WOYWW #141

So, my work space is a pretty gosh darn mess right now. At least this week it wasn't due to errant zebras or anything like that but a huge undertaking I've been doing. I'm an ebay seller and I have literally boxes and boxes of old magazines to sell, some of which I'm also taking apart for clippings, which is what is on my desk. I've been spending just about all week getting them organized and figuring out what I have. I may have to turn in my crafting badge as I have done not a single Valentine related item this week. Since there is nothing too exciting on my desk--unless of course you consider a pretty big mess exciting, I thought I'd also show you some more of my nearly as equally messy space. In one cupboard, you can see my stamp pads and acrylic paint. Usually it's all standing up, nice and neat, but I've put some things away and haven't bothered neatening it up. In the same cupboard, the white container holds all my Stickles. The glass doored cupboard is where I keep spaghetti and pickles...no, wait...that's in the kitchen. It's actually my stamps and all my flower embellisments. I keep my acrylic stamps in old Stampin' Up boxes, so that's what you see stacked up. In the other cupboard I have various fabrics and my ginormous collection of ribbon. If I laid each piece of ribbon down flat, end to end, I bet it would go around the earth. Or at least to Pittsburgh. I'm hoping that now that my organizational project is dwindling down, things will get fixed up a bit, but I'm not making any promises.

Kissy Faces

I pretty much stink at the kissy face, as you can likely tell from the photo. I'm the one who looks like I've got a chunk of lemon topped with a sardine in my mouth. In my defense, however, this was another of those days when Hillary and I used our Scrapbooker's Card to go hog wild taking photos that we knew we'd want to scrapbook and I might have been pictured out. We took "playing outside in the snowstorm" pictures, she took sweet photos of her dad and I, and then the two of us posed together. I even have pictures of my CATS and hot cocoa, that's how many pictures we took. We tried to take some pictures of the monster who lives under my bed, but he was feeling uncooperative that day, which is probably a good thing. Not very photogenic. On the other hand, doing this layout four years later brought back all the nice memories of the day and how much fun we had and that's really something that I love about scrapbooking--the remembrance of days past that I get while working on it and now each time that I look at the layout. I used the My Mind's Eye Valentine collection pretty much exclusively, though I added a doily, a flower and a Martha Stewart lace butterfly.

Uncle Matt

I'm not sure why the lace is looking like that in the photo. It's absolutely perfectly straight in real life. I think, perhaps, that a gremlin has wormed his way into my camera lense to play jokes on me. But the jokes on him. There's peanut butter in there and now he's trapped forever. Cue diabolical laugh. I suppose that I could do the non-lazy thing and retake the photo. That is definitely an option. But then, I'd have not only wasted the time that I took to do it originally, but also the time that I took to upload it and then to crop it. Not to mention the time that it's taken me since then to start to write this blog post and to add the peanut butter into the battery section of my camera. Writing blogs is HARD, don't let anyone fool you. And there's things like weird lace on a photo always lurking in the background to mess with your mind. They don't tell you these things when you're just starting out and everything is peaches and cream and yogurt. Well, even though the photo is more or less ruined by the whole lace thing, I'll let you know that this is my grandmother's brother, Matt. If you're wondering, Kuula is a Finnish name. He was originally Matti, but "Americanized" it as a lot of immigrants did back then. My family is full of strange Finnish names--Toini, Onni, Reino, Aili, and I actually have a cousin named Urpo. I think he's the lost Marx Brother. I used a mixture of products on this page, including My Mind's Eye, Stella and Rose, Echo Park For the Record and of course, my beloved Ric Rac. Hope everyone has a splendid weekend!

