Mid Week Sketch 52-12

Oh my, a whole year has gone by. We have had one sketch per week this year and almost all of them actually on time... ish... ;-)

I would like to thank everyone who has come on this journey with me, especially the people who have managed to get a sketch converted to an actual page - well done you! Thanks for sharing your work this year, it's been good to see what you've done and how you've interpreted my sketches. Love it!

Thanks also to the people who have left me comments here and there. I can't tell you how much I love to get your feedback and to know that I'm not just talking to myself here. I really appreciate the little extra time it takes to do that. Thanks x

And now, here is the final sketch for 2012. I have made this a Christmassy page, but you don't need to of course - replace the tree and decorations with anything else that is suitable and that works, and away you go.  I took some photos today that will work with this sketch, just have to edit them and go get them printed.

I hope you will join me again next year for another year long journey of sketches and inspiration. :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 51-12

The second last sketch of the year isn't for a layout... I thought it would be nice to share some card sketches with you for a change. You can adapt them for last minute Christmas cards, or use them for next year's birthday and other cards that you need. Use up some scraps and stash and have some creative fun. Cards are great for orphan flowers, scraps and strange bits and pieces that didn't get used elsewhere. No need to buy anything, it's all waiting for you in your stash. Use up odd strips of cardstock for the bases, too, or cut a pile of bases ready to go.

Do you know how to cut three 4x6 inch cards out of one sheet of 12x12 cardstock? 4x6 is useful because it's a perfect fit for a C6 envelope. My other favourite (especially if I don't have quite enough cardstock and want to get rid of it... um, I mean, use it ;-) ... is a 3 x 5 1/4 inch, which fits perfectly in an 11B envelope. Both these envelopes are standard sizes, making them Post Office Preferred and easy to find in the shops. Bonus.

OK, to cut a sheet of 12x12 into three cards: first cut a 4 inch strip off down one side, making one strip 4 x 12 inches. Then turn the remaining piece around and cut it in half, 6 inches wide, making two pieces 6 x 8 inches. Fold each of these pieces in half and you will have three 4 x 6 cards, each of which you can use upright or across.

To cut four 3 x 5 1/4 inch cards out of a piece of 12 x 12 inch cardstock, first cut the piece in half, making two 6 x 12 inch strips. Then cut each strip twice, 5 1/4 inches long, leaving you with four 6 x 5 1/4 pieces and two scraps 6 x 1 1/2 inches. Fold your pieces in half to make four cards 3 x 5 1/4 inches. (By the way, the two scraps can be added to the larger cards for accent pieces... )

And now the sketches :-) I hope you find them useful. Most of these are for 4x6 cards, but you can easily adapt them for the smaller version too.

You can change them to suit a girl or boy just by using different embellishments and papers - for instance the square card with cogs - replace the cogs with hearts or flowers and you have a girly card. Or the card with flags and flowers - replace the flowers with a chipboard car or something and you have a great boy card. Let your imagination sparkle :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 50-12

Here's a nice easy sketch for you this week, one that uses up some lonely bits and pieces perhaps. If you're anything like me (and please tell me I'm not alone...) then you have half a shape here, some scraps and strips there, doilies and tags poking into every corner... oh, I'm sure you know the drill! Bring a few out and let them settle into place with a single photo, then adorn the whole lot with some of those flowers lurking in your stash. Whether your colour scheme is bright and cheery or dark and moody, I think this sketch will suit.

If you get a page done, please do add it to the gallery so that I can go and leave you a comment. I love seeing what people do with my sketches.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 49-12

Is it just me or is the end of the year coming too fast? I think my brain is stuck in September...

However, a new sketch every week is certainly a poke in the ribs to remind me how fast it's all going and I thought I would do a few to end the year that would be great for the multi shots we are all going to be taking this month. This one is good for those click, click, click moments, when you get several good shots in a row. It would work for two portrait orientation photos, with a layer either side to make up the difference in width, or tip it to the side with the journaling and title underneath if you have three portrait photos.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 48-12

This week's sketch is a bit of a cheat... I did it in the wee small hours last week, in a desperate rush to finish the last page for my wedding album in time for my Silver Wedding Anniversary. So I went with the flow of a very nice piece of paper and made it my own. Then I thought, that would make a great sketch, so here you are, hope you enjoy it.

