Ahhh...Scrappy Time!

So I was able to get some scrappy time in and got to work on the new sketch at Creative Scrappers! I just ordered a TON of pictures from Shutterfly of the kids when they were little. The quality of the images isn't the best because honestly, my photography skills back in the day were less than stellar AND I was using my first digital camera which I think was 4MP! LOL! I love this photo nonetheless! Both of my boys have had the same interests, even though there are 6 years between them! Its sooo funny! This is Matt very seriously checking out one of his Pokemon cards! He was lucky in that when he got interested in Pokemon cards, his brother was done with it and he inherited TONS of Johnny's cards!! And do you know that even now when I do a "deep" cleaning of the kids rooms I still find a Pokemon or Yu Gi Oh card around and Matt is 14 and Johnny is 21 years old!!! Its like the beads from those 1000000000000 bead sets my daughter had when she was little! They don't use these things for YEARS yet bits and pieces are still floating around! Anyway, as I said I used the new sketch up today from Creative Scrappers. I used Crate Paper's Toybox line for the papers and most of the embellishments! I LOVE their new releases! They are soooooo versatile.  I also used the theme of this layout for the April "Scrap the Boys" challenge at Challenge Masters. 

I used lots of "gadgets" for this layout too. I'm definitely a gadget gal. The problem is, once the newness wears off I seem to not use them. At the Kraft Journal there is a Spring Cleaning challenge. So since I was already using Kraft as my background I figured I'd go for it and use some of those gadgets I just had to have. First up is the i-Top tool. I used that to make the large brad at the top left of the photo. I like that gadget well enough, I just never remember about it! And using that brad (and the three small orange ones on the title) qualifies this layout for the Frosted Designs Friday challenge to use brads. I then dusted off an old Sizzix die and cut the stars out of chipboard and matching paper and layered them together. I raised the smaller star up on a pop dot. The last gadget I used was the epoxy shape maker from Epiphany Crafts. I didn't take any closeups of this layout so you could see them better but there are two epoxy shapes that perfectly match....one with a helicopter on it which I placed off the tag that says "That A Boy" and the other is to the right of the "Son" tag on the title block. I also dusted off some very old Thickers chipboard letters for the title. I was surprised I had any vowels left as I've had these letters forever! They are an odd shade of green so not many layouts can use them!! But they matched this one perfect! 

Of course, digging all this stuff out has left a major mess (on top of the mess that was already there!) on my desk. My "to be sorted through and put away later" bin is getting quite full!