SWAT- Drill 19

It is time for another SWAT drill! For drill #19, we are going to gobble till we wobble! Share a layout with a favorite recipe, or a food picture.

For my take, I shared my recipe for a great date night and a few beverages at the local Tiki bar.

To follow my recipe, find some good friends. I love adding adult time to date nights, so the conversation doesn't fall just to the kids! Of course, if you have children, a sitter is also a necessary ingredient. We also add a taxi or designated driver to our mix if we add my favorite ingredient, Handcrafted drinks.

Locally, we have several small distilleries, and many local spots that have turned away from commercial mixes and are creating mixed drinks from real ingredients. I love real juice and infused spirits. The craftsmanship in these drinks is incredible, and I adore the creations the local bartenders are creating.

To create this layout, I hand wrote the recipe card, and I kept my paper selections neutral to match the feel of the Instagram photos. I added a pop of color by pulling from the pink in the embellishments, and added a little sparkle with sequins.

Of course, all of us at SWAT want to see your creations! Share by linking to SWAT a creation with a recipe, or pictures of some of your favorite meals, and you are entered to win our prize for the month. I am excited to see what you create, and I hope to find some new favorites!

~Venetia

Kiwi Lane Designs- May Blog Hop!!

Hooray! Hooray! It's the third of May, which means it is time for the Kiwi Lane Blog Hop! I am lucky enough to be the first hop after the Kiwi Lane Blog. If you are new here, welcome! I'm Venetia, and I make stuff!

I got to play with the Brackets Designer Template for my go at the blog hop, and I am so excited to share my scrapbooking ideas with you.

The Brackets Designer templates are a great multi-use tool. I am pretty particular about my supplies, I like to be able to get a lot of use out of tools. For this blog hop I created a layout, a mini-album, and a Mixed-Media Canvas using the Brackets. I can also see using them in the future as misting masks, card templates, and for creating custom gift bags.

For the layout, I used the Bracket and Scallops designer templates. Using the Kiwi Lane templates helped to tie together these papers from different collections into a fun layout celebrating my oldest and her missing front tooth. I especially like how the layering adds dimension to the layout.

For my youngest, I decided to make a mini. I used all three brackets templates to design the mini.

I traced the templates on plain chipboard and added straight lines to the middle templates to elongate them so they would fit a picture.

Then, I cut the chipboard, and covered it using papers in my daughter's favorite colors and patterns.




For the embellishments, I made sure that I had a ton of flowers, sparkles, and ribbon. My youngest loves frilly, sparkly things, and using the templates was the perfect way to make a mini fit for my little princess.




This mini is her new favorite book. She loves looking at her pictures and telling me what she is doing in each.









Finally, I integrated brackets into art journaling, and created an art journaling canvas using the bracket and scallops templates. The templates definitely added great touches to the final project, I love how they worked for the brackets around the heart.

 

Kiwi Lane is giving away a $25 Gift Certificate for the Kiwi Lane Shop to a random commenter from one of the participating blogs. I am adding to the fun and giving away a different $25 Kiwi Lane gift card to a random follower of my blog!  So if you aren't a follower now, join the fun so you can be entered by using the Google Connect or Networked blogs widgets.

 

Next, I am so incredibly happy to send you off to the wonderfully talented Heather Conklin. I love her dearly, and she is amazingly talented. All the stops have really done amazing things for the Kiwi Lane Hop, so have fun hopping!

 

 

Kiwi Lane Blog Hop Lineup--------

 



Kiwi Lane

 You are here ----->Venetia Holbrook www.atomicvenetia.blogspot.com

Heather Conklin http://goldiecar.blogspot.com
Jana Eubank http://www.janaeubank.wordpress.com
Jen McDermott http://wonkywares.blogspot.com
Jennifer Budge: http://www.thingsthaticreate.wordpress.com
Catherine Povec www.tybearsmom.blogspot.com
Gail Owens www.glowormdesigns.blogspot.com
Erin Schultz www.trailofscraps.blogspot.com
Jenn Nicholes http://craftingmoments.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

Scrapbook Sketch- trying a new approach

I have mentioned that I usually start with my pictures or paper, and not a sketch, unless I am doing a challenge. This week, I am trying to start from my own sketch. I was inspired by a packaging design for this sketch, so I adapted it a little, and will see what happens.

So far, this has been a fun process, especially because the sketch is pretty plain, so it is wide open to interpretation. I hope to share the finished layout with you soon!

 

What is your usual process? Do you ever switch it up?

