Wrapping Up the Month

Can you believe it's the end of May?  I know it sounds trite to say things like, "my, how time has flown," but seriously, it was a quick month for me. Our students are about to start finals week, and then it's officially summer around here.

My plan was to use my May kit to do all our Mexico pages. While I finished a couple of pages, I didn't yet tackle the "guts" of the project. I'm still editing pictures to size - I'd like to avoid extra printing, so I'm trying to pre-plan what size prints I need for each page. I know I'm using the same basic format as I used for my Week in the Life project, with some 8 1/2x11 pages and baseball card divided pages for each day.

So while I wait to have prints, I decided to use the remainder of my kit (and some other papers I've pulled in from my stash) and make a handful of journal and filler cards for each day. 

I wanted to identify some specific colors to follow each day and found this color swatch from Design Seeds to use as a base.

I'm just drawn to these colors, and yesterday I realized these are the colors of a pottery soap dish I purchased in Akumal and the similar colors I found on these Deja Views sticker sheets I put in my kit.

I'm not sure if I picked those items and their colors inspired me to use this palette, or if I just love this palette and it leads me to pick items with these colors. Either way, it's what I'm working with!

I did a daily intro card with the day number on it, and I made them all look similar. Then I picked one piece of cardstock. sticky notes or patterened paper per day and used it to make the cards. I mixed in white and kraft to draw it all together. I'll add more embellishment to the cards (stamping, brads, etc.) as I fill in the journaling and better know what space I need to fill.

It was fun to make a few cards, but I saved some card bases to finish as the project comes together. And I saved lots of stickers to use throughout the photos, too.  When I actually get my photo prints, the rest of the project should now come together a bit more quickly. Here are some pics of about half of my stack of cards:

It's not much to look at right now, but it will help me tackle the rest of this project in the near future.  And it made my kit contents shrink dramatically.  I'm REALLY hoping to get a good start on it the rest of the project this weekend.  I'd REALLY REALLY like to say I'll complete it this weekend, but knowing my turtle-paced scrapping, it would be a real surprise!

If you are coming to the end of your own kit, consider using some scraps to make a few quick journaling spots or tags. It might result in some time savings later!

3-2-1 Counterfeit Challenge

Today we're showing our 3-2-1- Challenge projects for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge: 3 embellishments, 2 papers, 1 photo. 

When I decided to put my Mexico trip pages into my regular chronological album for 2012, I knew that I still wanted to use this decorative cover (above) that I purchased on our trip.

So I punched new holes and decided to decorate the inside of the cover, too. I'll just use it as a divider within the larger album.

I will admit to a bit of "splitting hairs" on the rules for this challenge - maybe we can call it "creative grouping" instead of "outright cheating"?  Either way, I'm happy with the end result, so I hope you'll forgive me! 

I also scraplifted from this page from Melissa, Stinson, The Scrappy Jedi (who, by the way, was a Master Forger and posted this page for a challenge in July 2011. The Force brought her page full circle :)).

3 Embellishments: 
1 - The banner is made of pieces from my kit and from my stash.
2 - I used a stamp with Staz-On ink directly onto my photo.
3 - And I used stickers in the title and the label at the bottom of the page

2 Papers:
1 - I got mileage out of this WRMK Travel Light paper. Between the blocks of pattern on the front and the dots on the back, I was able to cut it into a variety of pieces for the background, the banner, and some trim pieces.
2 - I cut the suitcases from an old piece of Creative Imaginations paper.  Sidenote....I just placed an order from the CI website, because I couldn't remember the name of the paper and I wanted to look it up for this post (still couldn't find it - it's been in my stash for quite awhile).  So really this post just cost me $30.

1 Image:
I used this long sweep panoramic photo from our trip.  I took several panoramic shots while on vacation. Do you have a panoramic feature on your camera?  If so, have you ever printed the photos?  Because they can be really long photos, the prints are pretty narrow. If you had it printed on a 4x6, the 6" long print might be 1" high.  I had my image printed 12" long, and you can see it's only about 3" tall.  I cut the edge from this particular image (it was my first print, sort of an experiment, so I didn't mind cutting it. I probably wouldn't have used it otherwise) to fit the width of this page.

If you're interested, this article talks about the sweep panoramic feature that is showing up on more point-and-shoot cameras. The author links to some sample pictures to get an idea of how neat these photos can be. 

