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.