And here's my page: 

I hope you can forgive this one cheat sketch. Usually everything comes straight from my head.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 47-12

Oh yes, another late one... I have an excuse, really I do... It was my silver wedding anniversary on the weekend and the run up to it was rather hectic, since I was catering and doing the decorations and looking for a dress, etc. All over now though, and the stuff on the desk has suddenly cleared enough for me to see what else needs to be done.

The reason for all the wedding photos I've been doing lately becomes clear to you now, I guess? I have been doing my wedding album in time for my anniversary. I think it's safe to say that I am happy now to start working on ordinary photos, and not vintage ones for a while! Ah to be that young again though, sigh....

Anyway, here is last week's sketch, and it's matching page:

The rub-on title decided to misbehave and not come off smoothly, but in the end I decided I liked the vaguely vintage look of it.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 46-12

No page done for this one yet, but I am itching to get to it so I think it's high on the list of jobs before the week is over. Here is the sketch, hope you like it. (And yes, I know it's another circle. I am in a circley kind of mood apparently.)

And by the way... did you notice how close 46 is to 52? Not many more sketches to do this year.... Can it really only be 6 more and the whole year is done?

And I have finished the page that goes with this sketch, although I flipped mine to suit the flourish better. Flipping, turning and changing things to suit yourself is a good thing. My sketches are all for inspiration, so don't be afraid to fiddle about with them and make them your own.

I haven't done a title on this page. I made it as a double for another page I did for my album, and that one has a large title, so I decided against one for this page.... also, I was doing it at 3am to finish it, and my brain wasn't happy being made to think of one, lol! Next to the other page, it doesn't look like it needs one. Honest. ;-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 45-12

Well, look at this - I'm on time! lol ;-)

I've had a very busy week, but it's also been very refreshing and relaxing and it was easy to get some scrapping done.

I've been digging through some older photos lately and finding some lovely memories to scrap, although I must say the details are a bit foggy sometimes... other times they are really clear and I am transported back in time. That's one of the beauties of scrapping, isn't it? We can capture those memories once and for all, even if it's only a snippet. Capture the stories of our lives and live those little moments again that make us who we are, as a person or a family or community. It doesn't matter when we do it, as long as we get it done.

I'll have to check the "when" of this photo with my husband when he comes home tonight, but the beginning of the story is told.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 44-12

Here is our last one for this week and now we are all caught up :-) This one is a pretty easy one, with a couple of layers and then stuff from the stash pulled out and finally used.

Use two 4x6 photos, or a nice big 6x8 or even four 3x4 inch photos.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 43-12

Here's is our next catch up sketch, hope you like it :-) If you don't have a 5x7 photo, you could either mat a 4x6 to size, or use two 3.5x5 inch photos together. Use any tallish embellishment at the side to give your layout balance.

And my sample:

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 42-12

You may have noticed a couple of weeks without sketches... I can explain... but I won't bore you. So this week we are having a catch up. Today is MWS 42. It's a good one for those multi shots you take sometimes, that tell a bigger story.

And here is my sample page, another one for my wedding album (it's almost finished now, yahoo). 

Hope you like this one and that it's useful to you. I will be back with another one tomorrow :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 41-12

Looking for something to do? How about this sketch? It's for three 4x6 photos - perfect for sport action shots, family groupings, etc. Use up a few coordinating scraps (they're all 3/4 inch wide strips), add a little sugar and spice and and you're good to go.

I'm still doing my page, so I will put it up later - just thought you would like the sketch to be going on with.

Update: And here is that page. It's a great page to use up some coordinating scraps of paper. Some of these have been in my scrap file for quite a while. I had to piece the scallop strip as it was just a little square of pp, but it worked out quite well and it was the right colour, so it had to be done. I love how it turned out.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 40-12

I know it's no longer even close to the middle of last week, but oh well, here is the sketch anyway. Hopefully  now that I'm on the mend, my mid weeks will be back to normal. In the meantime, Josie Dean has kindly done a sample page for me for this week's sketch :-) Check out Josie's blog to see all the other wonderful work she does.

