There Were Good Times, & Scrappy Times

Has it really been two years?

2011-06-20T13:46:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe it's been over two years since I've posted to my blog. In fact, I haven't posted since just before our move to our (then) new house; the one about which I spoke last time. I also haven't scrapped in as long, though I have altered some journals. (I should locate those pictures, huh?)

This house has enough room for all of us, for a playroom, for a library (the extra bedroom), and for me to have a scrapbook room. My scraproom can be found on the far left of the above picture, in what is the original single car garage that was remodeled to be a real room. And really: it's perfect.

Far right of the room

Wall opposite the doorway

Far end of the room, opposite the bathroom.

Wall on the same side as the entry.

I also have a 6' long folding table (on the left in the above picture) that is in the center of the room. Ideally, the table would only be out if I needed it and would be put away when not in use. Unfortunately, due to my lack of scrapbooking, that table has become a catch-all, especially during the holidays. If I'm being honest, the entire room has become the place where things go when we don't want them in the living room. I've been trying to remedy that this week.

If anyone ever has the idea to keep things they may not ever need, please tell them to watch an episode of "Hoarders". As it turns out, I have some of the tendencies of a hoarder, so I'm trying to (finally) nip those in the bud. Thus far, it's been a fairly quick process, especially considering we've been in this house for more than two years, and some of these boxes, while peeked in, haven't been unpacked, and two of them haven't been untaped at all! We've one dumpster full and we plan to rent another one. The way I figure it, anything that's not useful to us, but may hold some memories, I can photograph. Virtual clutter isn't nearly as bad as physical clutter. Plus, I can scrapbook any of those things. Y'know...when I next scrapbook. *laugh*

What else? Well, my brother doesn't have kidney problems, but I don't really know what going on there. My nearest-in-age older brother received his Associate's from our local community college and is continuing at OSU. Joel walked with his OSU engineering class, and will officially graduate after Fall term. We've been fostering a niece for 367 days now. (The last is the main reason I haven't scrapped this past year; life is INSANELY busy!) I've finished four terms at LBCC (for writing), but have taken an indefinite break until life settles down. (That last term was just this side of a doozy.) I'm focusing on more important things, and hope to go back in a year or so.

I can't think of anything else that's significant at this time. Oh! Something that I am doing that's scrapbook-related is designing wedding invitations for a couple of friends of ours. First, let me say that I'm not, absolutely not, a digital scrapper. I loathe not having my hands physically on the items with which I'm working. That said, I've been using Adobe Photoshop to create these (after deciding that I didn't like the style of the other designs and figuring the invites will look more elegant this way). Grr. I still hate the program, and can't see myself using it for much else. Anyway. That's what I'm finishing this week. That must be finished this week, as they're to be mailed by the 1st.

And there you have it. That's my life for the past two years, summarized as concisely as possible.

Hope people are finding their summers to be exciting, or at least passably fun. ;)

What I've been doing...

2009-04-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

So there are a few things that've been going on around the Wheeler household. One is that we're in the middle of buying a house. To be as brief as possible, on April 1st (yes, you read that correctly) we were told that we weren't going to be able to get the house because of the roof needing replaced and the seller not being able to afford it. And now... basically we're going almost-halvsies with him and our closing date is either the 30th or the 1st of May. Because they're also making an offer on a house, and just received their closing date of the 11th of May, we're going to let them stay in the house until the 15th, which should work out nicely with me feeling good because we're being nice, and also with Joel's mid-terms. (Three, possibly four, in one week, then a week skips--that's the move-in week--and then has one or two that next week. Bleh!)

Also in the life-front, my brother was found to have some liver problems, but we don't know what yet. He has an appointment this next Wednesday with his regular doctor to find out what the tests said and what is going to need to happen.

But our Easter weekend was filled with candy, kids, love, The Hunt, and hiking on Sunday. The latter would've sucked less if I hadn't felt like all of my body parts were going to fall off and leave me stranded somewhere. (Haha. I totally typed that as "stranged". Which while it wouldn't have fit in that part, totally describes me..."strange", at any rate.)

That said, I did manage to scrap 106 layouts in the month of March, which makes me really happy. That's almost a third my yearly goal! And to think that I only did 54 layouts in February. Thank you Scrapbook Bingo Yahoo Group! And more specifically the owner, Amanda, for holding a Virtual Crop for us! (And giving terrific prizes! The first place woman, Sue, bowed out so I was able to get the Around the Block Paper Gator. I hadn't been sure of it at first, but I realized that with the oodles of cards I've been making--128 last month!!--and that I broke my corner rounder... it looks like it'll be the perfect tool. I'll definitely post here when I know what I think of it.

