Life is in the Details

Diligently working!

I haven't been posting but I have been working on my album! I just wish I had more time after work! But I have now sent all my photos out to Costco for processing.  It took a while to resize everything and figure out what will go where.  But I'll be able to pick up the photos tomorrow! I can't wait to see how they look all laid out in the album! The picture above is going into the photo pocket on the front cover of the album. The 'document today' is from Designer Digitals by Ali Edwards. 

I'm going to use the Scrapworks Anthologie album that I purchased the moment I found out that this project was going to happen! (Luckily since they are now discontinued!) And I filled it up with a mixed bunch of divided page protectors, along with some regular 12x12 protectors and some 6x12 for variety! I hope that once I have the pictures all in front of me the album will go together pretty quickly!! Still thoroughly enjoying the process though! 

This weekend I'll be away for my good friend Laurel's 40th birthday party! I can't believe she's going to turn 40, wasn't it just 3 or 4 years ago that I met her when she was 23? We are going to Mohegan Sun Casino in CT. along with a a few more of our sorority sisters!  I am sure it will be really fun! I can't wait!  

A little scrapbooking this weekend

 

I finished a few scrapbooking layouts this weekend, the one above, plus my first layout of my new niece Katie.  I haven't had a chance to take pictures of the Katie layout yet.  I also continued on a mini book that I've been working on for a while now. The cooler weather is making me want to scrapbook much more, which is great, plus buy tons more stuff, which is not great. lol  I seriously need more scrapbooking supplies like a hole in the head, but I just LOVE the "stuff" of scrapbooking.  I mean I love documenting my life, and I love the photos, but the stuff is pretty near and dear to me, and is a part of what I love about this hobby! I am just so inspired by a really great stamp, or some awesome rub-ons! 

And tomorrow will be a good day for me, and my fellow scrapbook-purchasing friends, it's QVC craft day! And Tim Holtz is on for the first time with his own show!! DANGER, DANGER!! Tim create the metal "5" embellishment that I used in the layout above, and the spinning arrow on the clock.  I love his stuff.  I'm sure I will just have to buy something! I can't wait to see what new stuff he comes up with!!

And another...

I just posted another mini album in the side bar.  It's my Evolution Mini Album that I made in Ali Edward's class at CKU.  This may be my favorite album I've ever made.   Ali asked us all to do homework prior to the trip to Chicago so that we could actually finish the album in class if we were pretty quick.  She listed all the photos we would need in the varying sizes and explained the journaling that was required so we had everything ready to go.  When we arrived at class we were given a very big box with all the supplies and detailed directions.  I did almost finish this entire album during the class which ran from 9am to 5pm. I just had a few things to add once I came home.  I loved this album, and I think it pretty accurately explains my "evolution" through my life thus far.

New Mini Book

I've been on a kick lately with mini books. I am in the middle of  2 right now and I just finished this one of my friend's trip to Greece. I loved it so much that I didn't want to give it to him! But being that it's pictures of his family and friends, most of whom I've never met, I decided that might be a little strange! 

I recently put a basket into my dining room to keep some of my mini books.  Since these are the albums that generally don't have page protectors, they are meant to be handled and I wanted to make them accessible.  I've heard of a few other scrapbookers that keep their mini albums in a place in their house where people can pick them up to look at them often, and I loved this idea! I guess as I continue to make books, I'll have to get a system of rotating them seasonally or something. But it's nice to have them there, and I did enjoy looking at the Greece book a few times while it was in the basket waiting to be gifted. 

So in that vein of making my mini books more accessible, I also figured out a way to post them on the side bar of the blog.  Right now I just have my Summer Album and this new  Greece Album, but over the next few days I hope to take photos of some of the other books I've made and include them there.  

I also just signed up for Cathy Zielske's Design Your Life class.  The class teaches graphic design principles as they relate to scrapbooking, something I've been wanting to learn about for a while now.  I'm looking forward to the class starting in October. In the meantime, I have plenty to do with the pre-assignment for the class, my two mini books I'm working on and the many Christmas stockings that I have to attempt to finish in the next 3 months!  Good thing I love it! 

