6.22.2014

Scrapbook Expo 2014

A good friend of mine calls it, "Christmas."  Plain and simple, it IS like Christmas.  Everywhere you look, there are beautiful scrapbooking tools, techniques, accessories, paper, embellishments...you name it, it's there!!
Scrapbook Expo was held at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly this past Friday and Saturday.  I was a little late leaving the house in the morning, and we barely got there in time for our first class.  So much for the earlybird shopping! But the class was a great introduction to alcohol markers.  I've never used them before, so it was fun to try them out and learn how to do shading with them.  We made a little pansy picture with greens, yellows, and purple.
After our class, we got our things settled in the cropping area and hit the vendors.  I bought more of the markers from Spectrum Noir--this time, I got the brights. Our teachers said that the pinks are fun and fairly easy to work with.  So that's where I'm starting.

I was so proud of myself for not buying any paper.  I usually go a little crazy for paper, but I just have so much that there is no reason to buy more.  I got some stickers, some fun embellishments, and some new tools, including this system from Kiwi Lane Designs:
Using these plastic pieces, you lay out your pages and then "layer" the paper to create your pages.  Here's an example (not mine!):
So you can see the papers that have already been traced and cut out and layered.  And the white squares are showing where the photos will go.  I started working on one page with this technique, and it is hard!! They make it look very easy, and I'm sure I'll get better at it the more I do it.  They do a lot of distressing of the cut edges, which is really necessary until you get your cuts smooth.  

After shopping, we cropped for a little bit, had a late lunch, and then shopped some more.  Then we stayed until almost midnight cropping and doing make-n-takes.  The make-n-takes were scheduled for every 1/2 hour, and they were pretty fun!  Some of them weren't explained very well, which was frustrating, but some turned out pretty cool.

During cropping time, we took a second class, this time about a technique called "frosting."  I'm not sure what to really think about it.  I did not love it. We got these little jars of "frosting" and use the goo to decorate the paper--adding texture.  My fingers got gross and I didn't think it looked all that great. We gooed up some leaves, snow, and sand. And I'm not even sure if it's safe for scrapbooking! No one mentioned anything about that...
Oh, I'm just too lazy to flip this photo.  You can see the jars of frosting, the wet naps (you'll need lots of those!), paintbrushes (not sure what they're for, since we daubed with our fingers), and a cute box.  As my frosted paper dried, it was curling up--how can that be good?  Not a fan.

Overall, it was a great day and got me revved up to keep scrapbooking this summer.  The even wasn't quite as big as GASC, but since all our LSS's have closed, it's nice to have this even fairly close by once a year (I do hope they come back!).

6.15.2014

Chaise Longue Makeover

I got a chaise for my birthday several years ago, and it is just my favorite place to enjoy a glass of wine and a book after a long day at work.  This year, I just couldn't get past the faded cushions, and they had a weird feel to them, too.  Looking around online, I tried to find new cushions, but the measurements I needed were rare--and expensive.  My chair is 24 inches wide, but most cushions are 21 inches wide.  So then I got the idea to just get some outdoor fabric and recover them.  I went to Hancock and found a lovely stripe in the clearance section for $9.00 a yard.  I bought three yards, came home and began working on the covers.  The whole thing, from start to finish, took under two hours.  I think the most time was spent hand-stitching one side of the cushion.

First, notice how faded the cushions are (and this was from last October!).  I even turned the bottom cushion upside-down because it was so faded.
The before! This is the only picture of the old
cushions I could find.Making an appearance as
Elvis, is my dog, Cosmo. This was his Halloween
picture from 2013.  He was not happy.
 And this is the after picture!! I googled how to sew these cushions and came upon this DIY blog.  Christy had step-by-step directions with pictures.
The after!  Notice how the stripes match up! I did
not even think about the stripes matching until I
put the two cushions together outside.  Can you
believe my good luck?!?!
Without her ideas, I wouldn't have known how to do the corners like this:
I never knew it was so easy to make corners like that! Now I want to cover all kinds of things around the house! :) I can't wait to enjoy a cold beverage and a book out there tomorrow!

3.17.2014

Winter Fun Scrapbooking

It's been a very long time since I posted--so sorry to all my faithful readers.  (I'm talking to you, Denise!) It's not that I haven't been scrapbooking, or at least thinking of scrapbooking; I've been doing both.  But I haven't been posting...

Let's start with updates from the company formerly known as CM.  It's now Ahni and Zoe by CM.  I've read a lot about how much people do not like the name, how it is not a correct translation of the Hawaiian word for beautiful, etc.  I don't care either way about the name, but I do know one thing: I will not be buying their products.  The new product line is not for people like me, people who like the act of scrapbooking.  Their new line is for non-scrapbookers...people who just want to slap their photos on a pre-made page in a substandard album.  I guess it's pretty obvious how I feel about this new direction.

At least my former CM consultant is still holding crops.  Even though I am not interested in her products now that she's with A&Z by CM, I still enjoy going to crops and seeing the friends I've made through this fad hobby.

 I've been scrapbooking events from the fall and winter, and I have another crop to attend this weekend and then the great Preserve Your Journey crop coming up in April.  Over Christmas, we went on a Caribbean cruise, which was the most wonderful escape from the winter weather here in Virginia.  (By the way, it snowed last night into today and we are on snow day #16 so far this school year!)  Back in the fall, my sister and I went to a local dinner theatre production of Les Miserables, which was pretty good.  We are obsessed--OBSESSED--with Les Mis.  Here's a picture of the layout for that night:
We took pictures with the French flag as we arrived, as well as the "meet me at the barricade" drink my sister had.  After the show, the actors line up at the exit to the theatre, so we got to take some pictures with them, too.  The background on the right was inspired by the picture below (from Etsy):

This picture is designed to be artwork on the wall, not a scrapbooking layout (and it is priced accordingly!), but I liked the flag and music in the background.  I found music online that had a red wash on it, which is perfect for allusion for "the blood of angry men" in the musical.  I also tore my blue and red papers to give it a more gritty look.  I can't link to the original item anymore, because its listing expired on Etsy, but it's from a shop named Twinnovations, in case you need to look for it.

Then I started working on our cruise to the Caribbean.  The highlight of the trip for me was swimming with the dolphins on Christmas Day in Tortola.  Here's the start of that layout:

I think I added a little something on the right page under the picture of me being pulled by the dolphin.  I just love these papers.  They came from an online store named Scrap Your Trip.  It's one of my favorite places to buy specialty papers.  They have really specific stuff, and you can even get some pages personalized, and the prices are totally reasonable, I think.  At the last crop I attended, I had to cut the "scrap your trip" logo off the bottom of all my papers to give to my fellow croppers.  They all wanted to check out the offerings.

This weekend, I'll continue working on our trip at the KWBES crop.  Our basement has been in a state of disarray since the broken pipe back in January, and I cannot work down there in its current upside-down furniture/carpet pulled back/drywall punched out state.  So I'll gather my materials and hit the road this weekend! So fun!