Without further ado, let me share a few of my layouts/cards from last month. Hope you enjoy!

(BTW, I made an error. That should be 2007, not 2006. :P)

(Made the bug myself with my small-ish circle punch and looking at the fabric bugs. Thank you CJ for sending that very cute matted fabric to me. :D)

(That's my husband and me.)

(Caitlin getting dolled up at our friends' wedding. She was a flower girl and the groom's cousin did a wonderful job on Cat's hair. As you can see, our son had a delightful reaction to seeing her. P.S. I drew and then hand-cut out the flourish on the right.)

(The challenge was to scrap about a risk you took, so I did my current one: going through the process of attending college for the first time. Technically-speaking, I'll be going to LBCC, the local community college, first, but also technically-speaking, I'm dual-enrolled, so... yeah. Plus I like the OSU colors! :D I told Joel I saw the coolest orange plates at The Dollar Tree the other day and told him that if he didn't like my red/black/white kitchen color combination, I'd be more than willing to go orange/black. I totally love Halloween primarily because of that color combination and then you add to it both of us being students at a school that has them... it would be so totally effing awesome, I tell you! In fact, I might go buy those plates anyway. *grin* Also, there's a "little secret" peeking out of the bottom of the layout. I don't want Joel to read it now, if ever, so I'm sorry, but I'm not sharing it here either, in case he actually checks out my blog.)

(Not the best of layouts, I'll grant you, but it totally amuses me with its truthfulness. Joel didn't get it at first, which made me both boggle and laugh. I thought it was pretty blatant.)

(And I'm only posting one card right now because I have posted so many layouts. I'll post another card that I did later, and talk about the Soufflé and Glaze pens by Sakura.)

Through my kids' eyes...

2009-03-11T21:43:00.000-07:00

You will see a couple of themes throughout this. 1. My girls obviously connect with my love of scrapbooking. Despite Chase's previous stints of pink dress shoes, lipstick, playing with Barbie dolls, and wearing earrings, he just doesn't have the same girlie tuning the girls do. :D 2. Room-cleaning has been a pretty big thing of late. Oh, and Caitlin keeps asking me if I have more questions for her. She was really eager to answer them. I'm going to ask them again these questions, but of their dad instead.

Paige will be 5 next month.
Chase will be 7 next month.
Caitlin just turned 8.

My comments, whether spoken aloud or not, are in []s.

1. What is something I always say to you?
Paige: To clean up my room.
Chase: "I love you."
Cat: You love me.

2. What makes me happy?
Paige: Cleaning. 'Cause you always hug me when I clean my room all the way.
Chase: Our rooms clean?
Cat: When I behave.

3. What makes me sad?
Paige: That I'm not hugging you.
Chase: Us not cleaning our room
Cat: Me not being nice to you.

4. How do I make you laugh?
Paige: By tickling.
Chase: You tickling me.
Cat: By making funny faces. By telling jokes.

5. What was I like as a child?
Paige: When you were born? You were born before you hatched. [I explain to her.] I don't know.
Chase: I wasn't even alive when you were a kid. [*grin*]
Cat: Um...I don't know. Um...you cleaned your room a lot? [HAHAHA! Not even close! *laugh*]

6. How old am I?
Paige: I don't know. [Take a guess.] I think you're 7. Or you're 8.
Chase: Uh...29? [He rocks. In August I'll be 29.]
Cat: Um...27? [Close.]

7. How tall am I?
Paige: Ahh! I don't know. You're not taller than Daddy.
Chase: Uh...10 feet tall? [And bulletproof. *grin*]
Cat: Uh...5 inches. *laugh* 5 feet 12 inches?

8. What is my favorite thing to do?
Paige: Scrapbooking. [Smart girl!]
Chase: Your Sudoku? [*laugh* I do love my Sudoku.]
Cat: Scrapbook! And sleep. [*more laughter* Kudos on the first, but sleep? I don't really like to do that.]

9. What do you think I do when you're not around?
Paige: I don't know. [Can you think of anything?] Read. What else would you do?
Chase: Give Paigie breakfast?
Cat: Watch Paige.

10. If I become famous, for what will it be?
Paige: 'Cause your name's "Mom".
Chase: I don't know. [He kept getting all embarrassed that I was asking him questions. There were lots of I don't
knows but I kept asking on some of the questions 'cause I knew he'd had a thought. This one, he didn't.
Cat: Scrapbooking! [Smart answer. :D]

11. What am I really good at?
Paige: Scrapbooking. [Again, smart girl.]
Chase: Uh, Sudoku? [One track mind?]
Cat: Scrapbooking. And watching us. Kids, anyway. And Kiely. [There is now commentary from her about how
Kiely isn't a "kid" and is a "baby".]

