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!)