I had a hard time finding a way to print them - that's why this particular image was a test for me.  I ended up taking the file to a local Cord Camera, where the 12" long print was about $4.  I think I'll try a 24" long version and use it on a 2 page layout. But I want to do more editing before I invest in what will probably be a $10 print.  It seems like these pictures are more suited for digital use and viewing rather than easily making prints. 

So that's the 3-2-1 of this challenge.  If you take the challenge, be sure to link it back to this month's Mr Linky at the CKC blog. Thanks for looking!

Busy Weekend

We're having a quiet night at home, so I thought I'd post a quick brag......

We spent the weekend at a Rally Obedience Trial with Junior.  We had a great time, and Junior definitely showed that he is improving and enjoying the activity.

And we came home with ribbons and dreams of all the future championships we can complete.

This was just our second rally weekend, but I now need to think about how to organize all these things we're accumulating - course maps, name tags, record sheets and pictures. I think I'll start an album to keep everything together in a creative way. One more project for the pile!

Challenge Follow-Up

Since my NSD challenge was to tie-up loose-ends, I thought I'd better get around to tying up the loose ends of that post. 

Did you do any challenges for National Scrapbook Day?  There were so many to choose from! I had an entire spreadsheet of challenges from the Counterfeit Kit team and from 2Peas, and big ideas and intentions to go along with that list.  And then I finished a whole 2 pages all weekend.  I've never been one to set any land speed records with my scrapping.  The idea that I'd get 30 projects done in 2 days was just this side of crazy, since that's about half of what I'd complete in any given YEAR.  But, in the end, it was all good inspiration, and I still have my list at my desk and may use those ideas to get through some future projects. 

One person took my challenge and "went to town" with it!  Angie (Akochmcelroy on her Studio Calico page) took the opportunity to work on a vacation album and completed 5 pages for this challenge. 

 Way to go!!!!! 

Here are some links to her pages - take a look at her page on Studio Calico to see more finished pages, too:


Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5

Thanks for playing along, Angie!  And thanks, everyone, for stopping by when I post and taking a minute to listen to my thoughts each time you do.  I'm finding that building a blog is hard work and great fun, all at once!

Fabric Challenge: AKA Many Mini Hexagons

When I went searching my stash for fabric for this Counterfeit Kit challenge, I came across a piece of tulle. And I noticed that tulle is just a series of the hottest shape right now, hexagons!

So I used tulle in two ways on this layout. First, I used a piece for texture behind my picture. Second, I used it as a mask on some design-your-own Thickers, for letters with mini-hexagons (sort of). Kind of neat, huh? You just have to be sure to tap away all spare glitter before carefully pulling the tulle away from the letters.

This page will be the "title" page/first page for our Mexico trip. 

Took this picture before I cleaned away the little bits of glitter. It really is a big pain, isn't it?
Even the dog had it on face by the end of the night.

Just thinking out loud.....You could accomplish the same idea by running foam
(or maybe chipboard) letters or shapes through a Xyron. Might even work to run it
through the Xyron with the tulle/mask on the letter, to keep the adhesive from sticking
to the letter on those lines.  Might need to do some more experimenting.

Try a piece of tulle for a mask for painting or inking mini-hexagons on a background on a page or card. It looks like I got my large piece in the remnant bin for .17, so if nothing else it's a cheap experiment. If you try it, leave a link in the comments.

Thanks for looking!  And check the Counterfeit Kit blog today for the rest of the Master Forger's fabric projects.

Week in the Life Project Completed

Hi All -

I finally put the finishing touches on my Week in the Life project.  You can see the pictures here. 

Just an example of how I put my pages together.  Nothing terribly unique, but I did really enjoy putting little finishing touches together for each page.  The rest of the pictures for the week are posted on Flickr here.

A few details:

--I used 8 1/2 x 11 pages and baseball card holder pages.

--I used the Ali Edwards notepages for keeping notes each day.

--I mostly used the DCWV Photo Stack for this project - lots of polaroid picture shapes.

--"Fun fact" - I made a daily number block for each day and moved it down the page as the days passed (Monday in the first spot, Tuesday in the second spot, etc.).  And each day seemed to end up with a theme of some sort, so I named each day, too.

I am just going to add these pages into my larger 2012 album as it comes together. I have always loved seeing people's daily/weekly/PL/P365-type projects, but I never really thought I'd do one myself.  But I loved this project so much that I think I'll do our February vacation and later our December Daily pages the same way, and just keep it all chrono within the album(s) for the year. 
 
