SEW easy

I was inspired yesterday when a friend of mine said that she bought her first STICKLES and couldn't put them down, then she was discussing her love for sewing but her machine was broken (I got my first machine for Christmas 2009 and haven't used it yet), but she does like the handmade sewing she has seen on pages. LIGHT BULB flickered...I have two pages that needed sewing that I completed at the History in the Making two weekends ago, so I broke out my needle and thread and went to town last night. It felt good to get one paged completely sewn since I already punched the holes. I will post pics as soon as the second page is completed.

History in the Making craft house

I will be attending my first weekend at the History in the Making craft house in Wichita, KS. It will be nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of life, kids, house and chores to concentrate on my hobby!

I will update you on how this house ranks against Maple Memories... Share your thoughts or opinions and any do or don'ts.

http://www.historyinthemakingcrafthouse.com

GANZA TIME

Who is ready for GANZA? My title reminds me of the book, Pajama Time by Sandra Boynton. I am finishing laundry today, so that I can spend the rest of my week preparing page layouts. My goal for this GAG is 30 pages. I have to do it! My twins are 4 and I am not yet finished with their first year album. UGH...

What is your goal for this GANZA?

5 weeks, 3 days

Do you know what happens in 5 weeks and 3 days?! Go ahead, ponder away....I am still waiting...some of you know and I bet those that do are screaming at their computer screens now!

Crop*A*Ganza starts at 9AM on Friday, September 10. Guess who will be there at 9AM?! ME!
Sisterhood of Scrapbooking apparel is the shirt supplier for this AWESOME bi-annual crop. We came up with the theme and the shirt design. WHY, you say? Because we LOVE going as much as the other 180 ladies do!! This is the CROP to end all CROPS! If you haven't been, you are missing out.

Not only will you be able to pick up your CAG Crop and Roll original shirt at registration, you will have the opportunity to buy any one of the THREE more original designs at the Scrap*Funattic booth. I will not share the designs with you just yet, but if you leave some feedback, I just might...

Memorial Day

As we welcome the unofficial start of summer with a heat wave that I am not ready for, please remember those you have LOVED and LOST this MEMORIAL DAY.

I am headed to the lake with my family as we have every Mememorial Day weekend since I was born...if you are counting, that makes it my 34th. My grandparents, who are both no longer with us, bought a cabin in the 50's, so my family has always been close because of this weekend and every weekend in between now and Labor Day. I LOVE and MISS you both!

Take care, remember sunscreen and definitely keep the camera close!

Recycling

I was cleaning out my storage closet the other month and I found a tote full of scrapbooking magazines that I have kept through the years; Memory Makers, Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Etc., Simple Scrapbooks. I used to (before I had 3 kids) pour over each page the day the magazine arrived in the mail. Dream of the spin that I could put on each layout that I saw, I might have even placed a post-it or four...then reality set in and the magazine made it into a pile.

Then the day came that I was able to redesign my scrapbook room/office, so in the tote went all my magazines. Now to the present day, I have all these magazines (some of them date back to April 2005, check the date on the blue headlined Creating Keepsakes), so what to do?

Insert Alica and DC and their magic that they create with their video camera for Scrap*Funattic's blog. Alicia, the scrapbook organization guru, says to rip out the layouts or ideas that you like, put into a 3 ring binder for later reference and recycle the mag.

Well, I could put the magazine in the recycling bin, but how about reuse before it hits the recycling compost pile. Some of these magazines have a lot of life in them, some of them I never even tore a single page out of it. I am going to let my cousin, Lindsay, check them out this summer since she is just starting out with scrapbooking, then I will give them out to whomever believes that they could get some use out of them, the rest of them are going into my garage sale pile to make themselves useful for another set of eyes and hopefully inspire another layout or six.

Introducing Mrs. Smith

My AWESOME friend Heather Smith is FEATURED again for her amazing digiscrappin TALENT. Visit the link to see some of her layouts and a quick interview.
http://mydigitalstash.com/archives/1161

Now, all of you can love her layouts as much as I do!!

Live Love Scrap

I wanted to share with you all my Scrap Room, this room has been completed for about 2 years now and I love it more and more everyday.

My Cricut and Sizzix station as well as my newest addition to my Scrap Room...the Singer. I wanted a 'station' that was at countertop height because I usually am standing when using the die cut machines. I pulled a peice of slat wall from the trash and painted it...do you know how expensive that stuff is?! I bought a 4' piece of countertop from Lowe's and picked out two different sets of cabinets, painted them white, attached the countertop and viola...Diecut station made to order!

An Uppercase Living adornes the wall above it, "Live. Love. Scrap."

