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.

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.