So, that project is now out of the way, and I can get started on that vacation album.  I worked on photo editing and sizing this weekend, but I still have quite a bit to do.  I hope to have some of those photos printed this week so I can get started.  My May kit is waiting for me to get going!

NSD Challenges

I scrapped all. weekend. long.  But I definitely broke my own record of slowest scrapper in the world. I managed to finish two - yes, two - PAGES the entire weekend.  Well, I also did a lot of photo cutting and plotting and arranging for my Week in the Life album, but outside of that project, I managed those two other pages. Good grief!

But, I do feel some accomplishment. I kept up with all my blog posts, which was a priority for my weekend, and I managed to get around and look at all the challenges and kits from the rest of the Master Forgers, too.  There is enough stuff there to keep me busy for year, let alone a weekend or a month!

Here are my two pages, which I'm submitting to Susanne's Everyday Sparkle Challenge and Leslie's Favorites Challenge.  Both pages are scraplifted - from The Scrappy Jedi here and the other from the 2Peas gallery here.

First, Leslie's favorites challenge.  This favorite moment was when we took our Halloween pictures with Junior. He was so, so good that day, despite being subjected to the ultimate humiliation of wearing a googley-eyed lobster get-up (although our trainer did dye her border collie neon pink for the occasion, which seems more humiliating that wearing a temporary lobster costume. Maybe Junior picked up on that subtle difference and that helped him tolerate all the extra legs and claws hanging from his sides). I still chuckle when I think about that costume.

It was a dark and stormy night......
No, really, it's a dark and stormy night. My apologies for the dark photo. 
I used mostly Pebbles Cats and Dogs papers. The big "Boo" is a Halloween
ornament that I disassembled.

And second, Susanne's challenge.  This everyday moment was our first rally trial earlier this spring. Junior seems to love the training - a good class definitely wears him out - and somehow he mustered some moments of brilliance at those first trials.  Our next trial is over Memorial Day weekend, provided his paw heals over the next couple of weeks.

The sparkle was a challenge, because I couldn't find my glitter! Who loses an entire 30-pack of glitter?! I think I must have left it at a crop, because it is not in my scraproom.  So, I turned to glitter paper to make the sparkly ribbons. And the background is the most beautiful piece of My Minds Eye embossed and glittered paper that I've been hoarding because it was just too pretty to use it. But it was the perfect background for the page, so I was happy to add its sparkle here.

For the ribbons, I used a Cricut cut for the base, added some
ribbon, and used a rolled paper flower for the center. It's all
held together with the paw-print brad in the center.  And I added
some blue Stickles to the kraft fringe, so there's a bit of sparkle there, too.

I used the design-your-own foam Thickers and used flock instead of glitter.

I'm going to complete more of the challenges as I can over the next week or so, and then I need to turn to my May kit and vacation pages. If you missed the NSD challenge hop, you can find the full list of challenges here. Thanks for stopping by!

May Kits

What a weekend! I've been a scrapping and blogging fool......Anyone know a multi-millionaire interested in adopting a nearly 40-year old scrapper? I'm looking for a way to turn this weekend into my everyday life :).

While I'm waiting for that plan to come through, here's my take on the May Counterfeit Kit.  I chose the Louve Kit, because the Smash tags caught my eye.  Instead of the doily/butterfly theme, I turned to a travel theme, because I plan to scrap my Mexico trip pictures this month.  So here's my group of supplies:

Started with the Travels Smash pad. Added some Smash brads, Jillibean kraft sprouts,
and some travel stickers and orange paper flowers.  WRMK, Jillibean, BG, and MAMBI papers,
along with a Deja Views travel theme sticker sheet, round out the kit.

This kit ended up being my bargain kit, too. A lot of the travel themed stickers have been picked up on clearance, and the Smash stuff was on sale.  The Jillibean stuff came from the warehouse sale a few weeks ago, and the Deja Views sheet came from clearance at Michaels. I never find good deals there, but these sheets were in with the .10 paper clearance a few weeks ago. I bought 3, just because I knew I could use a ton of them on this project.

I had a few items that didn't make the cut for my first kit, so I sort of put together a Travel Kit 2, which turned toward brighter colors.  Some Jillibean, and Creative Imaginations papers, design-your-own Momenta and Thickers alphas, Stella and Roses stamps, and some travel-themed brads. The Riviera Maya piece is a photo album cover. I bought the album at a market in Mexico, just for the cover. The pages were all made from some sort of smelly, natural, pulpy material, so I threw them away; The cover is similar, but I loved the inlay and thought it would be a great keepsake. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to do this project, but this cover will somehow be included.