Summer Mini Book

I was able to post a photo album tonight of the Summer mini book that I made this past weekend. I had purchased the Ali Edwards kit from Cocoa Daisy in July and she provided a few different examples of albums and layouts you could make from the kit. So I totally scraplifted this, and I love how it came out! Ali had structured the album into 3 sections for a vacation album, but the 3 sections worked out perfectly for the Summer, one section per month.  

I really enjoyed reliving all the things I did this Summer. I was surprised how much I had forgotten already! 

I was also able to do some resizing to some layouts I had photographed a few weeks ago, so I added them to my Scrapbooks Layouts album. 

I'm watching the Democratic Convention again tonight.  I was not thrilled by Bill Clinton's  speech. The CNN commentators were saying how wonderful his speech was, I really didn't think it was anything special at all.  I thought Hillary last night was very good and I thought Michelle Obama was very good on Monday. I thought Bill was mediocre at best.  Joe Biden was okay, I thought his son before him was much better really.  I'm still not sure who to vote for!! McCain is suppose to announce his running mate on Friday, but somehow I doubt that will clear things up for me.  It's tough being an Independent!  

New Stampin Up Catalog!

The new Stampin Up catalog came out this week. I used to be a Stampin Up demonstrator, and I LOVE their stuff! The quality is just outstanding. I have a lot of stamps and these stamps are really exceptional, the images are always super clear.

In the past few years, Stampin Up has branched out with scrapbooking products, so there are always lots of things that I want when the new catalogs come out. This time around I think the punches are going to put me in the poor house! I think there are about 5 of them that I want! I also love the new seasonal colors. They have exclusive colors in each catalog and this season's colors are really vibrant and intense. I can't wait to get the new colors in some textured cardstock!

Studio Calico has a cool thing on their blog today too. They are one of the kit clubs I subscribe to, along with It Kit Studio. I really love getting all that scrappy goodness in the mail twice a month! Studio Calico kits are very eclectic, and their kits help me think outside the box. I tend to gravitate toward all very similar things when I buy scrapping supplies, so the kit clubs help me try things that may not jump out at me in the store, but look fabulous on my layouts! So back to the cool thing, SC put a new blinkie on their blog, and said we might get a RAK in the mail if we post the blinkie on our blog! So as you can see I have added the blinkie to the left side of my blog. I wish I had one for It Kit Studio too. I'll have to be on the lookout for that.

Anyway, I've been spending much of the last week watching the Olympics non-stop, Go Michael Phelps! Love him. But I've been sidetracked from blogging. I also have been thinking about the new little Troy baby that's suppose to be born next week! (My new neice!) I wrote her a letter yesterday to include in her scrapbook about the goings on in the world one week before she was born. It's pretty neat since being that she's going to be a c-section, there's a pretty good chance she'll be born on August 20th as scheduled. Very cool. And I'm still having computer issues. I think a MacBook Pro is in my future... make that near future! This computer bug has me typing my posts in Safari (which isn't affected by the virus), then opening the post again in Internet Explorer to add any html, like url's, photos, etc. So I'm off to do that now... Night all!

Huge zucchini and a little scrapbooking

I was up at my Mom's this weekend, twice actually, to drop off and pick up Eloise before and after my mini road trip around NJ.  And while I was there, I noticed that my Mom had 3 HUGE zucchini in her kitchen. I mean huge! I know I should include a photo, but it's 10:57 pm, and I'm going to sleep in a few minutes.  But I asked my Mom what she was going to do with them and she said she was going to make some sauteed zucchini with one of them, but that she had no idea what else to do with them.  So I asked her if I could take the other two.

