Look What Santa Brought Me!!!

I am so excited with my present from Santa this year!!! A CRICUT!!! I just can't wait to play with it and make some fun new stuff for my scrapbooks!

Headliners

So these are my new favorite things. I used some last summer for my trip to Niagara Falls and also for a visit with my nieces and nephews. This year, my vacations included the fabulous cities of Cleveland and Pittsburgh, but alas, there were no headliners for those places.

So I emailed the company, CraftersOutpost.com, and asked if they would consider making Headliners for Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The same day I wrote to them, they wrote back and said they'd love to design the headliners I requested and that it should take a week or so.

Not three days later, they emailed again to say the headliners were posted on eBay and I could buy them from their store there. So I did! And they arrived in my mailbox two days later. And I love them!!

Organizing

Yup, that's all I've been doing lately. I don't know how my things get so unorganized, but every few months, I have to set aside a few hours to organize. Actually, it's not that things are unorganized, but I get some new stuff and want to put it away, or I come up with a new way of organizing something and have to do it all over again.

I just emailed my CMC to get another one of these decofile folders. I already have one and like it for the big paper and also because it has a over-the-shoulder strap that makes it easy to tote around. Since I've been swapping on Scrap Share, I've needed to keep track of CM papers and LSS papers, hence the need for another folder.

Currently, I'm having trouble with all those storyboxes from CM. I don't know what to do with them--with some of them, I've organized them by color (according to the rainbow, of course), but then with others, I feel like I can't really do that. I was working with the everyday pack, and there's just no way to put that into the ROYGBIV format. So I just kept those together. But I did move all the storyboxes and other journaling boxes into a mini-sort box, which I like better than those smaller blue organizers I was using.

I have some vacation photos to scrap, plus my nephew's first swimming adventure, and a couple more baseball stadiums to do. So I have plenty to keep me busy on July 28, which is the all day crop my CMC is holding. I can't wait!!

Scrappin' Again!

It wasn't too hard--I just decided to do it and it was FINE. and FUN. I am working on the family and friends album and the baseball album, trying to get caught up. Since I don't really remember the details of the baseball trips, I have many pages with blank journal boxes. I'll have to go online and get some details from the games and stadiums so I can add details.

In the family and friends album, I have been using the power pallettes and ENJOYING them! The colors and designs are just perfect for quick layouts. Above are the two I worked on this past week--mine and Karen's birthdays. I just really love the coordinated papers and stickers.

Enjoying it again...about damn time.

Just couldn't do it.

I tried. For six hours, I tried to scrapbook. OK. I didn't try that hard. I just busied myself doing other things:

• I organized paper
• I put stickers in pockets according to themes
• I browsed the new catalogs
• I bought some overstock at 30% off
• I helped my sister with her layout
• I ate lunch
  

I did not, however, scrapbook a single thing. When will I be ready? I'm just not feelin' the groove yet.

Back in the Saddle Again

So my sister and I are meeting our usual monthly scrapbooking group for a day of scrapping tomorrow. It's the first time I've even thought about it in a few months--I have not scrapped since some time in February, I believe.
And to tell you the truth, I don't even want to do it tomorrow. I have just been so bummed out lately with Dewey's passing and my mom's declining health that I just don't feel the joy needed for scrapbooking. Work sucks, and this summer is not shaping up to be anything special.
Oh, I know...quit complaining already...
We'll see how it goes tomorrow. But first, I have to face the mess that is the craft room and assemble my bag to take tomorrow. Maybe I can put that off until the morning...

Dewey's gone

Sweet Dewey departed this life yesterday afternoon. I have so many pictures of him, but it will be a while before I can scrapbook them. It feels like it'll be a while before I can scrapbook any kind of pages. This photo shows him in one of his favorite positions: laying on the floor with his head on the bottom of the coffee table. He was taking a little nap, but usually he watched TV in this position.

In a Funk

I know that people scrapbook while their lives are in chaos, but I just can't seem to do it. Between Dewey's getting worse and my mom's situation, I just can't bring myself to be creative. I am, instead, painting the rooms of the house one by one. Tonight I finished the powder room. Last week, we did the kitchen, family room, and master bedroom. I am running out of rooms! And thankfully, I did NOT paint anything this color!!!

Border Swap!

I got these in the mail yesterday--how exciting!! I joined a swap on ScrapShare.com and it was fabulous! Our job was to make a border and one other element using CM materials. The theme was generic (that it could be used on any page). So I made five sets of my border and element and got one of mine back (the green and yellow one second from the right), along with one of everyone else's in the swap.