12. What am I not very good at?
Paige: Stepping on toys.
Chase: Physics? [OMWord! That boy makes me laugh! I laughed so hard, and then told him I'd have to share that
one with his dad when he got home. Too effing funny!! I've never taken a single physics class, but so funny
for him to think of it. And Joel laughed aloud, too. :D]
Cat: Not scrapbooking.

13. What do I do for my job?
Paige: Folding clothes. Taking our toys? [She then explains about the time I took all of their toys away because
they didn't clean their rooms.]
Chase: You teach us something. To watch Caitlin and me and Paige.
Cat: You watch Kiely and watch us. Kids.

14. What is my favorite food?
Paige: Chicken. Chicken's good for kids. And adults.
Chase: Fettuccine.
Cat: Bagel!

15. What makes you proud of me?
Paige: Reading. 'Cause you read to me.
Chase: All I can think of is that you do Sudoku pages.
Cat: You make me laugh. With your scrapbooking pages, how they look so cute. [Note, those are two separate
ideas. Not that I make her laugh with my pages. *grin*]

16. If I were a cartoon character, who would I be?
Paige: Umm...Link?
Chase: Uh...Zelda?
Cat: You'll get mad at me if I say it. [No, I won't. Just say it.] That one on Paige's watch. [Betty Boop?] Yeah.
Betty Boop. [*boggle*] Or Cat in the Hat. [Oh, thanks!] But you're funny!

17. What do we do together?
Paige: Play.
Chase: I don't know.
Cat: Eat. Play. Watch movies together sometimes. We might scrapbook together tomorrow.

18. How are we the same?
Paige: 'Cause we're both girls. But I don't have red hair.
Chase: We're both human? [That is courtesy of his father who was trying to guide him into thinking about some ways
in which we're similar. Heh.]
Cat: We have crooked teeth. We have brown eyes.

19. How are we different?
Paige: You're wearing a black shirt, and I'm wearing an Eve one.
Chase: That you have glasses and I don't.
Cat: Um...You have glasses and I don't. You have red hair and I don't.

20. How do you know I love you?
Paige: 'Cause you read books to me.
Chase: Because you always say 'I love you'.
Cat: Um...You make me laugh. You gave me scrapbooking stuff on my birthday. And you made a day that, um, for
my birthday we went swimming. [Which was really a combined effort of Joel and me.]

21. Where is my favorite place to go?
Paige: McDonald's! [Um, no. I don't like McDonald's.] To Burger King? [I laughed. I've only been once in the last
month and a half. She's so funny.] To the store?
Chase: Uh...your friend's house? [Joel said, "Mommy doesn't have any friends." and then laughed.]
Cat: Aunt Crystal's house? [Oh yeah, definitely. Perhaps that was what Chase was thinking.] The scrapbooking
store!! I can't believe I forgot that!

22. What do I like about Daddy?
Paige: 'Cause he kisses you. [Her follow-up:] Mommy, when were you and Daddy married? [Before Cat was born.]
Chase: That he's funny?
Cat: You think he's handsome. He gets us money. Daddy got you a ring.
After comments later about how he let me sleep in yesterday morning, Joel: The real reason Mommy loves Daddy.

Page Kits

2009-02-23T23:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm nearly to the big 5-0. Pages, that is. (Psha! I'm nowhere near fifty years old. Okay, more than halfway. And not that there's anything wrong with being fifty, it's just that I'm not there. Yet.) I also need to add that all of these pages have been scrapped in the past week. I realize that I have quite a bit of time on my hands for scrapbooking, but I also have been caring for my niece (8ish months old) and my nearly-five-year old, as well as basic chores, and tackling an extremely cluttered garage, spending quite a bit of time there. And the afternoons bring my older two kids home, so... life is busy, too. :) The following is how I've managed to create this many pages in a week.

Anyway. 48 pages and counting. I've no idea if I'm going to make my page total goal this year, and I know I didn't last year, which was something of a bummer. On the other hand, I still did well, and I'm still wondering exactly where I'm putting all of these layouts. *laugh* Granted a huge chunk of the layouts I did were 8x8s for the kids, and when you see the albums (two of which are utilizing the Snapload system), you can easily see how I managed 400-some-odd pages two years ago. (Boy, was I ever on a roll that year!) Even if I don't make it to 365 pages, I'm scrapping in a smart way right now, and that's by making page kits first.

Page kits are simple to make and even better to have. How does one make a page kit?, one might wonder. Well, as I said, they're simple. Start with photos/subject or paper and then add the elements you'll be using on the page. Include photos and paper, but don't forget to add embellishments, and I'd highly recommend, for further time saving, journaling on scratch paper so that you just have to copy it as you go. (Or you could even have it printed out and ready to slap on the pages.) Slide it all into a large plastic bag (2-gallon bags will fit 12x12 paper, I believe). Voila! You're ready to put that page together.

