:  Creating my Peace.

I left a comment on her blog a couple of weeks ago, and I resulted the winner... Isn't it cool to receive these kind of surprises by mail?  I bet every scrapper loves to be surprised with crafty goodies.  Thank you Tameko...  

So...  that was the introduction...  SEM Sketch Challenge + New goodies + need to make a bday card for my boss =  Scrapbooking time...

I made this card for SEM Sketch Challenge using the new goodies that Tameko sent to me.

Loved this concept of circled borders and sentiments from Justrite brand, combined with different images or sentiments in the center...  plus I used Spellbinders and one of other stamps from Inkadinkado she sent. 

The circle at center is popped out in all its layers...  not only because I wanted it to be the main one, but because it is also a twist mandatory for the challenge.  The leaves at left, which I cut from patterned paper, are also popped up with foam.

I decided not to paint the flowers in this image because the card was going to be colorful already and did not want to over-color it...  so I just applied some Glossy Accents in the center of the flowers and added purple glitter.  Love it!

In the sketch there is a proposed sentiment at the bottom left corner, but since I used other sentiments throughout the whole design, I included the "Happy Birthday" wish/sentiment inside the card.

At the end I inked a bit the white background to provide some unity to all the elements...

Hope you all liked it...  My boss' bday is today but she's on vacation so she won't see the card until Monday the 29th.  Hope she likes it then.

Tks for the comments.

Scrapping Everyday Miracles... challenge

Here's the story...

I have a son... very obedient, loving and sweet.  Everybody loves him, everybody wants to be with him.  Since he was little, he's been a great student.  He has won lots of awards.  He's been in the newspaper, magazines, TV, and several stages around the island.  He's special.

He has several conditions and has been under a lot of medicines during his life, but he's always happy, positive, and ready to do whatever is next.

He enjoys nature, he loves to kiss and be kissed back.  He's now volunteering to be a therapy helper in hospitals and institutions where there are people who needs some love.

I sound like any very proud mom...The thing is, I'm talking about my dog.

The Scrapbooking Everyday Challenge, called All Things have become NEW, is to make a layout about something new in my life... using at least one old and one new element in the page.

The new thing is that I visited a children's hospital with my dog recently and our dog is being evaluated to be a therapy dog, and we (my husband and I) are being evaluated to be certified as Therapy Dogs managers.  It's something that brings a nice feeling but I am experiencing new activities as part of the process.

So here's the layout.

I have several old things here...  The background paper with little squares, as well as the paper used for the journaling is from a Basic Grey collection of dogs and cats... it must have at least 3 years old.   The chipboard words/phrases in the journaling are from a K&Co kit I bought when I started to do scrapbooking in 2007.  The black and white stripe paper is from a b&w collection a friend gave me about 2 years ago.

But these letters.... specially these letters... are from a patterned paper I remember I bought in 2007 or maybe 2008 in local store sale.  The paper was 25 cents!!!!

Well... and then the new thing is this glitter from a kit I bought recently at TJ Maxx and since then I've been using it like crazy...

Here's a closer look to the journaling.

Hope you liked it.  You don't have to leave a comment, but I sure enjoy them.

Feeling Blue!

Hello my blogger friends.

Hope you are having a nice "middle of the week".

I just wanted to make a quick stop to show you this layout I made for the Scrapping Everyday Miracles challenge.  The direction is to scrap about something sad.  Not everything is in pink around here, you know... but God is always there to remind us that all these things are part of life.  I always say us humans need the sweet and the bitter, so we can really understand what sweet is and appreciate it when we have it.

So I decided to scrap about my dog-son.  He was sick the other day and he was very weak.  We were very worried and didn't know what to do.  We had taken him to the doctor and he was on medication but still we did not see improvement.

I could not take him out of my mind while working and asked to myself, what are we doing wrong?  I asked God to please help us understand so we can help him.  He is very important for us and has given us so much joy in our lives.

There was one day that he was so weak that we really got scared.  It was a work day and I stayed with him during the morning to watch him.  Then my husband stayed in the afternoon...  He was the one who received the call from the doctor telling him to take our dog for hospitalization because some analysis had came out and he was not good.

Long story short... he was with the Vet 2 nights, he recovered...  but recently got sick again, and we found out it was this virus that stays in and out from the body (it hides) and thus the in and out fevers and so on.  Now he's still taking medication and getting better and better.

The page is titled "Feeling Blue" and I cut the silhouette in the photo and added a white cardstock thin border to provide some "light" to that magic moment when I was trying to cheer my dog up for a photo but all he did was to put his head in my lap and I kissed him, and took the photo.

Journaling will be hidden in the little envelope at left and it says outside:  skies are gray!

When my dog is sick I feel my heart is in pieces.  That's why I covered this chipboard heart with pieces of paper and some outside of the heart to show that.  (I now realize the date is missing in the journaling card in the photo, but it will be there before storing in the album... LOL!)

Well... hope your gray moments are less than the pink ones... but remember they are necessary.

Have a great rest of the week.

A Card with a Sketch

 Hey there!

Mother's Day is coming and I haven't done any cards or thought about any gifts... OMG!  This is what I've said to myself all these days when arriving home from work!  

So, today, I decided to at least cut some papers to feed the need for the hobby!!! 

I'm not very used to sketches, but I saw this one from Scrapping Everyday Miracles and I thought I could use it for a card.  You can see the sketch I'm talking about HERE.

And this is the card...

I used patterned papers from DCWV and chipboard letters from EK Success.  I distressed the circle background and inked with Color Box ink.

The flowers are from Portafolia and the pearls from "e."brand.

The sentiment stamp is from a "Spanish Memories".

I think it's kind of cool I used the sketch for a card instead of a Layout.   You know I love to be imperfect!!!   I usually don't use sketches because I don't usually follow the rules (at least when talking about scrapbooking), but I've found great inspirations on them lately.

Let me share some other quick cards I also made tonight before I'm gone to bed...

This is the inside of the card:

Have a good night, day, and rest of the week.  Don't forget to leave me your comment.