The more I practice

Welcome to the Scrappiest Mondays. Liz and the gals over at The Scrappiest Blog have some great layouts for you from her sketch. I urge you to go check out that blog we have had on opening for a DT position so get over there and see what is about! We have a blast with her sketches every week! Deadline is April 13th.
I love the circle pages but I just have a hard time grasping my mind around them... as in... yes no square background paper... hmm... I just could not do it. So I added the background paper. These are some of my favorite pics of my son this last year during his T-Ball. Though I have hundreds...hehe. Yes I am a shutter bug. So at long last I broke out my sports goodies I have been hording and batted away at this layout for the last few days. I have been pretty busy and honestly down right uninspired. However, I got this done and I am happy with it. On to the Details.

Journaling Reads:
"Tristan Chase 2008, This is Tristan's second year! The Underdogs was the name of his team this year. He had so much fun."

Everything on this page is Cosmo Cricket accept the shrink plastic flowers and the letters that spell T-Ball.

Background:
The pin stripe yellow red and green paper is a double sided cardstock. The opposite side is the red with cream circles. So here is what I die. I cut a circle 11 1/2" around leaving 1/4" at the thinnest point on every side. I scalloped edged that circle with my decorative fiskars scissors. I then cut one more circle out of that one at 10" wide. Out of the 10" Circle I cut another one at 8 1/2". Once all of them were cut out I extremely distressed all the remaining edges inside and out of all t he circles accept the one I scalloped. So just to reiterate. The square 12x12 background paper, the red scalloped circle, the striped distressed circle and the interior red scalloped circle are all one piece of paper. I also cut a 12" circle out of a dark blue cardstock. I scalloped the edge of that also. I layered them up as you see and took the stripe and red circles and off centered them and anchored them to the bottom right.
Embellishments:
Both the glove and the ball were cut out of some of the provided embellishments from Cosmo Cricket. The star burst flower was made from a strip of CC paper folded in 1/4" accordion style and then the tips were trimmed to get the points. The plastic flowers were made from shrink plastic from Stampin' Up. I cut these with the cricut and used my stitch rub on (thanks Liz) around the edge. I then stamped the glove and mitt on each petal with a Stampin' Up stamp and stazon ink. I baked the flowers till they were shrunk and done then once they were cooled I added the center ribbon (Cosmo Cricket) and colored the balls in from the back with my white pain pen. The same ribbon I used with a sticker for the vertical lines that anchor the embellishments and the page from left to right. I added two little circular baseball related rub-ons and that is it.
Title:
The letters for the word T-Ball also are the shrink plastic. These were cut out of the white and then colored blue with a sharpie. The rest of it was a strip of the Cosmo Cricket paper pack, I cut in half and underlined the words "more" and "luckier" with the ball sticker strips from the same pack. Quick and easy. Sometimes the best way to work through a creative block is to work with a kit. I think this did the trick for me.

I would love to hear what you are working on this week. Please leave me a note and let me know. What is on your table??