Seriously. It saves oodles of time. Many people only have a short period of time during which they can actively scrap. If you can take a half an hour or an hour to put together some pages kits, then when you have that half hour or hour, you won't be spending the vast majority (or all) of it trying to decide on papers and embellishments; you'll have it all at your fingertips.

I think the only downside for me is that when I scrap this way, I forget to use all of my non-paper embellishments. Since part of my goal this year is to use as much of my hoard as possible, obviously a large chunk of my stash is still (figuratively) collecting dust. So my goal for the next set of page kits I make (coming up on Wednesday, I suspect) will be to include some of these embellishments.

Tomorrow I'll try to remember to update this post with a photo of a page kit and its pieces.

P.S. I'll also try to upload some photos of recent pages.

Blog-Crazy

2009-02-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am. I admit it. I mean, I suppose I'm not as blog-crazy as some people out there, but for someone who rarely remembers to blog, hasn't been blogging for very long, and tries to not spend too much time online (hah!--what a joke, right?), I sure have collected quite an amount of blogs. I'd like to pare the list on the right (over there somewhere, see?--->), but I just can't. Why? Because this is how I keep track of whether I've looked at them recently or not. I just can't keep track otherwise. Please don't think that I value each of these blogs and bloggers less for not being able to always remember who is who (except in certain cases, like my fellow Yahoo Group members, or non-scrapping blogs), because I really do cherish each and every one of them. And to you bloggers, the ones who actually peek at my blog now and again, even when I post nothing of real interest, know that even if I'm not commenting, I'm trying to check all of the blogs on a somewhat regular basis. I try to comment, but don't always find the time.

As some of the younger crowd have taken to doing: MUAH! As I'd do instead *kiss* Love you all!

Most recent swap items

2009-02-13T22:54:00.000-08:00

Figured I'd post them now before I bag them all and prepare them for sending (Tuesday). It's going to be a fairly briefly-worded posting, 'cause I'm pretty tired.

First we have the Dragons group items: photo box, journal box (and a close photo), and handmade surprise.

Then the Unicorns group topper:

The Mermaids group topper:

The Wizards group topper and handmade surprise:

I apologize for any badly placed flashes and for blurry photos. I've been taking these at night in my living room, and there just isn't very good lighting for photos. Anyway, I hope you all like these; I had fun making them. :)

Create a font from your own handwriting

2009-02-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

While my husband browsed his usual websites, he found a post about this great site, YourFonts.com, which creates a font from your handwriting, for free if you use their online version. Not only is it awesome that they make it for you, but it's incredibly simple to do as well!

You go to their website, print the template(s) (one if you just want basic letters and numbers, and the second if you want special characters), and then use a black pen (I used a Sharpie ultrafine point, I believe) to write each of the letters within the boxes. I did have to redo each template page once, because I'm usually really bad with my handwriting, especially when I can't make any errors and am using a pen.

And now... a sample of my font. :) I hope you all enjoy this terrific program!
Thank you, YourFont!

Blog Sweeties, anyone?

2009-02-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

Going Buggy has some blog candy up! Wonderful blog and work that she does. So... if you're going there, be sure to check out the rest of her blog, 'cause it rocks!

Challenged

2009-01-28T09:13:00.000-08:00

Though I did this just yesterday on my MySpace blog (challenged by Christina), I'll do the one that Fran sent since it involves photos on my hard drive instead of my profile.

The challenge:
Go to your photo folder in your computer.
Go to the 6th folder of photos.
Go to the sixth picture.
Put the picture on your blog and description of it.

So here it is. This is in the folder I have of pictures of Caitlin. Taken 12.26.06 it is perhaps obvious as to what is the subject. She had two loose teeth, and her permanent teeth were coming in right behind them! When I took her to the dentist, fearing this might cause some problems (like I have), I was told that it would be fine, that regular use of the tongue will force the permanent teeth forward. (And the dentist was right, of course.)

As to whom to challenge? I don't know. Most everyone I know who has a blog owns scrapping-specific blogs, and Christina's already done it! *laugh*

Blogger Award

2009-01-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

So this award was given to me by my friend Christina, who has a great blog herself! This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! The following blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes* or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

*Though I must say that any prizes given would be graciously accepted. *grin*

Eight blogs I hope will inspire you or at least make you laugh aloud:
Dannie's Designs
My Creative Corner
Pretty In Prima
Rica's Haven
Schwooo! by StampinAngie
Linfes
A Day In The Life of The Paper Poppy
Paper Playhouse
(There were a few others to whom I'd have given this award, but they'd already been tagged!)