WOYWW, Again

Well, here it is anothe Wednesday and my desk is legitimately cluttered this week. I had an all day crop on Sunday that I haven't unfinished packing from. I've been pretty good about keeping up with stuff like that lately, but didn't have a chance to in the last couple of days because....umm...a zebra broke in and tried to steal all my towels, so I've been camped out by the window making sure he doesn't come back for my wash cloths, too. I'm pretty sure that he won't be returning, so hopefully I'll have things picked up by next Wednesday. On the bright side of things, I bought that cool scrapping bag and a larger tote this week to take to crops and I LOVE them. In the past, I've been super annoying at crops, carrying my stuff in tote sort of bags and my stuff ends up all over the floor or strewn all around while I search for what I need. For this week, at least, I was able to keep all my stuff nice, neat and organized. Hopefully, once my adoration for my new bags has paled a bit (and I can't imagine that happening, I love them THAT much) I'll still keep up on keeping neater at the crops. I was much more productive and couldn't stop marveling to myself how darn organized I remained. It's a wonder I got any scrapping done at all with all the marveling I was doing. I did this page of my niece, Sam and her father (my brother, which is probably unnecessary to explain but figured I'd throw it in there, just in case) before her wedding this summer. I love My Mind's Eye Lost and Found papers. In some ways, they are hard for me to use because they're so embellished already, and it's challenging still adding my own touches to them, but in other ways, they're great because so much is right there for you. This page pretty much screamed to use the wooden Kaiser Craft bird cages (and boy, did that screaming hurt my ears. Inside voices, please, inside voices.) I was drawn to those cages the moment I saw them and was happy to have the perfect opportunity to do so.

So, that's what I've been up to this week. At least the stuff that I can tell you here.

Sketchy

Ah, sketches. Sketches are great to me because they give you a starting point and then let you bounce off into your own creative stratosphere. In this sketch, from PageMaps, I did stay pretty close to it, and for the most part used all Crate Paper products--a mix of their Farm and new Love lines. We did it as a group challenge at an all day crop and it was really fun to see everyone's different take on it. I find it funny though, that whenever I'm doing a sketch or a scraplift, my layouts seem to take eight times as long as when I'm just plopping them out myself. I can't decide if that's a good or a bad thing. Maybe it's a case for Judge Judy. That woman is MEAN. And likely a bit psycho, although if push came to shove, I could probably knock her down and run. If I had to go to televised court, I think I'd go on Judge Mathis. He seems to be the most compassionate of all those TV judges. I find the whole "People's Court" sort of thing fascinating. I went through a period where I was watching those shows every day while I was at home working, because there was nothing else on. There were about a billion of them on the air--maybe there still is, but I haven't watched daytime TV for years. What fascinates me about these shows are the people that go on them and some of their stories. Why in the heck would you subject yourself for public ridicule that way? You owe somebody 200 dollars because you ate their parrot? Pay the man. If you know that you're going to look like an idiot on the air, I think I'd just find a way to scrape up that money. It might be fun to set up a fake case with a friend, though, and make it the most bizarre one ever-- "Stephanie borrowed 600 dollars from me to buy Vaseline for her idea of greasing up everything in the house to make it a fun "socks off" skating rink. I thought it was a good idea, but she took the money and bought doughnuts instead. Now she won't pay me." I guess they might see through that one, though.

So anyway, I've forgotten what I was originally talking about, which was this layout and scraplifting. Scraplifting. Sounds like another case for Judge Judy.

Party

This is a page from Kevin's great Aunt Flora's surprise 90th birthday party last February. She's nearly 91 years old now and still lives on her own and if you can't tell from the photos, she was thrilled by the party, where nearly a hundred people showed up to her church to wish her well. She never married or had children, so Kevin's been like her grandson, and she's been like a grandmother to me, as well. She's a very dear person, but saying that she's a "fussbudget" is putting it lightly. And she's super concerned about everyone's feelings and trying not to hurt them. At one visit, I'd purchased her a new nightlight for her bathroom and also brought home lunch. As we were eating, Kevin said, "I'll put that light in for you after we eat." As things happened, he got a bit sidetracked and was doing some other chore for her. She wanted to see how the light was going to look, so I took it out of the package and we gave her a go in the kitchen. When she was pleased with the results, I said, "I'll go put it in the bathroom for you." She stopped me and said, "Well, Kevin wanted to do that." Yes, Kevin could likely not hold in his excitement on getting to go and plug it in there and bask in it's warm glow. I just smiled and said, "OK" and brought it in to him. Then, of course, she worried that she'd hurt MY feelings and came in and said, "I'm so sorry, Stephanie. I know that you wanted to plug the light in, but you DID get to plug it in the kitchen." You just know that nightlights are the hottest toy around--everyone wants to plug 'em in. Anyway, I love her to death and have a million of these stories. Lucky you.

