Saturday, January 27, 2007

Virtual Scrapbook Night was a blast last weekend. I'm still recovering from it. I really need to clean my space now. I did go through all my embellishments but the cardstock and papers is another story. Yikes.
I've been playing around with the camera lately. Lavinia has been very stubborn lately and her temper tantrums though few and far between are wild. Instead of yelling at her because I've had enough (which often is the case), I get out the camera. At first I though it would get her more riled up but surprisingly it actually calms her down. It definately calms me down because when she's at her worst I think of the scrapbook pages I can make to show her first boyfriend. I probably would never do that but at the time the thought does make me quite happy amist the screaming and destruction. I should add that about 90% of the time she is the sweetest girl you could ever ask for, but when she's in a mood watch out. Here's one picture of her when she didn't want to take her jacket off when we came home on day. I really like how her refection shows in the floor.

She's also been sick lately and has started falling asleep during the day. This day as soon as I got her out of the tub, she fell asleep in my lap.
I love this picture.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

January 14 Virtual Scrapbook Night Preview Party

Our preview party for VSBN had a great turnout. This events theme is the Winter Olympics and every challenge revolves around that theme. You get 2 hrs to create a layout. Unfortunately I was stuck at work through the whole event but I managed to do a challenge that night when I got home and another the next day since I had Monday off.

The first challenge I tried was Stats. During the Olympics you hear the announcers talk about the athletes statistics and what they have accomplished throughout their careers. The challenge is to make a layout using a stat sheet, use doodling on your page, and use a file folder. The stats on my page, rather than name, birthday, date of pic, etc, were the various tasks I had while I was in the Shenandoah unit of Covenant Players. The tasks were: Housing Co-ordinator, Program Planner, Office Worker, Show Scheduler, Guy Pal, Actress, Friend, and Comic Relief. The journaling inside the folder reads: These were my many jobs when I toured western Virginia and West Virginia with Sean and Christen. Sean was the Team Leader and ultimately responsible for everything and had to sign all the contracts for shows and took charge of van maintenance. My primary task was housing co-coordinator, which was a very stressful job because most of the housing contacts I called to let them know we were coming to their area didn't want to have us. We did get through the tour and always had a place to stay. Christen was in charge of office files and finances and the rest of our duties were shared. There were a lot of stressful times but we did have a lot of fun too. Sean was a guy that just needed male bonding. It was hard for him to travel four months with no other guys so I did my best to do man things with him. We played tennis, watched guy movies and mostly watched football. Spring 1996 I used Certainly Celery and Night of Navy Cardstock and a file folder from Marcella by K. I stamped the Certainly Celery with the swirl stamp from Fun Filled in Night of Navy craft ink and stamped the title with Brushstroke Alphabet in Certainly Celery craft ink. I inked my primas with Certainly Celery as well and edged my stats with Chocolate Chip. I used a black Zig pen to doodle and write the journaling and stats. The brads attaching the primas and spiral paperclip are from the Hodgepodge Hardware set.

Monday’s challenge was exactly that since I had some “help”. The Olympic ring challenge was to follow a sketch by Becky Fleck that includes many rings. The challenge was focus on uniting the circles and the title and photo. The page is of Lavinia eating pizza for the first time. Journaling reads: Lavinia went through a year eating nothing but hot dogs and cheese and yogurt. We could never convince her to try new foods until one night when we ordered a pizza. She found that she loved pizza. August 2006.

I used Barely Banana, Rose Red, and a non SU blue cardstock. I used my white Souffle pen to do the edges to the journaling block and the ribbon. I made the pizza by taking a Rose Red cirle, stamping circles from a stamp from Fun Filled with Versamark for the pepperoni, then I took a q-tip and applied Chocolate chip ink for hamburger. I then applied a thin layer of Barely Banana craft ink for cheese on tip and heavily around the edges for crust and put in on a larger blue circle for a tray. Now looking at the page, I wish I matted the picture with Rose Red cardstock as well. I then applied various buttons and silk flowers I collected over the years.

I had a plan for the page and had everything ready to put together except the buttons and flowers for the big circle. Lavinia had lots of fun getting into my stash of buttons and flowers. She picked out every button on the page. She insisted on eating grapes while we were putting it together and no matter how often I took them from her and had her wash her hands, she snuck some more past me. She did get some spots all over the page and I did my best to cover them. It’s not bad the circle of flowers and brads are not very even. We did have fun putting it together, which we never did before, and she was better behaved than I expected so I guess that is the most important thing. I would try to do another page with her again, but not when there is a time limit to finishing it.

If you are interested in participating in the big event this weekend, the new challenges will be posted in this thread after this past Sunday’s challenges. You have two hours to complete each challenge, then upload your creation by the deadline. The challenges are posted every two hours from noon until 10 pm AST on Saturday and Sunday. If you just wanted to look at the completed pages from this last weekend they are here. Hope to see you next weekend

Friday, January 12, 2007

Fakey Friday


This is a technique that I developed due to my lack of supplies. There might be a technique out there similar already but I’ve never heard of it. I call it faux bleaching. I use white craft ink and blender pens. In the first sample I just colored in the daisy petals with white craft ink using the blender pens. For the second sample I stamped the angel in white craft ink and smudged the image with a blender pen to make the faux bleach background. Once it was dry, I stamped over the white background with black Staz-on and colored with chalk.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

3D Thursday


This year I made some homemade cappuccino for the craft fairs and then later for Christmas presents. Altering the jar was a very easy 3D project. I took a 12x12 sheet of patterned paper and cut 4 12x2 strips. I adhered the strips around the jar with glue dots. Then to make the circle on the top, I took the rim of the lid and traced the inside circle onto another sheet of patterned paper. Then I cut the circles out and adhered to the lid with glue dots. I then made tags with the scraps and tied with hemp.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Wednesday’s Words

Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. - Oprah Winfrey


I really like this quote. It’s so full of hope. We went to bed early this New Year’s Eve and I missed doing my new years resolutions. I still could not skip it entirely. Instead I was a few days late figuring them out (ironically contradicting my first resolution which is to stop procrastinating). What is the point of celebrating a new year without at least attempting to be better, trying to be better, or striving to be better than the previous year. A new chance and a fresh slate is an amazing thing and should be celebrated. Even though most resolutions are rather lofty and unrealistic and soon forgotten, that is not the point. The intention itself is better than nothing at all. Without it there is no hope and no dream of something better. Congratulations to those who are still trying to work on their resolutions.

Here is a card and a 6x6 page using the quote. I’ve never done a New Year’s day card before. It’s usually so soon after sending out Christmas cards, it never even occurred to me to make one. I really like this card so I may do more for next year. This was made from Ballet Blue and Certainly Celery cardstock and ink and some printed paper from my stash. I think I got it at the $1 store but am not certain. I used the sketch from this week’s SCS sketch challenge 106.







The 6x6 page is using the same materials except I added the letter stickers from Basic Grey's Urban Couture collection.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Tool Time Tuesday

This is my Stamp-a-ma-jig. I love it. I usually use it to position letters in titles of scrapbook pages. I waited a while to get mine because I focused on getting stamps and paper first. Once I first used it I realized it would have been perfect to have as a beginning stamper. There were so many times I did not ink the stamp properly and threw the image out because it didn’t look good. With the stamp-a-ma-jig, I can reink my stamp and place it in the exact image I stamped the first time. I still use it for that purpose but not as often as I would have if I had it at first. Another way I like to use mine is if I have a stamp that I want to put more than one color on. Usually markers are perfect for that occasion but since I don’t have any markers yet, the stamp-a-ma-jig works just fine.
Here are some projects I made for my best friend Carly who go married last year along with a close up of the stationary and the 4x4 notecards. I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp the rose red and the leaves green on the cards and stationary. I also used it to position the French Script Background since the stationary was larger than the background itself.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Monochromatic Monday


Today for Monochromatic Monday I thought I would show another Christmas present I made. This one I gave to my sister-in-law Tasha. Lavinia loves to get into her shoes and purses. Now that it is complete, I wish I put some pics of Lavinia on it too. When I first thought of making it I thought I would include a pic with her and Lavinia and I just don't have once since Lavinia was a little baby. Now I'm thinking that I still could have put a picture of Lavinia at least. Well, too late now. The case itself is a see through Caboodles make up case. I used pink patterned papers from Costco and Katie& co purse and shoe stamps along with Letterpress Alphabet. I stuffed it with bath products.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Scrapbook Sunday


Here is a layout I made for a 12x12 Double page spread scrapbooking swap. I finally finished them. I did 5 of these and will get 4 other layouts back. The colors are very bright. Too bright for my camera it seems. Every pic I took is blurry and the color is extremely off. I used SU’s Stipple Rose, Best Blossoms, and Letterpress Alphabet stamp sets, and holographic EP on the images and edges of the photo corner. The first page holds a 5x7 pic and the second page, 2 4x6s.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Stamp Set Saturday


My favorite alphabet stamp set is SU Letterpress Alphabet. It's perfect for scrapbooking titles or monogram sets. For Christmas I made two name frames with this set and gave one to Philip and Dawn and the other for Diane and Judson. I forget the company that made the patterned paper. I used Letterpress Alphabet stamps and, French Script, Linen, the swirl from Fun Filled and "merry little christmas" from Cute Converse. The hardware is from the Hodgepodge Hardware. I would like to make some more with the seasons for my house and one for Lavinia's bedroom with her name on it.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Happy Belated New Year

This past holiday was the most hectic holidays I’ve had in a while. I was totally not prepared. I worked all the way through and had too many commitments during the holidays. I was pretty late thinking of my New Years Resolutions. I actually came up with my list of resolutions last night at work.

  1. Stop procrastinating
  2. Do not commit to new things or events unless I am certain I can do it.
  3. Have a monthly family activity like game night or a family outing
  4. Have a monthly date night
  5. Get out finances in order
  6. Exercise 3 times a week
  7. Drink 8 glasses of water a day at least 5 days a week
  8. Do extra heavy duty cleaning on a room a month using 2 of my days off
  9. Figure out a better way to organize my craft area and do it.
  10. Set up a reward system so that I can keep my resolutions this year.

Since I haven’t thought up my resolutions until during the New Year, I’m going to start on Sunday. Although I did start on a few things already, I haven’t started every one and will take the next few days to come up with a plan. I need to find a way to reduce stress and have more fun with my family. Last year I decided to make more crafts and work on scrap booking and card making techniques and challenges. This year I will focus more on keeping the area clean. It is a centralized area so I am forced to clean it periodically but it still is often messy. Here are pics of my stamping area before I cleaned it for Christmas Eve. It was especially messy since I was finishing up last minute presents and cards. My goal this year is to keep it clean more often than not. My organization has always been a work in progress. My supplies or favorite techniques constantly change. I would like an area for completed projects and projects in progress. If I clean out my closet in the bedroom, I think I can manage that. I just want all my supplies in the same area. My current set up was perfect before I had the computer but now I need to find a way to keep everything clean and not take over the entire kitchen. Any great organizational tips are welcome. Happy New Year everyone and good luck with the resolutions.