Eleven

Supplies

Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned Paper and Tag: Basic Grey (Dawson)
Alpha stickers and *: Thickers by American Crafts
Buttons: Unknown
Journaling stamp: American Leaves
Eyelet: Unknown

I swear, those sticker letters are even and straight in real life. Scanners do wonky things to layouts sometimes!

So, another simple layout. This one uses some really OLD stash (Dawson - who still has Dawson in their stash? That was what, 5 years ago???). The letter stickers are new. No problem with the adhesive on these stickers. As a matter of fact, they'll stick to stuff even when you don't want them to stick to stuff!

I've started using floss on the buttons I put on layouts. I used to be too lazy to do that; and I used to just tie a knot in the button using floss, and then adhere it to the layout. A while ago, Stefanie showed a tip on her blog re how to use floss on buttons - it was so simple, yet I hadn't thought of it - just tack them down with a bit of adhesive, then sew them on through the cardstock! It was like a revelation. Duh. Thanks Stefanie!!

So, it's a rainy weekend, which dampens our plans for some landscaping improvements (pun intended). Instead of toiling away in the front yard, I think we'll go shopping for new curtains for the family room, and a new light for our foyer. Sigh - it never ends.

Waving "hi" to another Stefanie, who I had the pleasure of chatting with on the phone yesterday. We definitely have to do that again soon!

Happy weekend everyone!

Sour Face

Supplies

Cardstock - unknown
Patterned paper - Scenic Route
Sticker Title, Round Sticker - SEI Be Bop
Lemon Sticker - Creative Memories
Rub-on alpha - American Crafts Mini-Marks
Floss - DMC
Star Dust Stickles by Ranger
Colorbox Ink

Sorry about the wonky scan. I tried for hours (ok, minutes) to get these two halves to line up perfectly, then gave up.

Other than Stickles and graph paper, this is all old supplies. Further proof that shopping for new stuff inspires me to use up old stuff. Also, to try out some fun stuff. One of the things I saw while on Shopping Spree status, was templates to help you embroider on a layout. I didn't buy any, but on this layout I punched little holes 1 cm apart all around the perimeter with a pin, and used black embroidery floss to create a border. Reminded me of those lace-up card toys I used to have as a kid. You could create your own templates by downloading and printing shapes etc. and using them as a guide to punch holes into paper.

Happy scrapping!

Awesome Day

Supplies:

Cardstock: Unknown
Patterned Paper: BG - not sure what line - maybe Scarlet's letter? (I used scraps!)
Phrase Sticker: Pebbles Inc. Real Life
Word Sticker (Awesome): DCWV Quote Sticker Stack (Boy)
Alpha/Num stickers: Dollar store
Chipboard flowers: Unknown
Buttons: Unknown
Brads: Making Memories

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I was inspired by all my new stash. So inspired, in fact, that I ended up being able to do some layouts using mostly old stash! Go figure. The only new thing on this one is the gray buttons, which I dutifully purchased during my shopping spree because my shopping list included "gray embellishments - miscellaneous".

I loved being able to use some old quote / word stickers on this layout. For a while I bought lots of those, and then realized that they are actually quite hard to use. How many layouts can possibly have the words "remember", "adore", etc. on them??? But the "you make my heart smile" phrase sticker was just perfect for this picture - that kid really does make my heart smile, big and wide.

This layout was fun and quick to do. I really was on quite the scrapping frenzy. Needless to say, I wore out my muse and haven't scrapped since the long weekend :oP

Sixteen

Supplies:

Patterned Paper: Basic Grey (Sugared)
Chipboard: Maya Road I think (gift from sister D)
Paint: DecoArt Burnt Umber, Pebeo Pear Touch Brown, Ranger Plaid Rose Pink
Glitter: Stickles (Star Dust)
Flower: Prima Paintables
Button: Not sure
Gems: Dollar Store
Big Polka Dot Brad: Not sure
Ribbon: Not sure
Journaling Block: Not sure (gift from sister D)
Mini file: Not sure (gift from sister D)
Letters (teen): Heidi Swapp Ghost Letters
Alpha stickers: Basic Grey (Urban Couture)

I had lots of fun with this one. It's a bit out of my usual box - I used no cardstock! It was also my first experience with Stickles. Oooooh, I love Stickles. Got to get me some more of those.

This one was definitely inspired by a new stash of goodies. When my sister came to visit she brought me some stuff from her stash - plus the Basic Grey Sugared paper I bought during our shopping spree was just begging to be used. I just bought 3 sheets; she bought the entire line, can't wait to see what she does with it!

I actually had the patience to use paint and other things that need time to dry on this one. I am usually such an instant gratification scrapper, that I can't be bothered to use paint to alter stuff. But this time I planned ahead, made the embellishments one evening and used them the next day. Really out of the box for me!

Thanks for looking, and hope you have a great Saturday!! I'm taking ds to a solar car race this morning ... he and some of his classmates have been working on a car for this big event for months now ... here's hoping the sun comes out and the car beats out all the competition!!!