This layout uses all Echo Park "For the Record" stuff, for the most part. I painted the chipboard title and added Stickles, just as I did to the phrase sticker. I added one of my brads from my ginourmous collection, and a little bit of stamping. I saw the basic idea for the cake in the lower left hand side in a magazine--I'd like to give credit, but I've torn up my magazines for idea books and have no idea who did it.

Spring?

It's kind of felt that here, with the warm weather that we've been having and the real lack of snow that we've had here all winter. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it was a good lead in for today's blog. These photos are from about 5 years ago or so. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside, so being the scrapbookers that we are, Hillary and I forced Kevin outside for a spring photo shoot. And we proceeded to take roughly 80,000 photos. Well, not really, but there's a sizeable chunk from that day and I love so many of them. I go back every once in awhile and dip into them and will do a page. That's the thing about digital photos--you can take 70 billion and not have to worry the way we had to back in those ancient times when we only had film and were still walking twenty miles to school in the snow with our shoes on backwards. Oh, I wish I'd had digital when I was younger--these kids today don't know how good they have it, able to take countless photos of themselves holding their phones up to the mirror. Back when I was a kid, we had to put stupid little square flash bulbs on top of a camera, hold our arm wayyyy out and hope for the best. And then pay money for a shot of the top of our head..........Anyway, back to the matter at hand before I wax nostalgic all over the floor, this is a layout featuring all Basic Grey Sweet Threads and an ample amount of ink. Have I mentioned my love of inking before? It's there, like the force, burning strong within me. I might have to turn in my scrapbooker's badge after the following admission, though--I don't really like Tim Holtz's Distress Inks. I'm a fan of Stampin' Up's inks and Tim's don't dry quickly enough for me and inevitably I get ink all over my hands and occasionally my photos. There, I've said it and there's no turning back.....And finally, I've been nominated for the Liebster blogging award! IThanks so much, Tanya!!) I'm so thrilled and will post the particulars that I need to in the next couple of days. I have to admit my ignorance and say that I don't know how to post the URL's I need to for it, so I'm having a friend show me and will get the info up very, very soon.

WOYWW Again, and my Brad Storage--Wee haw!

I had so much fun doing WOYWW I had to do it again. But there's not a ton of difference in my space. The fall decorations are still sitting there. (And I'm sticking to my story about MEANING for them to be there. Yeah, that's the ticket.) I closed a couple of drawers and a few things have been taken out and then still haphazardly put away because I went to a crop on Friday. I'm still working on putting some stuff away and minor organization, so you can see some of my brads there. Which leads me to my brad storage tip. I was keeping all of my brads in the little drawers of my tool shelves. But I was never super happy with it. I was perusing blogs and I came across an idea that I adapted for myself. I wish I could remember the blog to give credit, but alas, I have no idea. Anyway, I saw an idea to make a mini-album for decorative brads out of foam. Now a mini album for brads is just TOO much for me and a bit TOO cutesy-poo, but a little light went on in my head--and I bet my electricity bill will be sky high next month because of it, but it'll be worth it. I snagged some of that cheapie Fun Foam at Joann's and began to stick my brads through it. And right away I was loving it. I like it because I can see all my decorative brads at a glance and don't have to search through my drawers or through a million packages of them. The foam is easily to travel with--it can lay flat OR roll up into a tube. And it's just beautiful to look at. I swear I look at it and fondle it lovingly every time I see it. It's sort of a pain getting them all on there, and I'm not close to done right now, but it's the sort of thing that i can do when I watch TV. I tend to walk past and do one or two at a passing. I kept my plain colored brads in the shelves and I'm still happy with that system. I love brads SO much. I always say, "When in doubt, use a brad." People look at me really strangely when I'm at the grocery store saying it, but I'm not ashamed of my brad love. They're just too stinking cute.