Only a few more days and the next one will be up - doesn't time fly when you are running late? LOL ;-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 39-12

This week's sketch is for three 3x4 photos... or two 4.5 x 4, or one 4x6 and one 3x4. What do you have on hand to scrap? Any of the above will work. It's a cheerful kind of layout, and it would work well with some masking, stamping,misting or paint rings on the background, if you like that sort of thing. Don't forget to share your page in the link so I can leave you some love.

No sample page from me this week as I am not feeling 100% and there is no scrapping happening here. :-(

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 38-12

Hi girls. A bit late (where have you heard that before...) but here is our sketch this week. If you don't have a large photo, you can mat a 4x6 or cut down two 4x6 photos to 3.5 x 5 inches - just do what suits you best.

And here is my sample - another page for my wedding album. We will be having our 25th wedding anniversary in November so I am trying to get my wedding album scrapped at last! 

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 37-12

Hi everyone, hope your week is going along nicely for you without too much drama. I have a nice clean sketch for you this week, with just a few easy layers and some nice easy embellishing. And it's suitable for boys - bonus!

Instead of the boat, you can put any embellishment you want of course, and change the whole feel of the page with your choice. Should be fun to see what everyone comes up with. 

We also have some inchies down the side to make if you are interested. Inchies are cute little one inch squares all decorated in whatever way you like to suit your page. I love them, they are like mini (very mini) canvases and you can make them vintage, bright, beachy or whatever, and use up all sorts of little bits and pieces on them - charms, teeny bits of pretty ribbon or lace, mirror squares, buttons, leftover bits and bobs... whatever you like or have on hand - it all looks good :-) 

Here is my page, finally getting around to scrapping Sam, who is now walking. Ooopsie... just a bit behind there... There's nothing like babies and children growing to really bring home the passage of time.

I made my inchies on white cs as a background, then cut the pps 7/8 of an inch. I liked the look so much I decided to outline all my embellishments and the title too, in a narrow border of white cs. It was easy, just cut the pp and stick it on the white and cut around. I think it lifted my page nicely. I have to tell you it's much brighter than this photo... it was a dull day here and I can never get a good photo on a dull day.

Love my new alphabet die from My Favorite Things (MFT), it's so neat and chunky and easy on the eyes. The notepaper edge is one of their dies too - so handy.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 36-12

The first sketch of Spring! Um... hmm... should have scrapped a Springy page to go with it, LOL... oopsie. I actually scrapped a companion page to last week's sketch. Oh well, the last of winter and the first of spring go nicely together in their autumn colours in prints that remind me of lazy summer days and faded picnic linens.

Here is the sketch, and you will see why it goes so well with last week's one.

And here's my page, the other half of a double, using last week's sketch and this. Scrappy is part of the title of the whole, which is Scrappy Friends.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 35-12

I am having trouble with my phone letting me upload photos, so although I have a lovely page to share with you from this sketch, it's that invisible one there, down below, lol... tsk. We can live without technology until we have it, but once we live with it, it owns us... and decides for us what we will be doing with our days. Thank goodness for paper, we can still tell it what to do for us! ;-) I will share my page with you as soon as I can figure out what the heck is happening with the interface or whatever it's called. (And that's the other thing about our techy devices - they know all about us, but we don't necessarily know all about them.... spooky... lol.)

So, after all that, here is the sketch - it would have been here yesterday but I was hoping this morning would make a difference (by some unknown magic) to the aforementioned device!

*Update... oh... it was there all the time. It was just that the little box that usually comes up to ask me to upload didn't. Panic over, lol. The phone did misbehave on and off all day, but this evening it all seems fine. So, here is my page :-)

Please note that if you are doing this page, you should have your bird well over, and not sitting on someone's head like this... oopsie. Moving mine now, lol!

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 34-12

Another sketch for the boys this week - and why not, they get neglected in lots of ways, so it's time to redress the balance just a little bit.

Don't you just love that giant ricrac? I wish I had some in every colour!

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Rose Tutorial

Want to know how to make the most delicious little roses to coordinate with any page you are doing? Head over to my recently revived blog StormScraps and check out my new tutorial! It's long and involved, but I think you will be able to follow it and I wanted to put lots of pictures in so that you can see what you're doing.