Thanks, Christina!

PageMaps card challenge

2008-12-19T21:20:00.001-08:00

So PageMaps is having two challenges. One is a card challenge, and one is a layout challenge. I'm hoping to do my layout challenge this evening, or maybe tomorrow, but I did do the card one today. (There are also other challenges, now and again, which you can view here.)

Anyway, here is my card entry:

I really enjoyed making this card. It encouraged me to use a couple of things I've purchased in the past month and a half, and things I've received as RAKs, or Secret Santa gifts (flourishes! woo!), etc.

My list of items, for those interested, and of those things for which I know the origin are:
Offray ribbon - that almost sea green color
Studio G grey pigment ink (it's a small square, 1.25"x1.25" or 1.5"x1.5")
Bazzill Blossom 2.5" Heidi
unknown flower
unknown jewel brad
Autumn Leaves Clear Stamps by Rhonna Farrer
Autumn Leaves Stampology Flourishes v2 by Rhonna Farrer
Déjà Views Fresh Print Banana Punch (That's the darker pink paper.)
white cardstock (straight from the Wal*Mart printer paper section)
Making Memories NW Addie DieCut Scallop (Which is the other paper, of course.)

I think that about sums it up. Thanks for looking!

Just a little blurb

2008-12-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

This came out of my mouth today:

"You're such a freak! Er, I mean husband. I mean, I love you."

Seriously? Sometimes I wonder at my oddities. (So glad he loves me anyway. *grin*)

=======
A bonus: After I said that my stomach had just growled, our youngest, Paige, said, "My stomach's growling at Chase." :D:D

And another: Cat asked if Joel was still doing basketball, and he's not because he doesn't have time. Chase said something about Tai Chi, and I then suggested that we could have the kids teach us yoga. (In their P.E., which has four different "color rooms" of activities, they've done yoga before.) Joel said that they have yoga at home, in the mornings, and Cat said, "We eat yoga??" At which I laughed and Joel responded, "Yeah. It's especially good with cereal." :D

Captcha or moderation?

2008-11-20T15:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, I have an issue. It's not a very important one, IMO, but some bloggers and blog-readers out there seem to think it's a bigger issue than I do, and since I ran across it today I really wanted to explore it.

My issue:
Captcha (i.e. word verification) or comment moderation?

My thoughts:
I don't read a huge number of blogs, and when I do, word verification isn't an issue for me. I absolutely do not mind having to verify that I'm not a robot, and I certainly appreciate the reason people have Captcha on (it's also why I tend to use it). I've been spammed insanely before, and I cannot imagine having to moderate every single one of those comments, especially when a "robot" gets really busy. You might be surprised at how quickly those spam messages can add up once they have your number, so to speak.

I blog because I feel 1) like gabbing and 2) sharing my thoughts. You don't have to read my blog, and you certainly don't have to comment. While I love having comments, I don't need them to verify or justify my blogging; I do it for me, mostly. (Again, I do appreciate those who read my blog!! Please don't think I don't.) For me it's about the convenience of my own blogging rather than the readers, and that's probably primarily because I myself don't mind having to enter in Captcha. It's not because I don't treasure you, my readers.

But to give the comment moderation a try, I have it set to deliver notifications to me when someone comments, so that I can approve, or not, of the comments. One other reason I dislike comment moderation is that I feel like, when it's not a scrapbooking-related blog, that if my comments aren't liked by the blogger, they won't be posted. I can promise you that unless something is completely lewd and unacceptable, I will always allow the comments by people, even when I don't agree with what they say. I don't always believe that others will do the same. Know what I mean?

Anyway, there is it. You'll notice a new set up when you go to post (for those of you who have posted before), but you definitely won't see me supporting that new "Say No to Word Verification" movement, if you wish to call it that. I don't have a problem with people wanting to verify, and I certainly think that if a blog-reader really wants to post, then they'll be willing to go along with it. Sometimes it's not possible for the blogger to keep up with comments because their reader base is much too large to have to approve every single comment posted. (I obviously don't have that problem, and likely won't ever. *waves to her 2 followers and few other readers* *smoochies*)

But it's your call, bloggers. You do as you will.

Happy scrapping!

My Daily Five

2008-11-18T16:03:00.000-08:00

While looking at Jen Lancaster's blog, well, the title of it, "Your List of Five", it reminded me of something I had intended to do starting at the beginning of this year (obviously I'm quite late beginning that). What is that, you ask? To endeavor to make a list of five positive things every day (or at the very least every week). These could be positive things about that day, my life, my family, that make me happy... whatever floated my boat, so long as I made five. The point was to help me focus more on the positive as opposed to the negative happenings, the latter of which seems to be so easy to do sometimes. Y'know what I mean?