Don't Try This At Home, Kids

This is a layout that I did at my LSS Paper! Paper! at a crop. She'd found this awesome Little Yellow Bicycle Sketch online and made it a challenge for the day, so because I can't resist a challenge, off I went. Yes, those are indeed silhouetted photos that you're seeing. Back in October of 2000, when I started scrapbooking, I was smugly sure that I wouldn't mind cutting up priceless family photos (and not very well either, mind you) into odd shapes and/or silhouettes. I was also smugly sure that those lovely Paper Pizazz and Precious Moments papers would be the way I'd want to represent my photos forever. As hard as it is to believe, I was absolutely wrong. After my scrapbooking had progressed a bit and I stopped doing 8x10 AND hacking away at my photos, I redid some of those horrible pages and others I just took apart to do again some other day. I rescanned the photos and tried to trim them a bit better and have had to come up with creative ways to sort of fix the horrible mistake I made. So anyway, this long winded description explains what is going on in this page. I can't believe I hacked up photos of me meeting my beautiful niece, Samantha, for the first time. (I'd also cut the bottom of the photos of my mother with decorative edged scissors. Ugh.) So, don't try it at home, kids. It's not worth the pain. Silhouetting your pictures will only lead to heartache. So, back to this layout. I'm also endeavoring to use up old products along with my new. I'm not sure where this paper all came from, but it looks like some old stack papers. I used some of the papers to cover the flourishes, added some lace and used the Cricut for the title. I still look at it and see those blaring silhouettes but what's done is done.

Sleeping the Day Away

Ah, here's another layout of my nephew, Chris, snoozing away after being a general whirlwhind. There's just something precious about kids sleeping. Isn't he so cute? I could just eat him up. I tried that once actually. My brother had to restrain me and then distract me with a hamburger. Kids are so lucky--they can just pass out and be asleep at the drop of a dime, no matter what is going on around them. I'm such a light sleeper that I wake up if a grasshopper sneezes outside. I can also be an insomniac, which doesn't help matters either. Anyway, this is another of my layouts doing pretty old pictures. As you might guess, if you've seen some of my other layouts (and if you haven't, then never mind), I'm working on some 1990-1991 fun. It's nice to travel back in time a bit, even if my mind doesn't quite remember all the details. Since Chris was too young to remember the details as well, I can always embellish the truth along with my pages. I used all Echo Park's new "Boys Life" on this bad boy. I really love Echo Park--in a purely platonic way, of course. I have a harder time using their bright and buoyant papers but they're still stinkin' cute. This is a pretty minimal layout for me, too. It's SO tough for me to leave any sort of space, but in the fight between space and I, space came out the victor. It's so hard for me not to want to put something in every nook and cranny. Even now, I'm pondering changes. But I won't. Because space was the victor, after all. I made the little circle embellishments myself with a couple of punches and those handy dandy Pop Dots. And a couple of brads. Have I told you how much I love brads? In a purely platonic way, of course.

Banners? I Don't Need No Stinkin' Banners!!

When I first saw banners on scrapbook pages, I knew I'd never do a page with them. I remember remarking to my friend, "Why would anyone put a BANNER on a scrapbook page?" I might have even scoffed, though I can't be entirely certain of that. Time went on and I continued to see pages adorned with banners, and would shake my head, secure in my banner snobbishness. Eventually I decided that maybe, just maybe, they'd be OK on a celebration page. Perhaps a birthday page. So the next time some birthday pictures rolled my way, I pulled out a banner, and behold--I was somehow magically converted. Banners have slowly worked their way on my pages, just in time for them to be going out of fashion. It's all good, though--I don' t generally care if what I'm doing is "trendy" or not. Heck, every once in awhile, I'll even pull out some decorative edge scissors or an old Doodlebug Charm. So, until I get tired of them, I'm going to keep using them, by golly. So I added them into this page, all Simple Stories stuff for the most part. I think I've already proclaimed my love for Simple Stories. In some ways, they're actually pretty hard to work with, but in other ways, it's nice to have stuff that works well together and that you don't have to do a lot with to still have it look nice. I added a few little gems to the banner and partook of some of my beloved ric rac and obviously, a button. I had to use a flash this morning because it's a gray and gloomy day, so that's not a ghostly apparition in the bottom picture, just a flash glare. These are pretty old pictures from 1990. And if you were able to deduce that it was Thanksgiving from the "Count Your Blessings" and "November" items on the page, you're doing well. I bounce all around in my scrapbooking (and boy it's starting to hurt my forehead and elbows). I might do pictures from last week one day , then photos from 1987 and my frizzy, scary poodle perm the next. I do put them away chronologically though. Otherwise, it'd be just wrong.