My desktop is two diagonal pieces of countertop that you can you purchase straight from the shelf at Lowe's or Home Depot, the end pieces are from The Container Store and they are mesh baskets that anchor each end of the desktop and serve as great legs. Watch the height when ordering the baskets, you want to be comfortable when scrapping. One leg made out of wood helps with the middle and then the edge along the wall is supported by a 2x4 that is strategically placed out of sight and painted to match the wall. I then bought a kitchen rack system to hold my chipboard, paints, pens, etc. The chair I bought at a school surplus auction for a $1 and then recovered it with decorator fabric that was on clearance that matched my green paint.

However you choose to decorate your room, be sure that it reflects your style and most importantly is efficient to your scrapbooking.

Stitching

About two months ago, I took a Beginner Stitching class from Danelle Curtis at Scrap*Funattic. I had always admired the stitching on her pages for awhile, so this was my chance to learn and hopefully take my layouts to a whole new level.

This past Saturday night, I attended the PJ crop at Scrap*Funattic in honor of Krusty Mullins birthday and my goal was to complete and submit the Sketch Challenge that the Attic girls had posted on Facebook earlier this week. Deadline was yesterday, I got the layout done, but hadn't noticed the stitching detail until after my submission. That stitching detail really came to life when the digi girls (aka Danielle Vequist and Heather Smith) had submitted their layouts. I had to "fix" this page.

BEFORE:




AFTER some freestyle stitching, I feel like my page is complete now. Freestyle stitching is where you punch your own holes with no pattern. I thought Danelle was nuts when she implied that everyone will get to that point when they would start to freestyle...HA, guess I am at that point!

Thanks so much CURTIS!!

SALE SALE SALE

SALE...don't you just love those words?! Well, www.cricutmachine.com is having their "Gold Medal Sale" and all Cricut cartridges are $29.95 plus shipping. So, go shopping fellow scrapbookers and card makers, be sure to let me know what cartridges you picked up.

Cricut Listing

I have to share! To help our group, also known as "Beyonce's Group", I created a Excel spreadsheet that included our groups Cricut cartridges so that we would know right off hand who was bringing what.

Well I wanted to show you exactly what I did, but no go on the blogger template, so for example:

Beyonce / Yo Momma / Sister Sledge

George X
Cuttin Up X X
Mickey Font X X
50 States X

Doing this in an Excel sheet is way easier to color code who would be bringing what cartridge, so that your group doesn't have duplicates and you can bring them all without loading down the Best Western with extras! Too bad this blog doesn't really show want I wanted to :(

Good luck on packing, if you need some organizational tips, check out Scrap*Funattic's blog. Alicia Day gives some great pointers to help you be more efficient when scrappin.

Time

Happy January 22!

Nothing exciting about today, but hey...I bet no one has said that to you today! Well, 2010 (which I like to say twenty-ten) has arrived and I celebrated it at friends house playing Phase 10. Wow, I have surely missed that game, don't think I have played since high school.

January 1st came and went without me showering, January 2nd came and I drove home tired...oh so tired...January 3...no clue...January 5, why might you ask why I remember that date. That is the date that I got my first GREY HAIR (gasp). It was a tramatic day for me, some of you may laugh or even pee yourself, but I was about to burst out in to tears.
January 6...colored my hair, January 7...had a PTO meeting and no one...I repeat no one..even noticed my one missing grey hair nor the updated color...January 9, I scrapbooked with my friend and we litterally froze our hands (my basement is oh os cold)...the rest of the week went by like a flash...just like 2009 (I say two thousand nine)!

The morale of the story is time is passing us by, whether you look at a calendar or not...

Thankful

This year has been a year of change for me. I think I knew this time was going to come, it just seems that I wasn't ready for it all to happen when it did. I just have decided to pull up my big girl panties and deal!

Thankful list:
Birthdays, without one every year I can no longer be thankful
My kids, I love celebrating their birthdays and their ever growing knowledge of the world
My parents, WOW where would I be without them
BFF's, I have a lot of them, but they are each special for a reason or another
Holidays, it allows my family to come together
Fox Lake, that place is so special
Etc, for everything else I might have missed

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. Where did 2009 go?

Stalking

I have been stalking Scrap Funattic's blog for a long time now. Then enters Facebook, where I stalk my college sorority sisters, Derby High alumni, old friends, new acquaintences, friends of friends; you get the picture BUT now that I have my own FB page and starting my own venture...I am stalking myself. "What is the matter with me?", I ask myself as I switch from my home page to the SOS (Sisterhood of Scrapbooking) page. Well I figured out what matters; it is when others start checking out my page aka stalking to see what is new, what has others interested. The point is I love it when others are interested in what I may have that is new and what the SOS girls have up their sleeves.

SO keep stalking, it lets others know that you care...however let it be known that you can go too far!

Let's get started

This adventure started when I was creating and ordering shirts to show our SISTERHOOD at Crop A Ganza. I would have so much interest in my original designs that I needed to get started and offer something that was different and certainly ORIGINAL.

I am a mother of three and I work from home for our local hospital. I hope to have pictures posted soon of the shirts that I have done. All of them are available, just need to have a full order to print them. Be patient with me while I am just getting started.