And so... that leads me to my post today. I think beginning with today I'm going to start a 30-day list. When I'm done, I'll be able to scrap a "Positives" page. Sure, I'm not starting on the first day of a month, but I can still do 30 days, right? (And for some reason, this reminds me that I really, really need to post the winner of the subscriptions to Memory Makers in my Yahoo Groups. Yikes!!)

Anyway. My five things today are:
1. My niece, Kiely, was a very smiley baby today.
2. I was able to keep my temper when my oldest, Cat, got snotty with me in regards to doing her homework).
3. Several semi-neglected chores were done, a countertop was cleared and cleaned, and I completely emptied out a plastic tub thereby making my bedroom a little tidier. (Yay for de-cluttering!)
4. I did not let my pain rule my day, despite my desire to do.
5. My Secret Santa gifts (for one group) are all wrapped and ready to go.
**BONUS** My husband Joel was home for a little bit today, and even though he was supposed to be there just to look for his work badge, it was excellent being able to see him. *warm fuzzies!*

So... what are your five? What five positives happened in your life, or made you smile, today?

Here are a couple of parts of that page kit...

2008-11-14T08:49:00.000-08:00

So I thought I'd just make a quick post and share a couple parts of that page kit I mentioned, the one that inspired the CD-card-ornaments from last year.

Couple of tags (above) and some deco squares (below).

Last Year's "Card"

2008-11-12T14:32:00.001-08:00

Here's last year's "card". I made quite a bunch of these for friends. I wrote our holiday greeting in Sharpie on the back, and see? It doubles as an ornament. Pretty cool, huh? I just altered a CD, and in order to do the eyelet, I used my trusty (and then brand, spankin' new) Crop-A-Dile. Oh, the ease of punching through that thick plastic... I was ecstatic! A couple of years ago I fell in love with those holiday papers, and I hoarded them, waiting to use them on the "perfect" layout. Well, I had a couple of Santa Days in mind, but I never could bring myself to use them. Argh! So when I decided to use them for a swap, when I made a page kit, I decided that I might as well use the rest for giving to someone else, and here's the result. The tree was handmade by me, but is inspired by one of the patterened papers in that collection. (There's a little heart at the bottom of the tree like that.)

I'm extremely fond of these, and almost wish I could do more for this year! *laugh* Instead I'm going to (I think) make the ornaments I posted about right before this one. Or maybe I'll just do those for the kids' teachers... I haven't decided yet. (Some really cool person--Leah!!--gave me the idea to add the kids' photos to the balls, and that inspired me to think I could cut the photos into triangles and glue them to the ball. She also suggested hanging the year beneath the ball, which is just an awesome idea!) For family/friends, I'm going to be making accordion albums (like the Halloween ones I posted weeks ago), but they'll be of the us, but mostly of the kids, with some of their basic likes and dislikes. These will be similar to ones I did two years ago. I'm hoping to do these every year or two (hopefully the former!) that way our friends will have documentation of how the little bra-er, darlings are growing.

Holiday Handmade Ornaments

2008-11-12T13:48:00.001-08:00

Thanks to being a subscriber to Memory Makers magazine's newsletter, I found this cool idea. I decided to do my own, and while it's not quite finished yet, there's someone who's interested in looking at a finished product, so... without further ado, my photos are below. The punch I used is somewhere around an inch, maybe an inch and a quarter. I also chose to put an eyelet, for use with ribbon, to hang it from the tree, as opposed to the suggested hole with wire/hook.

Be sure of two things: 1) You only make three "hats", which will leave you with five extra triangles; do not make them into a hat, and 2) you fold the triangles in the correct direction, so the backside folds forward (I'd originally did it the other way around, go figure!).

So... let me know what you think! I plan to paint the edges (to help cover where things didn't match up perfectly), and maybe glue in some brads at the connecting points. I dunno yet. :)

Gift for my family's annual gift exchange

2008-10-15T21:23:00.000-07:00

I took the youngest into The Dollar Tree to purchase a few more goodies to put in the reward container (incentive for her to learn to wake up at night to potty), and I was trying to think of some ideas for what I could do this year for our family's Santa Day gift exchange. And I actually was inspired!

Wandering up the dishes/storage containers aisle, I saw plastic tortilla containers, intended to help keep the tortillas warm (and they containers are microwavable, which is a plus). In addition, they had a 2-pack of plastic black salsa dishes next to those. I grabbed one of each and happily made my way to the register, trying not to lose our 4-year old in the process. (She might've been unhappy with me if I had.)