So tonight I made some zucchini bread and then made zucchini muffins.  I thought zucchini bread required a lot of zucchini, but when you are working with county fair first prize size zucchini, you actually only need one half of one zucchini to make 2 loaves of bread and 24 muffins, and there is still 4 cups of grated zucchini (the other half) in the freezer! And I still have the entire other huge zucchini to make other things. Amazing!!

I have also been doing a little scrapbooking. I was inspired after all my scrap shopping this weekend at CKC. I had started a minibook a few months ago, that I called, "Lessons from 3 grandmas", (actually 2 grandmas + 1 great-grandma- but that would take up a lot of room on the cover of a minibook!) but I never finished it.  So I worked on that a little more this week and I will post pictures when it's all done!  I'm totally inspired to scrap again! My creativity definitely comes in waves.  I've been less enthusiastic since it's been warmer this Summer, but now my creative juices are flowing again. Hopefully it will stick around a while, I also want to finally finish up my Bermuda album! And it would be nice to finish Keiran's 1st year album (2 more layouts to go) before Katie is born in a couple weeks! Two weeks from today actually! Can't wait!

New CK!

I'm on my deck right now, on my laptap, in the sunshine, with the new Creating Keepsakes magazine on my lap.  Eloise is sitting in the grass on a sunny spot of the yard. I'm not sure how she's not melting but she looks very happy.  I just had a wonderful white peach. And I'm thoroughly enjoying the first day of my mini vacation!

Enabler Alert!!

Every Tuesday, starting a few months ago, Ali Edwards has been posting some of her favorite products on her blog that she calls "three things" .  These things are generally scrapbooking supplies, but she'll also include other things that have caught her eye.  This week she picked three "green" things related to scrapbooking, basically products that are more friendly to our environment in some way. One of this week's items were Amy Butler K&Co embellishments.  I love them! and I found myself steering my car toward Michaels on my way home from work. They just happened to have them there, and they somehow ended up in my bag on my way out the door.  I know, I should put more thought into my purchases. But it's a weakness, it's indefensible, I needed these embellishments like a hole in the head, but hey, it's healthier than alcohol, drugs, or gambling, right? (wink)

So here's my brandy new Amy Butler goodness, oh and a couple Anna Griffin things and some SEI brads snuck in there as well!

And this is my favorite, it's actually the back of the gray chipboard alphabet box but this is how they reuse the packaging as additional scrapbooking embellishments.  They print additional words and graphics on the box that you can cut out and re-use! Such a cool idea! I think I might have to use the sticker with the reduce recycle reuse symbol also.

Here's all the backs of the boxes that I got, so you can also see the graphics that can be cut out and used. I just really love this idea.  Why don't all companies come up with an alternative purpose for their packaging?

Now I'm off to watch a BBC miniseries that just came from Netflix, called Cranford.  Ana always makes fun of me about how any movie with period clothing and accents is right up my alley! Well this one has Dame Judi Dench too!! I most certainly don't want to miss another minute!

Really great idea...

Another one of my favorite blogs is Cathy Zielske's Bits and Pieces.  She is a graphic artist that works for Simple Scrapbooks magazine.  Her writing is very entertaining, she's super funny, and also gives great tips for designing scrapbook layouts using real design principals.  Today she had a great idea on her blog. She must have gone through her scrapbooking stash this weekend and being someone who probably gets lots of free stuff from manufacturers, she probably has lots of stuff that she'll never have time to use, (sort of like me, except I'm just a scrapbooking shopaholic and I buy all my stuff.) so she is doing a giveaway!! But the great idea was how she was picking the winner. She told people to leave comments, but the caveat was that you had to leave a comment that included one nice thing about yourself that you actually believed to be true. Isn't that great?  It's really great to read the nice things that people say about themselves, because it's so heartfelt and genuine.  Amazing how honest people can be in the comments section of a blog!! I'd love to tell all SEVEN (thanks Dina) of my blog readers to go sign up for a chance to win the prize, but she's picking the winner in an hour.  So you don't have much time.  But the comments are a very enjoyable read!