I have a prize on offer on my blog too, so go have a read and see what you think.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 33-12

Good morning everyone, hope you are having a great week - or that it's improving :-)

I have a masculine sketch for you today - no sample unfortunately, but that happens occasionally. If you are lucky enough to own some cogs, you're going to love this. If not (like me) you will find some substitutes I'm sure. Happy scrapping.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 32-12

Another week has rolled around - Wednesdays seem to be my flag for a passing year now that we are well past the half way mark.

My sketch for you this week is another nice easy one. It's really all about embellishments with just one larger photo and only one layer of pp, and then a few embellishment additions to pretty it up. A chance to get some of those pretties out of your stash and onto a page. If you aren't doing a girly page, change out the flowers for gears or animals or something, it will look just as good. Hope you like it.

 Here is my sample page - one more for my wedding album, which is now about half way done, wahoo!

I'd love to see what you are doing with my sketches - please share your pages via the linky thing. I love seeing how the sketches speak to you.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 31-12

Another nice easy sketch for you, to whip up in your spare moments. I like this one, it's a simple but quite effective one. A good one for several smaller photos.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

July Winner

Well, only one page done with the July sketches, so Kerri wins, hands down, lol! Kerri I will be sending you this lovely flower package, thanks for sharing your lovely page with me. I'm glad you liked my sketch enough to have a go. Enjoy your flowers when they arrive :-)

Here they are again:

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 30-12

We're up to week 30 already? This year is zipping past. I'm not even going to think about it. Safer that way, lol.

Anyway, to keep the tempus fugit blues away, here is a cute sketch that utilises those skinny strips you find on the bottom of some brands of paper - you know, the cut off strip. I can't throw them out when they are so pretty. I've mixed some with other thin strips in my layout, but you can also use ribbons if you want. It's a good layout for that too.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 29-12

Well, here is our last catch up sketch - next Wednesday we are back on track. I hope you like this one, it's a bit different for me being symmetrical... although you will see from my sample page that I couldn't stick to it too much, making a few things a bit squint and distressing to take away from the straight lines.

and here's that sample page, with my fur babies snoozing their lives away. 

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 28-12

As you know if you've been here for a while, I am a couple of weeks late with my mid week sketches... I'd blame someone else if I could think of who it could be, LOL.. The truth is rather bland... just life getting in the way as it sometimes does.

Anyway, it's catch up time this week, and I have another sketch for you today to help in that process.

This one would work well for a romantic page, or a page of love anyway, but I did my sample of my Christmas tree and the decorations. The photos are a little dark because they were taken at night when the fairy lights were lit. I like them though, they remind me of what I like about the tree. It might not be perfect, but I do love my Christmas tree and all the lovely handmade decorations on it. My little dots are liquid pearls. I just recently acquired my first bottle of this stuff and I can't believe it took me so long!

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

A Little Smackeral of Something Pretty

I know it's half way through the month, and I am behind with sketches this month anyway, but oh well, I have a little prettiness to share - and all you have to do to maybe possess this pinkness is to:

1. Do a page with a July sketch and link it through the Inlinkz tool on the side bar

2. Leave me a comment on any post.

3. Become a follower if you aren't already

and.... and you will go in the draw to win it. It might be you! Hope so :-)


And here is the pretty pinkness I mentioned.

There are two doilies, some leaves, a butterfly and a pearl stick pin, and a bunch of my handmade flowers in pink and ivory. Let's see those pages now, and good luck.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 27-12

I have a double for you this week. You could adapt to a single if that's all you're interested in, just use one side or the other and fiddle to make it balanced. But for those of you who crave doubles, it's your lucky week :-)

I've designed this for three 4-6 inch landscape orientation photos and I've made my sample with some Christmas photos - bit late in the year maybe, but at least they are before this year's ones appear!

I like this dull red and aqua combination, it makes a nice change to traditional red and green for Christmas. Softer, more relaxed.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 26-12

Sorry girls, I've been having a hard time getting to anything scrappy lately. I could blame all sorts of things I guess, but the buck stops here, so you'll just have to forgive me for being a bit slack and enjoy the sketches in the catch up. Sometimes life just gets in the way of our creative pursuits, for whatever reason. I know you know what I mean.

Here is Sketch 26, hope you like it.

The next catch up will be posted tomorrow. :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..