The Little Things

This is a mini book that I've been working on for several months. It was made with the intention of teaching it at the various conventions this year (CKC, GASC, Scrapbook Expo). I knew it had to 1) be relatively simple, 2) easy enough to be mostly completed within an hour and 3) thrifty because of the pricing structure at CKCs. So, I chose the Kaiser multi-dimensional book & bling and the Making Memories green Paperie papers & embellishments. The toughest part was coming up with a theme; it has to be generic enough that it can be made into a lot of different things & appeal to a lot of people. So, I settled on "The Little Things"... which really does have a wide span of opportunity. For the sample, I chose to focus mine on the little things around my kitchen that I love. So... here it is...

Since it has a lot of journaling (gasp! I know... what got into me!?!?), I'm showing what the outside looks like when it's all closed and then the subsequent images are the scans of each page. The journaling was sloppy (& crooked) because I was a bit behind schedule and had to get it done.

I had suggested to Sarah that she contact MM & Kaiser to see if they be able to get us a better deal on the supplies. I just had to get the thing done in order for her to send them pictures of it. So, last weekend, I asked her if she wanted to take it to CHA so she could show them in person and she definitely wanted to do that. So, she took it with her and last night she presented it to the girl (don't remember her name) at MM who runs their VIP program and apparently she loved it. She even mentioned the possibility of supplying the paper & embellishments at cost. YAY! Sarah still has to work out more details and of course, find out if Kaiser can provide the books (and hopefully at a discount) and then we'll be good to go! YAY. That was a bright spot in the day yesterday.

Catching Up

Oops! I've not been very good at keeping up postings of the one-a-day January challenge. I knew going into this that I'd not be able to scrap every day but my goal is/was 31 pages. I doubt I'll make that but we'll see if maybe I can get at least 20. Here are some I've completed since my last post...



This is my friend Carrie & me at an LSS in Michigan in 2005. A group of 12 of us who had known each other for years on-line finally decided it was time to meet in person! So, we decided on a trip to Michigan (since 5 of the girls lived there and they have a ridiculous amount of LSSs). Carrie & I agreed we were each other's safety nets (neither of us had ever traveled alone somewhere let alone to spend the weekend with people we had never met). But having known these women for so many years on-line, I felt very safe. (And quite frankly, they know me better than some local friends I've known for 20 or 30 years.) But there were still those funny looks you get when you tell your co-workers & family "yea, I'm travelling to a city I've never been to to spend the weekend with 12 women I've never met in person". They just didn't understand. But, nonetheless, Carrie & I had each other as a safety net. :) And I know she would always be that for me. As would the others I spent the weekend with.


What do a group of 12 scrapbookers do on a weekend together? We run around shopping at scrapbook stores. Duh! And it was a blast. This photo was taken by Shannon and it's one of my very, very favorites of the weekend. We were all giddy & snappy with our cameras in the first store and I was totally enamored by these adorable little shopping carts. If I could have bought one and convinced the airline to let me check it onto the plane, I would have. I was so loving the little thing that Shannon was taking a picture of Carrie & me with it in the photo. At the last second, Carrie jumped in the cart and voila! a perfect photo! (and hense the title.) I've had this photo sitting in a project sleeve for THREE YEARS with some papers (purple & green because Carrie & I both love those colors) and it just never came together. I finally separated the photo from the papers and it definitely helped make things happen. I'm glad I waited because I'm much happier with this page than had I used what I originally intended. And I'm 99% sure I used a Page Map for the launching point. But for the heck of me I can't find which one (And I just wasted 45 minutes trying to find it.) Okay.... I think that story took longer for you to read than my flight to Michigan.

Ironically, this next page is about yet another trip (two years later) to meet the very same group (with some additions and a few people who couldn't make it) of women. There were 16 of us who met up in Chicago in November '07. When I saw this American Crafts paper, I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for. We all traveled (wanna guess?) by..... plane, train or automobile to get there. I matted each photo in the corresponding title word based on how each person traveled. I had taken individual head-shots of everyone (I have a tendency to do that on trips like this) so I could be sure to have a single shot of everyone on the trip and flexibility to scrap each one however I wanted (and not worry about who else was in the photo). I did this in Michigan in '05 as well but I still haven't scrapped those (but the idea of how I want to do it is still in my head!). :) Anyway... I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Oh, I was bummed that AC didn't include a train in their thickers package (because there was a plane & a car) so I crafted my own using a bus and some other random shapes to create the track. Shh... my secret's safe with you all, right? Anyway... it's a very "busy" layout for me but I like it. A fun trip deserved a bright, fun page. I've posted the pages individually as well to get a closer peek.