Scrapping Frenzy

Wow. My muse is back from wherever she's been hiding, and I scrapped up a storm this weekend. I think I was inspired by all those new scrapping goodies. It felt good, and the creative juices were flowing freely. You know, those times where you don't feel the need to overly measure and where you glue stuff down before knowing for sure where everything is going to go? Liberating!

But before I can show you what I was up to this weekend, I have a layout I created several days ago that I want to share with you. Proof, actually, that my creativity is highly motivated by new scrap stuff; since I created this just a couple of days after buying some Making Memories patterned paper packs (Chelsea's Place collection) on sale at Michael's. Half price sale. Oooooh.


Supplies

Cardstock: Bazzill (what else, lol!!)
Patterned Paper: Making Memories (Chelsea's Place)
Flowers: Bazzill, Prima and Daisy D's
Buttons, fabric-covered brad: Dollar Store
Pewter brads, white brad: Making Memories
Lace cameo: found in my Mother's sewing basket
Hat pin: Making Memories
Chipboard letters: Dollar store

These are pictures from my 11th birthday. It amazes me how much I look like my son. It also amazes me that I have no clear memories from that day - other than what I remember by looking at the pictures. This is the reason. This is why I scrapbook. So that someday when my kids look back on their childhood, they don't have to strain their brains to remember their 11th birthday party ... or to remember what they did right before or right after the picture was taken. All I can remember is what I see in the pictures - the amazing birthday cake my mother made (yup, that's some sort of vintage Kewpie-looking barbie doll sticking out of that cake!), the names of my friends (Julie, Sylvie and Bonnie), and, I think, that one of the presents was a Nancy Drew book. For all I know, this was the only birthday-party-with-friends I had when I was a kid. I don't think birthday-parties-with-friends were the norm; I don't remember attending them, I don't remember having them. But I'm pretty confident my kids will remember more of their childhood, because the memories are being kept alive through their scrapbooks.

And that, my friends, is what justifies spending a small fortune scrap shopping with my sister last week. (Sigh. I hear they have a 12-step program for that.)

:o)

A Scrap Store Pilgrimmage

I finally managed to take 2 days off work this week (which was better than none at all) and my sister and I had a great time on our scrapbooking store pilgrimmage. On day 1, we visited Scrap Tease in Carleton Place, as well as Tomorrow's Treasures in Smiths Falls. And we hit the Dollarama on the way back home, 'cause they really do have some cool stuff including some fabric covered brads and really nice ribbon.

On Day 2, we went to The Scrapbox on Canotek Road in the east end of Ottawa, and then drove round big-box mall parking lots in Barrhaven looking for (and finally finding!) A Fine Mess. We ran out of steam after visiting Michaels (where my sister only bought cutter blades and I didn't buy anything) and discovered to our extreme surprise, that we actually have a saturation point when it comes to scrap shopping! Admittedly, it took 2 days, six stores and an undisclosed "investment" to reach said saturation point, but it is kind of comforting to know that we can't, in fact, scrap shop for hours, days on end. Because if we could, then we'd surely go broke.

We took lots of pictures inside the stores and outside the stores and lots of kind people offered to take pictures of us together which was really cool. Here's one of the both of us outside Scrap Tease:


We had actually driven away from the store when my dear sister came up with the brilliant idea of documenting our pilgrimmage with photos (duh, we are scrapbookers after all) so we turned back and re-created the moment!

We have lots of other pictures but most of them are on her camera. When she gets back from California she'll email me hers and I'll email her mine and we'll do layouts and I'll post them here.

I can't even remember all the stuff we bought, between the two of us! In terms of new-and-exciting, I got some Prima Paintables flowers, and the paintable patterned paper as well; some of the new core-dinations cardstock (with the contrasting colour core); some Stickles which I have totally fallen in love with; Thickers; brads, buttons and flowers in colours I was running out of; some hockey patterned paper including some Senators paper, yay!; a template to make flourishes; some white chipboard alphas meant to be coloured/painted ... and much, much more, which I just can't think of right now.

We had several other area stores on our list, but it just would have been impossible to hit them all. We thoroughly enjoyed the ones we visited. Each one had something slightly different than the other; and each one had new product. Scrap Tease had a nice selection of French products. Tomorrow's Treasures is the prettiest scrap store I've ever seen, and a very nice coffee shop next door. The Scrapbox had the weirdest location, but the most stock, and Jenn was by far the friendliest host. A Fine Mess had the least stock, but it is very well chosen, and very nicely displayed; despite the fact that the lady working there told us they are an art store and only carry a small stock of scrapbooking products, it seemed to us that at least 50% of the stock if not more was in fact for scrapbooking, which was fine by us! Michaels had a bunch of new stock in - including a new SEI line with tons of embellishments.

Now that I have all these new toys to play with, all I want to do is scrap! But, I had to go back to work today, and tonight, I had to get ready for a garage sale. Hopefully the garage sale will go well tomorrow; with any luck I will recoup my - ahem - scrapbook shopping "investments" and end the week in a financially neutral position, lol!