The idea, and how it pertains to scrapbooking? Well, I'm going to add my recent purchases to a basket, and a gift card to Safeway (for purchase of ingredients needed for a Mexican dinner), and then... the scrapping part! I'm going to make a 6x6 album filled with salsa recipes. I thought about doing an assortment of Mexican dishes, but... the salsa dishes really inspired me, and since several members of my family love salsa, I thought they might find it fun to experiment. :)

Anyway, there it is. I just had to share. (And this way, it's written down PERMANENTLY--or as close to it as I can get--and then I absolutely cannot (but I might anyway) neglect to implement this idea. See... 'cause now that I've said it here, someone might be expecting me to actually post photos of it, and I really cannot (but I might anyway) let them down. Perfect logic.

Scrapbook Bingo Designs blog

2008-10-14T14:53:00.000-07:00

Before I forget to mention... I'm a member of a wonderful Yahoo! Group called Scrapbook_Bingo. Just the other day (yesterday, in fact) the owner, Amanda (whose blog is Cricut Creations), started a design team and blog for our group! I made the first scrapping blog yesterday, since I was inspired to scrap a cute and simple little project similar to one I'd done last year for my kids' teachers. If you haven't visited, please do! We haven't done much yet, but we have great expectations, and ideas!, for it!

More BOM and what I've been doing

2008-10-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Goodness! Whatever have I been doing? Weeeellll, it was a busy weekend, what with visiting my older sister and staying the night at her house, and then coming back to do quite a bit of housework which included taking several loads of wet laundry to the laundromat. (UGH! Our dryer is STILL not fixed! It's been 2.5 weeks since I called them about it! *mutter*) But anyway...

I've been steadily working on my BOM. Previously I posted about my intro pages, but I've done another FOUR! Yup, that's right. Four in a week's time. I'm cruising along!

Favorite Season

The A to Z of Me

Halloween
(Fave Holiday)

Daily Routine

And of course I made one for each of my three kids, so total number of pages completed in the last week: 20. I tried to do the smaller pages slightly different than the larger ones, but only the Halloween and Intro pages are quite a bit different. And actually... I'm going to show the smaller Halloween one, because I really like what I did with the distressed grey paper (and also with the cu-ute skeleton head). Tell me what you think (sorry for the flash):

My Wordle BOM layouts

2008-10-07T11:16:00.001-07:00

Here they are. My intro pages for my BOM (Books of Me). The one on the left is for myself, and will be a landscape 8.5x11" album. The three on the right are virtually identical pages (differing most only in the handwritten "titles", and not intentionally, and will be for the kids. So really I'm doing one album four different times. Since theirs will only be 8x8, I might frequently find that I'm doing their pages much different than my own. (The second page, which won't be the second in the book, is already in process; I'm just waiting for the ink to dry. Uh, you'll know what that's about as soon as I post that I've done the pages. Might not be until tomorrow, though. We'll have to see how my day goes today. So far, so good.)

Wordle

2008-10-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Weeellll. Talk about an effing kick ass site! And really? It's PERFECT for scrapping, if you ask me. And, you're reading this, so you obviously did. Right?
So, here it is. (With a HUGE thanks to Julia for sharing it!)
And this is mine:

You enter in the text you want (or you can do a blog that has tags), and it automatically creates it for you. Pretty cool, no? (Just in case there's any doubt after that sentence, Wordle gets credit for the image seen above, though I think I should take credit for the words, since they are mine.)

Anywho... you should try it out! :D

Oh, here's another of mine (in a couple of color schemes). I think I'm going to use one of them for the intro page of this BOM (Book Of Me) a group of mine is doing.

Update: I'm pretty annoyed that my printer won't print accurate colors. UGH! If I'd known that ahead of time, I'd probably have told my husband he'd damn well better pick out a different printer, 'cause that one's not going to cut the mustard! (FYI, it's a laser printer, and it replaced my old inkjet which was an "all-in-one" and worked just fine. Except that it didn't roll the paper through any more. Now I'm out a scanner, too, just for this thing that doesn't print accurate colors!! When I want that bright pink that's my background color, I don't want to get something that's obviously RED and not PINK. Y'know what I mean??
Okay. Venting done.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

2008-10-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

So here we are, a smidge into October, and I get these reminders from a "Click To Give" website. Each click gives whichever organization/charity a few cents, and it costs you nothing (except a little time) to do so. I've been a little remiss in my clicking (sorry!!), but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. The website can be found here. (And while you are there you should consider going to the other tabs and clicking their "Click To Give" buttons, too. It can be painful if you're on dial-up, but I'm so very used to high speed that I'm very impatient. Um... and, well... I am an impatient person anyhow. (haha! I totally typoed that to be "inpatient". *snicker*)

And in honor of the month, while the only person I personally know who's suffered through breast cancer (and recently had a mastectomy) is my ex-step-grandmother, to whom I was never close, I made a page about a different cancer and survivor--and this one is definitely a "woman's" cancer.

