Croppin' With The Gals

I was in desperate need of a vacation. McDonald's no longer gives vacation to crewmembers. However, I found a way around it! I have found a place I can get away to for just a weekend, and come back and it's like a mini-vacation! Well last week the kids had Friday off school. So Thursday after they got home, we took out. We went to Missie's house. I scrapped with (left to right) Missie, myself, Stephanie, and Jeanette. Lizzie and Jory had a ball playing with Missie's kids, and I had a ball playing with the gals.

We did all kinds of things. We played in alcohol inks, ate, etched glass, drank, scrapped, and laughed ourselves silly. All four of us ended up with stomachaches from laughing so hard. I got my glass etched with my name and a Cricut bughead, and I got five pages finished, and learned to make my own Glue Dots. Next time we want to do t-shirts.

Even the littlest girls got into crafting that weekend! They wanted to be like the big girls, so they put their pajamas on, crowded around the child-size table, and crafted too. They also colored and had a ball. When they weren't at the table, trying to be like the big girls, they were outside jumping on the trampoline. Jory joined them on the tramp, and they jumped until they wore themselves out. Jory amused himself with the Wii and pool table. Jory was the only child allowed to play pool, since Jeremy had taught him how to play and he knew what he was doing.

When we weren't doubled over with laughter, we got crafting done. We did two things I had never done before. One was make our own Glue Dots using Aleene's Tack It Over and Over. The other was glass etching. We used the Cricut Expression, vinyl, and Armour Etch to etch our own personalized drinking glasses. I had never etched glass before, and it was a lot of fun. I got five pages done, two of which were already almost done and just needed embellishments. The other three I got done, start to finish, there. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning, and I don't think any of us got 8 hours of sleep the entire weekend except for the children.


Several times Lizzie or Jory would come in to see what was so funny, we were laughing so hard. And we couldn't explain it, we just looked at each other and laughed all the harder. But we really did have a ball. We can't wait for the next one! I won't tell any stories here because we four came to an agreement. What happens in Joplin stays in Joplin!

A Teacher? Me? Really? ME?

Earlier this summer, I found out a new scrapbook store, or "LSS" for short, was opening up blocks from my front door. I impatiently waited all summer, and when it opened I went in to see if the owner needed any part-time help. I wanted a second job, maybe fifteen to twenty hours a week, during the day while the kids were in school. And I wanted a job in a scrapbook store.

The owner said she didn't need anybody right away, but I could check back in a few weeks. A few weeks later, I went in armed with a half-dozen projects: layouts, cards, and a mini album. Well, my work was a huge hit. The owner offered me a position then and there to teach scrapbooking, cardmaking, and mini album-making. My first class is in November, a Christmas card class utilizing the newest Basic Grey line, "Eskimo Kisses."

I'm excited. Very excited. But I'm nervous. I have never taught before. Sure I've shown people how to do things, on a one-on-one basis. But never taught a class of scrappers. This will be interesting. Very interesting. To say the least...

This is the book that I took in and shared. I will be teaching a class on making a book very similar to this in December. This is a book I made for a very dear friend of mine for her wedding. When you open the book, there are all kinds of pull-out pages, fold-out pages, pocket pages. I had a ball making it, and my friend adored it when she saw it.

Basically what I did was I cut the covers with my Cricut out of chipboard. (I use multicut 4x for that.) I used Plantin Schoolbook and Storybook to get the scalloped covers with one straight edge. The paper dolls on the cover were made with Paper Doll Dress Up. I used lots of bling and Bazzill and Bazzill bling. I am quite proud of this book and very glad that my friend adored it. This is the book that prompted the LSS owner to offer me a teaching position.

Jory's Tie-Tie

Ties. There are two main kinds. Clip-ons and the kind you have to tie in a fancy knot. Which I, being a girl, do not know how to do. This is the conversation in my house after dinner last night:

"Dad, we're playing a joke on [sixth-grade teacher] and I have to wear a tie to school tomorrow," Jory says. "Where's my ties?"

My hubby looks at our oldest like he'd plumb fallen off his rocker. We are not responsible for the whysabouts and the wheresabouts of his things.

Jory runs off to find his ties, and comes back with a handful of Christmas ties and one orange-and-blue tie. All clip-ons.

"Aw, man!" he laments. "If I wear one of these I'll hafta wear a shirt with a collar!" As if wearing a button-down dress shirt to school is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to him in his entire eleven years of living. Piffle. He puts on a dress shirt and tie every Christmas as his gift to me. (And yes I coordinate the color of his tie with the color of Elizabeth's dress and I tell him to be grateful she's not wearing pink.)