I started this two-pager back in October when these papers first came out. I'm not even sure why I didn't finish it because pretty much all I had to do was print the photos and adhere everything down. But yay it's done now!  I *heart* Halloween!! :)

And this one is a back-to-school page I started at the Reading Crop last weekend. I absolutely LOVE this Fancy Pants line. I chose it for the 2nd Grade back-to-school photos because that was the year Matthew was taught cursive. And I really liked the words of advice for a b-t-s page (Be curious, strong, loving, etc). These companies sure make it easy sometimes to use their products! The colors are actually a bit more bold IRL.

More to come. My goal is 20 for January. I have only one week left. Miles to go before I sleep. (But I do have about 5 or 6 in progress already; that helps!)

One-A-Day Challenge

So the girls at MLPA set a challenge to try to do one page a day for the month of January. I started out strong... kept it going. Then the 6th arrived. I knew once I had to return back to work, I'd fizzle out! But so far, I've gotten 5 more pages done and that's a good thing. Here's a re-cap of those 5...

January 1st... Expedition Everest

This was from our trip to Disney World in '06 and highlights their newest ride "Expedition Everest". Woohoo... a 2-pager! Since it had just opened up a few months before we were there, I put together a hidden journaling block with interesting facts about the ride. I swear it's straight in person... the left page doesn't really slope off like this. I'm just not in the mood to re-scan it.

January 2nd... Flowers of Support

This one was emotional and I cried the majority of the time scrapping it. Friends sent me these flowers in August while I was going through a very emotional week. The journaling is hidden behind the large photo. I still cry when I think of their kindness.

January 3rd... Crazy Hair

This one makes me laugh. Matthew snapped this picture while we were headed to Baltimore in July. I love driving with the windows open and this is what it does. This page was fun, fun, fun to make but took a lot of planning. It was based on one of the January '09 Page Maps sketches.

January 4th... Just Us

I really like how this one turned out. It's a lift from a page posted on Crate Paper's site. Loved it so much, I had to do one of my own. It's a picture of Matthew & me on Thanksgiving night. It's a circular page... ignore that stark white square behind it!

January 5th... Little Surprises

Another one from our Baltimore Trip. It uses the BYOM November Kit and is all about the unexpected changes from Matthew moving from the back seat of the car to the front seat.

And that's where I lost my oomph. I've still got mojo, but I'm oomph-deficient. It'll come back... right after I'm feeling a little better. In the meantime, more & more pages are being flagged in my scrap magazines for inspiration.

What I did on my Christmas Vacation

I was somehow able to sneak in some scrapping time over the Christmas break. Deadlines definitely help (thanks, BYOM!). And then I just kept at it and did more things in January. Shocking, I know. But I'll save those for another post. These are the ones I did during that time between Christmas and New Years Day...

This is a favorite... I just liked how it all came together. These are pictures from Amanda & Greg's engagement party last Summer. I used Shannon's sketch and it definitely made this one a breeze!



This is from the Margie Romney-Aslett visit to MLPA in October. She's one heck of a great person and I really enjoyed the time sitting and talking with her... about her family and about her career. The journaling spot on here is actually a note she signed when she was here. I wanted to add it to a layout so I had her write it on some MM paper (how apropos, eh?). The journaling is hidden behind this note (which pivots on the brad you see). All of the flowers were x-acto cut out. It took about an hour, resulted in a very cramped hand but I like it a lot.





This one is a simple one from Thanksgiving. Matthew & Kathy duking it out over the wishbone:




And lastly, I altered a clock. I found this clock last Spring and was waiting for one of the BYOM kits to blend well with it. Voila! I wonder how long before I actually put a battery in it and making it a functioning clock. Speaking of which... do you know why analog clocks are always photographed with a time of "10:10" on it? Well... I'll tell you.... it's because visually appealing and resembles a smile. I'm just a wealth of useless knowledge.


Hopefully, I can keep this momentum going throughout January. Not likely but I never give up hope!

Let's start at the very beginning....

.... a very good place to start! (sing it with me all you Sound of Music fans).

For several years now (procrastinate much?) I've wanted a place to post the pages & projects I make but never got around to committing to this blog thing. So, this is just a place to keep my "things", not my "thoughts" (because those are very uninteresting). I'm hoping that it will eventually be a place for those who normally wouldn't see these things to get a glimpse into what I document & create. (I'm pretending people are interested in my life.) I'll start with recent creations and try to tag them well enough so they're easily searchable. I will leave my self-proclaimed bad stuff off of here. Or re-do them. Or never admit to having done them. I'm sneaky that way.

Okay... away we go!