I've Decided to Spoil the Surprise

Back when dh and I used to exchange Christmas gifts in a big way, I got to enjoy my own version of the 12 days of Christmas. Dh always put off his shopping til the last two weeks or so, and then just couldn't wait until Christmas to give me some of my presents. He'd be so excited, I'd just have to unwrap one a few days before Christmas ... and then maybe another one a day or two later ... and so on. Some might like that approach, but for me, it kinda spoiled the surprise, which is supposed to happen on Christmas morning.

Well, now I kinda know how dh felt. I have a surprise, and I can't wait for the recipient to unwrap it. Heck, unless I actually get my butt to the post office, the recipient may not get to unwrap it anytime soon! By end of week, Robyn, I promise. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek (ok, it's a full peek) at what I'm sending you. Hope you took lots of pictures in Paris (I told you to, so I sure hope you listened)!









Sorry about the crappy picture quality. Scanning wasn't going to happen (lumpy, odd size, and I'm lazy tonight). Good pictures would have required daylight, and I wanted to do this NOW (I'm an instant gratification gal). Feel free to admire the granite counter in the background (it's relatively new, so I'm still at the "showing it off" stage). Oh, and on a final picture quality note, the pages are actually all the same colour. Some of them just chose to photograph grayish, that's all. To shake things up a little, I guess. Even scrapbook pages have to have some fun!

In case you're wondering, those blue squares are adhesive squares for the photos ... just peel off the blue stuff, and add 4x6 pics. As is, the pics will have a 1/8 inch border. If you want, you can trim them down by about 1/8 inch before adhering, and then they'll have a 1/4 inch border. Make sure you get out your pen AND your thinking cap, 'cause there's lots of room for journaling. Years from now, you'll appreciate reading all about the details. I scrapped my honeymoon about 16 years after it happened, and all I remember is, we went to Cape Cod. Lol.

Ok, so start stalking the mailman. I'll try and hit the post office by end of week!

PS - for those of you keeping track of these things - my sister actually made it onto a plane and into the air and safely landed this evening. She's at my other sister's house tonight (we've got shared custody - I get her the next two nights). On the bummer side of things, I had planned to take 3 days off this week to hang out (aka scrapshop), but there's still poop to scrape off the fan at work (don't take that literally - I don't work in daycare, or in a hospital setting, or in an industrial building that requires fans), so I'm going in tomorrow. Hopefully the fan will be pristine by end of day!!

Darned airlines!!!

Hmph. Thought I'd get to sip coffee (and maybe sample a bite of seafood or two) with my sister this evening, but it turns out her flight was grounded because of mechanical problems, and she won't be able to make it here until tomorrow! While I surely wouldn't want her going up in a mechanically challenged airplane, I am pretty bummed out for her (imagine how disappointing it must be to have your bags all packed and ready to go and end up having to turn around and go home again).

Bon courage, ma soeur, tu seras ici demain!!!!

Meanwhile, I am lining up maps and directions to scrap stores in a 100 km radius and planning out a fun road trip for the two of us. All I can say is ... thank goodness it's a pay week! Lol :o)

And the winner is ....

Actually, I have to be honest. Marlene's name was not the first name ds pulled from a hat. It was actually my sister Diane. But since my sister Diane is going to get all kinds of scrap goodies from me anyway (she'll be visiting for a few days, starting tomorrow! And I've already started a pile for her...), I thought I should pick a 2nd name to send a scrapping surprise to. Marlene, email me your mailing address at brn2scrp (at) yahoo (dot) com!

Thanks for playing, everyone! The ploy didn't work, though. Unknown lurkers did not come out of lurkdom. Either that, or no one really visits here other than a few regulars! Lol. Have to admit there are days where I wonder whether I'm talking to myself ... !

Have a good weekend, y'all!!!

Feedjawhat?

I'd like to thank Mellisa for posting about Feedjit, a live tracking system that tells you where the people who read your blog are located. That's what that map with the red dots on the right hand side of the page is all about. It was super-easy to install on the blog (a plus for technically challenged chicks like me). If you'd like to add it to your blog, just click on the prompt at the bottom of the map.

The first few days, the locations identified by Feedjit were pretty expected. A few spots in Quebec, a few in Ontario, mostly the Ottawa area. None from my hometown but I expect my sister's visits are somehow recorded as being from Rimouski (perhaps that's where her internet provider is located or something). And also, why the heck would someone from Rimouski be checking me out, lol.

Then after my post about the Eye-Fi, I started getting hits from far away places like Pakistan. I suspect people were googling the Eye-Fi and got me (poor them!). Still, it's cool to realize that this little spot on the net is getting visited by people from all over. I even got a hit from the Netherlands, but I suspect that was Robyn checking in while on her honeymoon (hey, I'm flattered that she would take time on her honeymoon to catch up with my blog!!!).

So I'm going to steal a page from Mellisa's book (uh, blog) and invite my visitors to leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a scrapbooking surprise. Please post before Friday May 9 midnight E.S.T. to get entered into the draw (which will be announced on Saturday). If you're not a scrapper and don't want in on the goody bag, please post anyway (and just let me know you don't want to be in the draw). I'd love to know who's visiting here. Gives new meaning to "world wide web"!