Hop info:

Previous stop: Milissa


You are here: Rebecca

Your next stop: Susanne
To start at the beginning: Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog.

Thanks for the visit!

Challenge: Tie Up Some Loose Ends!

Do you love all these challenges or what?!  When Beth and Meridy suggested this idea for the group to celebrate NSD, I knew it would be a fantastic celebration. You may have landed here from Milissa's Embossing/Stitching Distressing Challenge.To see all the challenges, start at the CKC Blog.

I'll introduce my challenge by saying this: I am terrible with endings.

I am a creative idea person - I like beginnings. I'm good at beginnings. I'm organized, prepared, motivated. Then, somewhere around the middle, I start to fade - I lose interest.

It's a common thread in my life. Whether it was writing a paper or studying in school, finishing a project around the house, working on a committee, doing a craft project, it's all the same. Not a great thing to admit about myself, huh?! But it's true, I battle it most every day.

One of my goals for 2012 was/is to finish what I start. I can't combat such a big part of my personality with a simple New Year's resolution. I will, after all, lost interest in it :). But as I recently mentioned in another post, I do want to accomplish a small goal: complete all the little details on all my older albums. Even if it's just smacking a picture on some paper and calling it good, or writing a couple of sentences on the paper, at least those little details will be done, and I can say I finished something!

I've skipped pages sometimes because I needed to get a picture printed. Sometimes it was because I didn't have the supplies I wanted, and sometimes I just didn't feel like doing that page.  In older, postbound albums, sometimes I just threw the pics in the protector to save a space for the page, but never went back and actually did the page.  I've been on a mission to get those unfinished pages finished, so I can concentrate on more recent stuff.

So my challenge to you: Look back through your scrapbooks. Do you have any half-finished or skipped pages?  Did you ever skip some journaling or picture printing?  Look for a project and finish it!  Whatever you pick should be something relatively quick - the goal is to get something done so you can feel the accomplishment!!

Link a completed project back here in the comments so we can all take a look.  If you post that link in the comments by Sunday, May 13, I'll highlight any linked projects in a future post.

In case you need some inspiration, here are a few pages I've finished/resolved in the past couple of weeks:

I showed these pages a couple of weeks ago using my April kit.



I always meant to add one page for our first trip to Mexico
into my 2010 chronological album.



This one is from 2003. I skipped come pictures of our cat, Owen,
because it was too sad to work on her pages when she died.
Finally went back and did some 2012 journaling on it, and I'm glad I did!

I went through a time when I didn't take many pictures, so I wrote a summary
of pictures I missed and used it as that year's final page in my album. I
used some items from the DCWV Snapshot Stack to throw together
this simple page.

The next stop on our hop is the Everyday Sparkle Challenge with Susanne at http://www.snapsandsnippets.blogspot.com/. Have a great National Scrapbook Day and weekend!

Finishing A Card Project

I was so inspired by April's card kits from Lisa and Milissa for the Counterfeit Kit, that I decided to finish another half-completed project.

I made these card bases several months ago - maybe over a year ago - but never really knew how to finish them.  It took a lot of time and adhesive to get all the bases completed, so I wanted to come up with some finishing touches.




The lonely card bases that used some Basic Grey Cappella 6x6 pad.



Found these Wild Asparagus tags in my stash and decided to use a few on these card bases.

And after.....I used little bits of scraps and some old stickers, too. Happy to finish this little project!

So thanks to Lisa and Milissa for inspiring me to tie up loose ends on this project!

Getting Ready for NSD!

Well, the week has flown by, and here it is, Friday, May 4th, the night before National Scrapbook Day.

My plan for last night was to get groceries for the weekend, finish a card project and post the card pictures.  Instead, when I got home from work, I was greeted with a dog walking on 3 legs.  Finding that this was not just a fancy new party trick, we took him to the vet.  Which, by the way, who has a vet that you can call at 5:30 that says, "sure, be here in half an hour and I'll see you after my last appointment."  We do, that's who.  And she's the best.  She was Junior's foster mom, so we have an in. And given the amount of emergency trips with this dog, we feel we're the luckiest people on the planet. Anyway, after some exam and x-rays, we've determined there's nothing broken or out of place - he just has a sprained paw.  Keeping this dog calm will be the biggest challenge of the weekend.

So, I'm an evening behind, but I'll try to catch up tonight.

The photos are ready to be cut.