Little Sweetie

I just want to clarify one thing--no animals were hurt in the production of this scrapbook page. Except for her pride, of course. These photos are of my little chiweenie, Keigan, last Valentine's Day. I was searching for some way to photograph her that would be cute and original, and instead I came up with this. I cut a little X into a cardstock Valentine and pushed her head through. You could see the delight in her face at being my canine Valentine. The look of adoration in her eyes, however, is for the biscuit I was holding in my hand. She's ALL about the biscuits. I think she'd wear an "I Love Cats and I'm Not Afraid to Show It" T-shirt for a biscuit. Before I got a dog, I chuckled at people who dressed their dogs up in costumes and told myself, "I'll never be one of THEM." And when I did, people looked at me and pointed because I was talking to myself. But then I got Keigan and one thing led to another and now she has a closet full of clothes and matching accessories. Not really, but it makes a better story. She DOES, however, have a Christmas dress, and has been a pumpkin, a cheerleader and a witch for Halloween. I'm still trying to work out how to get her into a low cut black silk dress with pumps, though. Maybe I'll have that worked out by the time prom rolls around. She's sort of hoping to be invited by the Schnauzer across the street. But back to the layout at hand--this is all REALLY old stuff I used in here. I mean, there's KI Memories paper in here! I'm planning on using lots of stuff from my stash in the near future. World look out--here comes my STASH.

WOYWW, or Holy Crap...what a mess...

This is my first time attempting "What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday", so please be gentle. And I know it's pretty bad but I'd actually taken off a good chunk of what's on there yesterday afternoon. Now I have the remnants of the aftermath of a 12 hour crop on Saturday which I haven't unpacked from and one of the 75,000 different organizing projects I'm working on. It seems like I just get things organized and I suddenly come up with something new that I tell myself will revolutionize how I'm going to do things, but instead just takes weeks of me plodding through my stuff, admiring it and finding something new to do with it. But on the other hand, I am a bit weird in that I LIKE organizing certain things. Not the important things like my kitchen cabinets or my sock drawers, but certain things that I own and love, I can classify and organize and just spend hours on it. Then I'll finish a project like that and say that I'm NEVER GOING TO DO THAT AGAIN. And I don't. Until the next time that I do. Anyway, here's my "workdesk." I just noticed that there's a fall decoration up at the top. I MEANT for that to be there, so I can keep the spirit of Autumn in my heart each and every day. My scrap "room" is actually a pantry. We live in an older style house and the minute I saw it, I knew that's what I wanted to do with it. To the back, I have tons of built in shelves and then this huge...well...counter, I guess you'd call it. It's tough to put a chair there to work, but I don't mind standing by it. A lot of times, since I work at home, I'll have a layout out there and will walk past and just do something on it, then move along on my merry way, probably whistling a merry tune. I keep all my brads, buttons, punches and basic tools up here so I have easy access to them. You can tell I've been easily accessing stuff because the drawers are all artfully askew. This counter also has built in drawers and things like that so I can fit a lot of stuff. And, in case you were wondering (and how could you not?)--I have A LOT of stuff. I sometimes think that I could take all my paper, go out in the backyard and build a small fortress. From this fortress I could then survey all the land and if anyone dared get too close to my Crate Paper or Echo Park stash, I'd use my Cricut spatula to hurl brads at them. Those little spikes could really do some damage, and would teach those coveting my Stickles that they'd need to just move on. I probably won't do that, but it's nice to dream.

Vintage Valentines

I can't blog about a layout today because of Vintage Valentines. I'm a seller on ebay and I was searching through a box of stuff and came across a veritable buttload of old, vintage Valentines that I had totally forgot that I had. So I spent the evening taking pictures of them. But then, after spending an amazing amount of time doing so, once I uploaded them, I thought the quality on them really stunk. After scolding myself sternly, I went through and rephotographed them to much better result, but in the meantime, used up all my batteries for my camera before I'd even finished. Of course, it then dawned on me that I could have just used my scanner the whole time and avoided this whole sordid tale. Anyway, I woke up this morning and even though I put my camera under my pillow, the Battery Fairy didn't leave me any, so I was unable to snap a layout photo. And I'm clueless about a stitching program for my scanner, so that's a hopeless cause. The world will now never know exactly what I'd truly meant to blog about. Until tomorrow, I guess. Anyway, I do so love Vintage Valentines. They definitely don't make 'em like these anymore. I remember being so very careful to choose just the right card for the right person. My best friend got the sweetest one, the boy I liked got the coolest one, the nose picker got my least favorite one, etc. And I loved opening mine and wondering if there was any hidden intent behind my friend's choices--"Hmmm..a card with a girl with flowers. Does his heart REALLY go upsy-daisy for me?" I even kept the most special one I received in grade school--fourth grade to be exact, from Scott Kavli. A bear with a jar of honey, where he'd circled the word "honey" for special emphasis and had added into the envelope a small piece of paper saying "I like you, do you like me? Circle yes or no". Scott was in a band. In fourth grade. Ah, Valentine win. Anyway, I'm now planning on spending the day listing all these vintage valentines--some from the 1930's even and hope that they'll bring someone else a little bit of Valentine happiness.