So, this is my mother. She had pre-cancer cells (cervical) twice. I don't really remember feeling overly concerned, but I sometimes have a tendency to react to things like that, too. Anyway, she goes in for her regular check-ups, and things are still okay. The photo was taken by one of my kids, probably the eldest; she's sneaky like that. The patterned paper is from the "Once Upon A Time" Stack by Die Cuts With a View. I cut out one of the flowers and added it as an embellishment near the journaling (as I'm sure you can see).

2008-10-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

Eeee!! We went to the concert last night, and I must say that I had a wonderful time! Despite having to stand for a few hours, I did amazingly well. The loudness bothered Joel's ears, so we stayed against the wall, which was actually just fine because at least then 1) we didn't get overheated (people were coming out of the mass of bodies sweating!) and 2) my shortness didn't (much) impede my viewing of the stage. A friend of ours showed up at the tail end of the first band's performance and since she hadn't eaten, we ended up heading out for most of the third band's performance. Then she and I (while both our husbands left for their place) waited in line (with a couple of her friends) to get autographs!! And there they are!! *enthusiastically points below*

So there are their delightful autographs!! I've never been all that excited about this sort of thing, but considering it was my very first signed-band concert...
I guess I was more excited than I thought! *grin*

The first band was called "Blue Ember" and I found them to be pretty good. After looking at their MySpace page (seen here), I was puzzled because the lead vocal for the night was a woman who is most obviously not listed on their page as a band member. Her name was Jackie, but beyond that, I know nothing about her. There was a very surprising moment when all of a sudden she burst into, well, "Screamo", for lack of a better term. There were two reasons this surprised me. 1) They hadn't had any singing like that up to that point and 2) usually women aren't the ones performing in that style. There, I said it. It wasn't overdone, and wasn't repeated, so I think I was able to handle it alright because of that. ("Screamo" isn't something I normally can listen to, to be honest.)

The second band's name is "Break As We Fall", and I quite liked most of their music, too. They had a guest vocal, and she has a good voice, and I think she did very well despite the fact that her style isn't one I normally would listen to. Their MySpace page is here, and their regular website is here. The trumpet really won me over, let me tell you!

Cloud 9 was the third band, and I'm a bit undecided about their music. I mean, to be honest, I only saw their first and last songs on account of leaving to get food for Jackie (not the lead vocal, but rather our friend) and a place for me to sit for a little while (my hips were starting to hurt a bit). Jackie wasn't fond, and I'm not sure that Joel was either, but I kind of liked their sound. I feel as if I should listen to a bit more before I make a decision. They came from NY (whereas the first two bands are local), and I wish I'd gotten in their lines to thank them for coming all this way to perform for us. I will say that I think they had a really good stage presence (what I saw). You can see them and their music here. One thing we did hear before we left was their pronunciation of our state. I commented on that and we chuckled a little when it was mispronounced a second time. Their blog about last night mentions it, and made me laugh out loud!! Oreg-IN not Oreg-ON.

It was presented by ASOSU, which is the student body for Oregon State University. The purpose behind the concert was to promote voting and voter registration, which certainly is a decent cause. (Despite the fact that I'm not one of those who pushes the "Vote Now!" movement, I can appreciate people making intelligent (and creative) presentations for people to get involved. And they're right--it's our futures and our choices, and most importantly, our voices.

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And in line with the whole voting thing, here is a video I thought was excellently executed. Perhaps some of you have seen it before; it's called "Don't Vote."And while I don't talk politics here, I did do a page using the most recent Virtual Crop on one of my Yahoo Groups. It was for the "no photos" challenge, I think. (Or maybe it was for the "blue as main color" challenge, which I think is more likely.)

I think I'll be adding some thoughts to the strips below, or perhaps on the blue above the strips, but I still have to think about what I really want to say, as I'm not really certain about it yet.

Sooo... that's it for now! I'll make a post later on tonight, but it will be on a different topic. (I'd meant to post it yesterday, but... that just didn't work out. Um... obviously.)

2008-10-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Well. My first scrappy blog post. I don't suppose the first one will actually be interesting, as I'm not sure what I could share at this time.

*think*

Hmm. How about an older layout that somewhat matches my
blog template choice?

A love for all things pirate. Yarrr!!

And to follow up, here's a recent layout of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which happens on September 19th.

So there you go.

*Here's an interesting, related and yet unscrappy fact:
We're watching "Hook" right now. Kids' choice, but I just
love this movie!! It's my absolute favorite Peter Pan tale.

Update: I remembered to include the link to the official site for that "holiday".