He then looks up to his father. "Dad?" he asks. "Do you have a tie-tie I can borrow for tomorrow?" Jory obviously does not want to wear a clip-on tie with a t-shirt. Who can blame the kid, really? Fashion police would be following him all the way to school, sirens blaring.

Hubby looks at Jory and with a straight face says, "Son, I think my tie-ties are too long for your neck-neck."

Meanwhile, I'm sitting over in my rolly chair trying to get lost in scrapbooking mojo, hear this, and start laughing so hard I almost fall off said rolly chair. The things said inside these four walls...I cannot make this stuff up. I really can't.

In the end, hubby finds a tie-tie for Jory to borrow, and helps him adjust it.

Kindergarten Transition Day

This year, our school district's kindergarten class is now an all-day program. Elizabeth is a kindergarten repeater, and is so far benefiting from the new program. "Kindergarten Transition Day" was a day for all new kindergarteners to adjust to a longer school day. Elizabeth joined her classmates for a tour of the school, meeting all the teachers, and even practiced buying lunch in the cafeteria. She had a ball that day, and I got a couple of great photos!


She'd dressed herself this day on the stipulation that I dress her for her actual first day of school. I got about four pictures altogether, and when I got home I found that the Sassy Blinging Babes' weekly challenge was a school-related layout (LO), so I got cracking and did the Kindergarten Transition Day LO quick enough to be eligible for the challenge:


The background paper is from Basic Grey's "Recess" collection, the solid cardstock is from Bazzill, and I used Cricut's "Plantin Schoolbook" font for the lettering. All flowers are Prima. All in all, she had a great Transition Day and is on her way to a great year of Kindergarten...again.

National Scrapbooking Day!

National Scrapbooking Day. NSBD. The first Saturday in May is my most favorite holiday of the year. I'm aware that it's not a "real" holiday, but it's one I celebrate. I don't get vacation time from work, and desperately needed an extra day off to just goof off, so I took off NSBD. And I had a ball.

The first Saturday in May is more often than not the closest to Cinco de Mayo, so we also celebrate that, with all-Mexican food all day. Which is what we did this year. The festivities on scrapbook.com started at 10am Central time. So I got up, got the kids started with egg-and-cheese burritos, and logged in. I stayed logged in all day, participating in all challenges but for one. I stopped long enough to whip up some quesadillas for lunch, and went back to the challenges.

Most of them were easy, add so many products to my wishlist and email it to a friend or family member, find a layout in the gallery with a certain color and embellishments, and link it; stuff like that. Once we were all "warmed up," the real challenges came. Create a card, post it to the card gallery, and link it to the thread within one hour. I needed to make a Mother's Day card for my mother-in-law, so I got to work! And here is what I came up with:


I don't feel it's finished, I think it needs more bling. I cut the phrase in Bazzill Bling, and used a pale pink Skittle for the flower's center, but it needs more bling....

Supplies used for card:

White Bazzill Bling
Tattered Rose Distress Ink from Ranger
Patterend cardstock from Basic Grey's Two Scoops line
Fiskars Threading Water Punch
Flower from Target's Dollar Spot]
Cranberry and Plum Alcohol Inks, from Ranger
"Skittle" for flower center
Phrase cut with the Cricut Expression and Lyrical Letters cartridge
Glue Dots, Xyron 250, and Glue Glider Mini for adhesives

The rest of the afternoon's challenges were simple. There was an all-day challenge to scrap yourself, but I'd prefer to scrap the children, or my hubby, or other family members rather than scrap myself, so I didn't think I'd do it.

Then came the final challenge, to scraplift one of the scrapbook.com staffmembers' layouts. I just happened to have some Making Memories diecut paper in the same shape, so I figured I'd do it. I was at a loss for what to scrap, I'd done several layouts of Elizabeth and was due to do one of Jordan. However the paper I had to use had a pink border around it and was definitely feminine; I knew how Jory would feel if I scrapped pictures of him on pink paper. *gasp* The horror! He's forbidden me from using my favorite bling in his books! (Although I do sneak it in with Bazzill Bling, less noticeable.)

So I decided to give the all-day challenge a whirl and use the paper to scrap a photo of myself and Lizzie. The scraplifted page had the same shape paper and ribbon across the bottom half, but the similarities ended there. I used my Cricut to cut my name out in large letters out of Bazzill Bling. I added the journaling and only a flower for embellishment, other than the ribbon.