9 Months Old

Monday, Monday...what the heck are YOU doing here? I was all totally into the whole weekend thing and then YOU had to rear your ugly head. I had a super weekend, including the 12 hour crop, that I made it to, snow and all. Growing up in the snow belt of Ohio, you'd think that snow wouldn't phase me. We'd literally get dumped with a foot and a half of snow in an hour. They sometimes have snow on the ground in May. People laughed when I moved here and said, "Oh, wait til you see our New England winters!" and I laughed back jovially and said, "I'm from Ashtabula." (Yes, Ashtabula. It's an Indian name for "River of many fish." I'd probably add "and toxic waste" to that, but I digress.) Anyway, I used to drive with no problem in the stuff but now having lived in New England for 11 years and because I work at home, I've grown unaccustomed to doing so and I totally wuss out about it. And these roads were pretty bad on Saturday. But, as you can see, I lived to tell the tale and to scrapbook a few pages, and engage in general mirth with my scrapbooking homies. This is one of the layouts that I did there. I'm slightly dubious about it because it's not totally my style. I'm more of a "add everything and the kitchen sink...plus the decorative soap" kind of scrapbooker. I admire people who can leave artful space on their layouts but I seem to find a way to add something to just about every nook and cranny. The photo is of my sweet nephew, Chris--when, as I'm sure you can read since it's SO huge, he was 9 months old. He's 21 years old now. Ouch. So hard to believe THAT much time has elapsed when in the same period, I've only gained 10 years. Weird how that works. The papers are all a My Mind's Eye Fourth of July collection. I don't do very many patriotic pages because we never seem to have Fourth of July plans, but I do really love red and blue as a color combo and well...his outfit pretty much stipulated that I use it. That and the steely "use blue and red" glare in his eyes. Originally, I'd planned on making flags instead of a banner, but was convinced by my friend Laura that the banner was the way to go. Once she'd showed me the light, I embraced the idea. I held it for awhile and then finished the page. I pulled out one of my Cricut cartridges (Cuttin' Up) to make the title, added some twine and some cute buttons, too. I still look at it and feel like there's something missing, but I've decided to leave well enough alone. I hope that doesn't make Well Enough feel badly.

Crop Time

Now that Christmas is over, it seems an apt time to post a Christmas page. Because Christmas is right around the corner and just over 11 months away. Anyway, here's a page of myself and two of my friends at my LSS in Northampton, MA, Paper! Paper! during a morning crop. I'm the strange looking person in the red shirt. Technically, I was supposed to be Santa. I got the bright idea about five minutes before leaving to go into Kevin's closet and pull out the shirt he wore for a Christmas show the year before. Sure, it was wrinkly, but when one is infused with Christmas spirit, wrinkles don't matter quite as much. I arrived at Paper! Paper! bearing gifts and donned in my huge wrinkly shirt and realized that I'd forgotten the Santa Hat at home. Suddenly, my idea wasn't sounding so good. Now I was just sort of wrinkly and red and not quite as festive. But I persevered and even have photos to tell the tale. By the way, this layout uses mostly Echo Park stuff, except I believe that's a Doodlebug journaling box and I don't remember where I picked up the funky Santa Belt ribbon. I'm not even sure the ribbon goes with the page, but I was determined to use it.