The desk is ready to be dirtied.

The refrigerator will be stocked for self-service opportunities (i.e. Rebecca's not cooking).

The to-do list is sufficiently over-ambitious.
I'm all set.

Watch for all the special Counterfeit Kit challenges tomorrow. One of them will be here.  It sounds like there are several good ones, and I'm hoping to fit in as many as I can.

And then watch the blog again on Sunday for our May Counterfeit Kits.  I think it's going to be a great month. I think I will spend it reliving my Mexico vacation. It seems like a good time to catch up on that project.  What will you want to accomplish this month?  Is it a ridiculously overpacked list like my April list, or do you have something more realistic in mind?  Either way, hope you have fun doing it!

Finishing My Scrap Room

You'll start to see a theme this week.  I'm going to post about some loose-ends projects - things I'm trying to get done around the house and in my scrap room, all in preparation for National Scrapbook Day on May 5th.

We "finished" my scrapbook room about a year ago.  It was a great effort on Crystal's part, who is our designated driller/furniture-putter-together in these sorts of projects.  I cleared the room of all furniture and other contents, and then we painted and added an Ikea Expedit shelf and desk.  Then we reloaded all the stuff, and I started using the space immediately.



Nothing terribly unique, but it's my scrappy home.  And I do love my chair!



So while I have found time to reorganize my shelves about 100 times since then, we continued to "not have time" for the least favorite part of any project in our household: hanging things on the walls.  It's such a hassle, and there's nothing easy about lining things up, leveling, dealing with drywall anchors, etc. For every hole we drill, we usually have to patch two others and then drag out the paint and.......ugh.....just thinking about it brings me down!

On Sunday we finally tackled that project, and just about everything is complete! You saw some of those pictures yesterday in my Week in the Life Sunday post.  We hung shelves, curtain rods, frames and towel racks (to hold punches).  It took 6 hours - no wonder we both started to ignore the unfinished.  Now all those things are off the floor and out of the way.

I used some wrapping paper with grid marks on the back as my template to hang towel bars level and even with each other.

One down, two more to go.

I actually did a page for my room re-do last year and left a space for the picture.  Now I can add that page to my "tie up loose ends" pile (watch for a challenge on that topic soon!).  Very excited to have the project AND the page both completed, just in time for National Scrapbook Day weekend. 

I did leave one unfinished project, though.  I have this window frame that I bought at an antique place.

Crystal, if you're reading, don't yell at me for propping this window against the car. Thank you.

My original thought was to use it as a frame and do this project with it.  Well, that was over a year ago - oops. More recently I thought about just painting it and putting fabric behind it.  My "lease" on the storage space in our garage is coming to an end, and I fear that one day Crystal will just pitch it while I'm not looking.  So, I really need to make something happen on that project.  I left the space over my desk open for now, hoping I can put the window up there soon.  Let's me honest - if it's done within a year, I'll be happy!

One final shot for tonight - I just picked up my Week in the Life photos.  I printed most of them as large wallets (sized easily in PhotoSheet) to use in baseball card pockets. Can't wait to dig in!

Link to Tonight's Post

ETA: Fixed it! You should now see Wednesday night's post in the right place. Carry on :).

Weird....I added a new post tonight, but it's showing up 3 posts down (based on draft date not posting order). No time to figure out the issue tonight; I'll try to get things in order tomorrow. For now, just scroll down to the post about finishing my scrap room. Thanks!

Week in the Life - Sunday

And for the final daily overview, here is my Sunday of Week in the Life.  I am excited to have this project to complete this weekend. It's one of my priorities for my National Scrapbook Day celebration.

Sunday morning paper

Getting ready for Junior's rally class
(He's never too far away from the
treat pouch prep)

Rally class. I'm usually working with him, so it's fun to
stand back and watch Crystal working with him instead. When
he looks up at her, completely focused on what he should do?
It's so fun to watch!

We came home and then spent the day
hanging items in my scrap room.  This picture shows
my homemade template for hanging things level - some
wrapping paper with grid marks on the back.
This was a long-put-off project that I'll post
more about later this week.



Drilling holes for a curtain rod. We started
this project at 11am, and 6 hours later it
was finally done.

Winding down at the end of the day - my scrap desk with WITL papers
on the left, Crystal at her desk doing bills.  I prefer my desk :)

So, that's it. I spent hours getting all the week's pictures edited and ready to print, along with some other pictures for other projects to complete this weekend.  I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to this weekend!