Products used for this layout:

Diecut paper and ribbon from Making Memories
Flowers from Prima
Gemstone center from The Beadery
Bazzill Bling from the "High Heels" collection
Cricut Expression and Lyrical Letters cartridge (I love that one!)
Glue Glider Mini, Xyron 250, and Glue Dots for adhesive

NSBD was a load of fun this year! One of my best friends was here with me for the first half of the day, and then for the last few hours of challenges I was on my own. After the last hourly challenge had finished, I whipped up a Mexican feast, and finished off the night relaxing. It was exactly the kind of day off I needed, and to make it even better, I won an hourly prize! That'll be in my mailbox by the end of this week or next, scrapbook.com has 100 prizes to send out! What a fun way to spend a Saturday!

Cafe Mojo Creations

Okay, my month-long sting as guest-designer for the team Cafe Mojo has ended almost three weeks ago. I think it's safe now to be able to share the creations I made for the team.

First up was the challenge to scrap an addiction. Well, I have several addictions, but since I'd already scrapped layouts about Diet Coke and computers, I decided to switch over to a TV show addiction: Grey's Anatomy. My favorite show. I never miss it, and I have a season pass on iTunes. Here is the layout I came up with:


To read the journaling on this layout, visit my gallery at scrapbook.com using the button on the right.


Another challenge was to use brads. Well I have quite the stash of brads. I have brads in almost every color, Doodlebug's sugar-coated brads, Making Memories' gemstone brads, brads from Basic Grey to coordinate with their Two Scoops line. I pulled out the Two Scoops paper pack and coordinating buttons and brads for this next layout.

This one is a picture of Lizzie with one of her little cousins. Such a girly, feminine page called for bling. Lots of it! For the "Cousins" title, I mixed glitter in with the paint, and painted the letters. After the paint dried, I sealed it with a glitter glaze, for added sparkle. I did the same thing for the "E" and "L," and for the "&," I just used the glitter glaze by itself. I also Stickled the butterfly and the scallop; and cut the butterfly itself and the scroll out of Bazzill Bling.


For a third challenge, I was to tackle embossing. Wet or dry, just embossing. I don't have the supplies here for wet-embossing, but I do have a Cuttlebug and embossing folders, so I went to town! I decided to create a tag for one of Lizzie's pages, and here is what I came up with:


I used my Cuttlebug to cut a tag out of Grungeboard. I then put it in the swirls embossing folder, and ran it back through the Cuttlebug to emboss it. I treated the tag the same way I did the title on the "Cousins" layout, adding glitter to the paint, and sealing the painted tag with glitter glaze. I stamped the princess image on watercolor paper with StazOn ink, and colored it in with watercolor pencils. Next I got a brilliant idea. I had been undecided as to how to handle the "e" monogram, so I thought I'd be smart and use the watercolor pencils on the chipboard. Once I added the water, though, the chipboard peeled in half, leaving me with two "e's." Oops. A blingy ribbon tied in a bow completed the tag.

There was a fourth challenge, for staples, but unfortunately I am unable to upload the picture. I will keep trying. Happy scrapping!

A Sham-Rocking Good Time!

This St. Patrick's Day, the kids and I did something we'd never done before. We walked the few blocks into downtown for the fourth annual St. Patrick's Day Parade. I took both my camera and my cell phone and got 52 pictures altogether. Well, 52 pictures is a bit much for a couple of 12x12 and 8x8 layouts, so I decided to do a mini-book. I think it came out really cute, and I'm planning to submit it to Zutter for their Spring contest. It's my first time entering a contest or challenge outside of scrapbook.com or Cafe Mojo, so this should be interesting to say the very least.


Supply list:

6x6 acrylic covers from Zutter
1" white wires, also from Zutter
Zutter Bind it All 2.0
Bazzill Basics and Bazzill Bling cardstock
Tim Holtz Grungeboard (for the round tags)
Fiskars Threading Water border punch
miscellaneous ribbons
Glue Glider Mini
Zip Dry
Xyron 150 and 250
Crop-a-Dile (to punch the holes in the grungeboard and the plastic coins)
Stickles

...and last but certainly not least, Cricut Expression with Plantin Schoolbook, Paper Doll Dress Up, and Opposites Attract cartridges and Design Studio software

This book wasn't as complicated to make as it looks. I took the shamrock from PDDU and welded it to squares to create a shamrock-shaped page, and I cut two of them. I also cut a leprechaun and a pixie paper doll, to represent Jory and Lizzie.

I bound the covers, shamrock pages, 6x6 regular pages, and a 6x11 fold-out page with the Bind-it-All, and then just scrapped it. I had a ball making it, and I think it turned out really cute.