And speaking of Paper! Paper! (which I was a few sentences above, if you care to go back and check), tomorrow is their monthly 12 hour crop, and barring a possible snowstorm, I'm excited to go. The only bad part, of course, is packing for it. I always start out with the best of intentions. I plan on making very detailed page kits so that I don't have to carry much. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And I always start out well. I get one page kit ready--I pick out the paper, the embellishments, think about how the layout is going to look. And then I look at the clock and realize that it took me two hours, because in between I've been puttering around, ogling my stuff, staring meaninglessly out the window. By the end of the day, when it's getting time to have it finished, I end up haphazardly throwing a bunch of stuff into a bag. Ribbons? Sure, I'll need ribbons! Hmm...you never know what color ink I might need--better grab these 27 pads. I don't KNOW what pictures I want to do. I'll just grab this stack and then these 700 papers that might possibly go with it. Well...you get the picture. I'm hoping to avoid that today and get an early jump on things and get some fine work done towards the packing. And then we'll get 40 inches of snow tomorrow.

Butterfly

Ah, butterflies. Who doesn't love them? Me, actually. I'll clarify that--I think that they're beautiful and I love the symbolism of them...but don't get any of them near me. To me, they're just cleverly disguised moths, and since I'm slighly phobic of moths, it's my rule of thumb to just generally steer clear of butterflies, too. Luckily for me, paper ones hold no such phobia for me and I can happily punch them out to my heart's content and dream of world where moths all go jump off a cliff, which is what I did as I completed this layout of my beautiful niece, Samantha--dream of moths that is, not jump off a cliff. All the papery stuff is Aunthentique and then I used a wooden flourish by Kaiser Craft, which I painted with Stickles. I have a thing about Stickles. I have to restrain myself from wanting Stickles on every page. Stickles for President!!

I also used some nice, puffy ric rac and a button. Ric Rac is also one of my sublime pleasures. Ric Rac for President!! You can see why my scrapbooking supplies hate me.

A Windy Day

Brrr...it's windy out there today. Winnie the Pooh and his blustery day ain't got nothing on me. So 'tis a good day for a blustery wintery page. This one is all done completely with Little Yellow Bicycle and the Winter Twig collection, which obviously, is great for winter pages. These winter pictures were courtesy of Hillary, my stepdaughter and her boyfriend Jacob. We had a freak storm here in Massachusetts at the end of October and were hit with a plethora of snow and power outages and general mayhem. We, however, were one of the few towns that didn't lose power so I just had to sympathize with all my friends around us who were affected. Anyway, I was a bad scrapbooker and didn't venture outside to take any photos at all. Hillary, a scrapbooker herself, was undaunted, however. And out she traipsed to take some fun snowy pictures which I snagged from Facebook and was able to use some fun pictures for my new scrapbooking paper. I really do love paper collections these days, although it almost feels like cheating to have everything already matched and ready for me to go. But there are no rules in scrapbooking, I like to tell everyone. They get tired of hearing it, but I do love saying it.

Family Pose

I sort of really love Simple Stories. I like the embelllishments and I particularly like how most of their papers are embellishments of sorts that you just cut out and use--like the cool "Family" Bingo card. I'm sort of stuck in the vintage look, though I like my bright colored pages as well. Just thought this paper line, "Generations" worked well with these photos, taken at my niece's wedding. It's unfortunate about the poor lighting in the photos, but at least we're all in there. Not too many family photos with all of us floating around. I also like how my brother Gary is trying to suck the energy from Kevin's head using only his hand. My family is talented that way. Anyway, the day was a big deal--the first of my niece/nephews getting married and these pictures were taken at the end of a long night of dancing and debauchery. I think there was definitely more dancing, though. Anyway, I used Simple Stories for pretty much everything except the ribbon, lace, button and the screw brad that I happily pulled from my stash. I bought them absolutely eons ago and I swear that this was the first time I've used one. There's a first time for everything they say. Duly noted.

Congratulations...It's a Blog!

Yeah, I've had a blog before and had fun with it and wrote a bunch of drivel and then ended up deleting it. But here it is again. I figure I'll give it another go, though it's likely that the stuff I post won't be of terrible interest to a terrible amount of people. Yet, it's still my plan. And because it's my plan and not terribly diabolical, I figure I'll give it a go. Because the best laid plans of mice and Stephanie often don't get underfoot. And in saying that, how is underfoot a good place to be? If I happened to get under a giant's foot, for example--that really wouldn't be a good thing. Getting under a mouse's foot could make me squeamish. Seals kind of have cute feet. I guess I could get under the foot of one of them. Hey, anything's possible, eh?