The borders are all awesome--totally things I would've never thought to make, but I love them all. The colors are great, the shapes are innovative, the quality is amazing.

Swapping is a little bit of pressure. First, I worry that I won't have enough paper to make five sets of something. Then, I worry about the quality of my work--people on ScrapShare are awfully picky when it comes to ragged edges or a bit of tape-runner showing (things I don't usually tolerate in my own work and wouldn't dream of sending along to someone else). But still--I used a nail file to smooth out my edges just in case they were a little too ragged for someone's taste. Oh, my.

Finally, I worry about getting an idea of what to make--what colors do I use? what shapes? when it it enough and not over the top? In looking at the sets I got back, I probably could've used another pattern or color in conjunction with my border, but oh well, I like to keep things simple.

I haven't been doing any scrapping lately. Things are still out of sorts with Dewey and my mom, and I just haven't been in the mood to scrap.

Yard Sale!!

I fed my paper addiction by going to the local scrapbook store's annual Yard Sale. In their back room, they set out used stuff that customers have brought in to sell. I got a ziplock bag full of old CM and Mrs. Grossman's stickers, a set of letters (not one was missing--a rarity), and a HUGE ziplock bag full of 12 x 12 paper. Oh, and I even got a CM file folder for only $5. I realized, post-manic phase, that this folder does not hold 12 x 12 paper, which is sort of a bummer. It is well-used, too, so I'm pretty sure I can't sell it on eBay. Oh well, I will find some use for it.

I'm heading to Pennsylvania for a few days, so there will be no scrappin' going on. And when I get back, I'll be busy making baby shower invitations for an old friend of mine. We registered today at Target and Burlington, and BOY did we have fun! My vast experience as Aunt Jann, auntie extraordinaire to 6 children, helped us immensely--ha!

A New Toy!

So I got the fabulously fun Meadow Micro-Maker today. What a great surprise--one of the itinerant teachers brought it from someone at her other school who was at the crop a couple of weeks ago.

She wanted to see it, too, so I pulled it out right then and started punching out little frogs (my favorite), flowers, fishies, and butterflies. Then one of my students had to try it out--he loved it, too!

I haven't figured out how I'll use it, really, but it was just too cute to pass up.

Crop Club

I went to my friend Sandra's Crop Club today. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and the time went fast. I wasn't much in the mood to be jovial with the sad news of Dewey and my mom weighing on my mind, but it was good to get out and be around people. There were 7 of us there including Marcia (CM Consultant). I had bought the new Everyday Power Pallette, and I have to say that I LOVE IT!!! The colors are great, and I made a borders set to swap.

Here's a picture of the borders set. The rules for the swap were that it was to be generic and CM only materials:
I used Navy from the PF pack for the border background, and then everything else was from the Everyday PP. There's green and a colorful stripe on that, and then a journal box and two little elements. If the swappers have the Everyday PP, there will be lots they can do to coordinate these borders to their projects.

the craft room

Here is where all the magic happens...
Kidding. This is the messy space where I work. It's so nice to have a room where I can just leave everything out and close the door.
It's a wreck right now because I have been lazy about cleaning up. I like to create, but I don't like to clean. Every few weeks, I spend a couple of hours organizing everything again and then I can work in peace. But until the time when I am overwhelmed by my unorganization, I don't think too much about cleaning up. There are little stacks of paper scraps, alphabets, pens everywhere--what a mess!

Another page

Here is another page I did recently. My sister and I spent a snowday last month scrapbooking, and I took pictures of our time spent scrapbooking. AND I had those CM stickers of scrapbooking that I finally got to use and that made me happy!!

I have never scrapbooked about scrapbooking before...

I'm all caught up!

I had to start a blog because I'm all caught up on my scrapbooking! Well, I am still working on the baseball album, but the Daily Life album is up-to-date. We celebrated Karen's birthday today and I already sent those pictures off to be developed.

I'm going to add some pictures of my last few pages and of the craft room so you can see where I work and my last few layouts. I'll try to take photos of my layouts as I do them and would love to see other layouts, too!

This photo is of our mini-winter vacation to Karen's dad's place in Florida. We went down on a Saturday and were back late Tuesday night. While we were there, we went to the beach and visited the Orioles Spring Training. We even saw lots of manatees (bottom right).