 

~Venetia

Scrapbook Sketch- Sisters and Friends

I love my two girls. They are so silly together. From the very beginning, they have been the best of friends. Cakes always would sing and talk to Budgie, and as they grew they played more and more. Before Budgie could walk, she always managed to be with her sister, and we couldn't figure out how. Finally, one day I caught Cakes dragging Budgie across the hardwood floor by her foot while she sat. I was both appalled and proud of her. Luckily, Budgie was laughing the whole way, so it clearly was a mutual arrangement between the two.

Now, they are constant companions, and Budgie follows Cakes around doing whatever she is told. Occasionally, she puts her foot down, and gets her way. Together, they make my home such a joyous place.

This layout celebrates them together. I love them each dearly alone, but something about the two of them together as they banter and play is just amazing. I snapped these photos after Cake's holiday concert at school, at Mc Donalds, where we always stop for ice cream after evening school events.

I wanted the layout to feel fun and happy like my girls.

~Venetia

Scrapbook Sketch- Target Tradition

My youngest loves Target, Costco, and the Craft Store. She loves the craft store because she knows if she says she wants to go there, she almost always can convince me to take her. Costco because she adores the free samples. Target, because they carry stuff like toys, and because they have these giant cement balls outside that she likes to stand upon. 

Every single time she goes, as soon as she get on the sidewalk, she runs full speed to the ball and tries to climb up to stand. She really can't do it herself, so one of us ends up putting her there.  This particular day, her outfit and the red balls were exceptionally cute. I snapped a picture while Daddy stood nearby, as to not endanger her fully.

I used Teresa Collins Fabricatons for this layout, again sticking to one line, mostly because the colors worked so well with the photos. The weight of the paper on this line and the colors are perfect for spring, or fun photos like this. I like the sweet memory this layout captured, since it will be not long before we can walk into Target normally. Until then, it's totally my kid standing on the ball.

~Venetia

Happy-Scrapbook Sketch

Keep reading! The layout sketch is after the jump.

 I don't usually work with all my papers from one collection. I like to mix and match from my stash. This layout is unusual in that I only used Teresa Collins Vintage Finds. I love her designs because they are graphic and clean. For a long time, she used a lot of Pink, Black and White, which was also a big plus for me.

Layout- Call Me Maybe?

 

 My youngest is getting a lot of attention lately on my blog, yes? She and I are bonding more lately, and I have been enjoying it. She is a funny kid, and very rarely messes up words or sentences, until it comes to songs, and then, it's a whole different thing.  One of her latest misheard lyrics is from "Call Me Maybe". You know the song, it was inescapable in 2012. If you don't know the song, you live under a rock, or hate technology, in either case, we can't be friends. For the rest of us, we know the line as "So here's my number, so call me maybe." For Budge, it is:

"So here's my Mama, so call me maybe"

This does two things. It cracks me the heck up, and it irritates her dad, because he seems to think that having a 3 year old helping me get numbers is not appropriate. Fun sucker.

Apparently,  the image of my daughter asking random people to call her because they saw her Mom is not a universally hilarious concept, despite my arguments to the contrary. It's funny because I said it is doesn't hold up in my house as well as it should.

I made this layout to celebrate her, and that funny line she sings. I pulled out a bunch of paper from my stash, and decided I wanted to make it work together. This was the result. I am glad this turned out sort of fun and ecltectic, because it really caught the spirit of what I was trying to capture.

And the sketch- For you!

~Venetia

Layout- Silly

 Have you missed my layouts?  I haven’t forgotten my paper crafting hobby! I am just sharing everything including my drawing and painting now. This layout is of my sweet baby (I’m a BIG GIRL Mommy!). I caught a happy face on camera as she played out on the deck last summer. She is wearing a dress, which is very much her, as she requires dresses daily. It was just a great little moment captured from the summer, and I was excited to get to do a layout with my girly about some of her favorite summer things.

I used My Mind’s Eye for this layout, and there are Stella and Rose, So Sophie, Lime Twist, and Kaleidoscope, and Life Stories elements! Yes, I know Kaleidoscope is circa 2005ish? I adore the pink paper from that collection. I bought way too many sheets back in the day, and I pull it out for special occasions, like this layout.

 

I altered (colored in- but doesn't altered sound more sophisticated) the Life stories journaling box to tie it into the layout using Prismacolor pencils. I also inked the edges of the Kalediscope paper to tie it into the darker Stella and Rose floral.

 

Here is the sketch, in case you like the elements together. Let me know if you use it!

 

~Venetia