Another challenge layout (12X12) and a great YouTube channel

Happy Thursday scrappy friends!  I hope this finds you well.  I am starting a little mini vacation of four days today so that makes me very happy LOL.  I have quite a few chores I want to get done (I am in a bit of a spring cleaning frenzy, but never fear I will soon tire of that :) ). I will also spend time watching some French Open tennis matches with my mom and of course, find some quality scrappy time.

I am popping in today to share another layout I made in response to another fun You Tube challenge.  This time the challenge is a sketch challenge and it is by one of my favourite scrapbookers (yes I know, I have a lot of favourite scrapbookers LOL) on You Tube.  Here is the link to her channel :  https://www.youtube.com/user/StampingRooster/videos .  Gretchen makes beautiful layouts, sometimes based on sketches that she creates, and her process videos  are lovely and very detailed.  She explains so well the steps and techniques as she goes.  We often get a bonus as well - one, or more, of her kitties will come and visit during the process :) .  If you don't know The Stamping Rooster (Gretchen), pop right on over to her channel, take a break and watch a couple of her videos.  You will be so happy you did.

Gretchen and her husband are on vacation this week - in beautiful Paris; therefore she is making memories as opposed to scrapping them.  She challenged us to use one of her sketches and make a layout while she is away (you can find all of her sketches in the challenge blog post she wrote here :  http://stampingrooster.blogspot.ca/2015/05/sketch-challenge.html )

Here is my layout and the sketch I based it on (it is her sketch 27) :

This was not the sketch I had originally planned on using but the photos just begged for this one.  And I am happy with the outcome.  I am also happy that I used pink - it is not a colour I use often although I love it !

The supplies :  All of the supplies come from my March Scraptastic Rivers and Roads Kit except for :

• the Thickers used for my title are from Dear Lizzy and I had them in my stash but since there is quite a bit of Dear Lizzy in this kit, they match beautifully and I have used them on a least two, if not three, layouts using this kit
• the white splatters are simply watered down acrylic paint
• the pink flower brads have been in my stash for I don't know how many years and I don't remember anything about them LOL.  It sure felt good to get them on a page though
• The enamel dots are from my stash

The story:  For Mothers' Day this year, we decided to have a relaxed family game day at the seniors' residence where my mom lives.  It is a very large residence (3 building, 6 stories each) and therefore there are all sorts of amenities for the residents (pool, exercise room, library, cinema, bowling, billiards, darts, card room and so on ...).  Immediate family members are welcome to use all the amenities as well.    We booked a few of the rooms for different times during the day to make sure that all generations would have some fun.  We started with the bowling thinking mom would just watch.  Well, lo and behold when we got the the alleys, there was this lovely contraption (see my mom using it on the RHS picture in the layout) that allowed my mom not only to take part, but to beat the pants off all of us LOL!

So there you have it.  Thanks so much for stopping by today and spending with me on the blog.  Thank-you Gretchen for such a fun challenge.  BTW, there is still time to participate in the challenge, it is open until the end of the month (check out Gretchen's blog post and her challenge video).

See you soon!  Hugs and have a lovely day xo