Capturing ALL aspects of our life

During my last workshop, I received a call from my neighbor telling me that she had sighted a racoon on my roof! We didn't do much about it except to watch for our dog when we let him out. We have been hearing noises in our crawl space and even in the chimney, but my husband said he couldn't see any openings. So, we did nothing! Late last afternoon, I took the screen out of an upstairs window, to look closer at the roof and chimney. There, watching me, was the cutest little racoon face, just sticking right out of my chimney!!! That was it! I called the library for information (they are my 911) and they gave me a number and we had an appointment for this morning. Well, the Critter Guy was running early and he came, promptly took the racoon out, and had it caged in the yard. But it was a momma racoon, and after 2 hours, he still hadn't been able to get to the nest of babies. He ended up going to his other jobs and leaving the little ones here until he could get back, sometime in the afternoon. He had to take out a brick in our chimney to get those little things out, and he said that ours was the hardest job he'd ever had. Of course I had to photograph the drama unfolding, because this was a big deal to my 3 year old! I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of the racoon peeking it's head out of the chimney, but at the time, that was the last thing on my mind!

Tip of the Day: If you hear something in your chimney, call someone right away, before it has time to make a nest and have babies! It would have saved me a lot of stress, not to mention money!

Scrap Happy!

It's a disease!

I can't believe that I have used as much film as I have these past 2 weeks! Usually, I try to keep myself to a roll a day when I'm on vacation, but I have been using pretty close to that this week! True, my brother is here on a short leave from Iraq, and I'm seeing my niece for the first time, and it is almost Easter...but that is not all! I have lost my touch! Seriously, I have been taking so many bad pictures! That's why I'm taking so many! I KNOW when I have just taken a bad picture, where someone's face was suddenly blocked or my daughter looked down or away just as I clicked it, so I end up taking another one! I don't even want to hear about digital cameras because I am NOT READY to get one yet! I don't find them to be as quick as mine, meaning, I want to take the picture as soon as I push the button, not seconds later. I do realize the benefits, but it just isn't worth it to me yet. I just get into funks where I can't seem to BE THERE for the moment, I just miss it. I'm in one of those photography funks right now!

Tip of the Day: My favorite film developing lately has been a toss up between Sam's Club and Snapfish. I like Sam's because they are so cheap, AND they are the best quality I've found around here! They also have changed their policy and don't leave your developed photos out for just anyone to walk off with.
I like Snapfish for the convenience of walking just as far as my mailbox to send them and receiving them just as easily. The colors are usually crystal clear. I also like that I can get them online, even before I get them in the mail. One disadvantage is that they take a while to come back, even up to 2 weeks, and it's been a longer wait more recently than it used to be. Plus, they are too costly for my liking, and you have to pay S&H.

Happy Easter! Scrap Happy!

Playing at the Park

It was a great day for the park today! I went with my kiddo, her dad and our friends. I finished off my roll of film there, (the one I just started on Sunday!) because there were some adorable shots! I did miss one of my rules though. I didn't get any pictures with me in them! I just worry that my daughter will think I wasn't there! I got the cutest pictures of my daughter taking her 10 1/2 month old friend down the slide! I also got some shots of the glee on her face as her Daddy pushed her in the swing! She laughed so hard that she got the hiccups! But my favorite picture is of my friend's bottom half sticking out of the top of the enclosed slide as she let her little guy go down the slide for the first time! It's priceless!

Tip of the Day: There are so many photo ops at the park! It's best to go in the late afternoon if you don't want a whole lot of other kids jumping in the way of your pictures. It also makes for better lighting than the direct sunlight you'll get earlier. Have the adult pushing the kid on the swing pull the swing back and hold it for a second. This way, you get what looks like an action shot, without the action. Best of all, just watch the action, and click when you see that moment! No kid likes to have to pose in the middle of playing.

Scrap Happy!

Family togetherness

Today, my little niece was dedicated at church! I was able to take some cute pictures of the new family and our Pastor. I also was able to capture a cute picture of my daughter holding her tiny cousin, and I caught her before she slid off her lap! It was also a special Sunday because it was Palm Sunday! Our church hands out palm fronds, and I got a cute picture of my sister holding my daughter as my sweet little girl swatted her other aunt over the head with her palm frond!
My brother, fresh from Iraq, regaled us with stories of getting smacked by palm fronds still very attatched to the trees as they drove by! Best of all was having the family in church together. I'm telling you the truth, our section of the church sounded good this morning during worship! I miss singing with my family in church.

Tip of the Day: At this last workshop, 3 of us did the same page design on completely different pages, and it worked out great for all of them. The idea is taken from a french style bulletin board. It is a board with ribbons criss-crossing it, and the place the ribbons cross each other is usually secured by a pin. Then you can stick the corners of papers and photos under the ribbon to display them!
Changing this for scrapbooking; We used 1/2 inch thin paper strips and criss-crossed the page with them, all of us using different things instead of the pins at the crossings. I used buttons the first time, one of us used flor'de france for her stay at the Port Orlean's Resort at Disney, and the other used snowflake stickers for her page of her son because it matched his pajamas.

Scrap Happy!

Springdale Vendor Fair

I participated in a Vendor Fair this weekend, and it was fun! My favorite thing was a toss up between the chocolate at the Riverside Church's table, and getting to meet so many people from my area! I was able to talk to people I had met, but never mentioned scrapbooking to, people I had never met that were interested in coming to my local workshops, and even customers of mine! I had a great time talking and scrapbooking, and before I knew it, it was time to pack up and go home! I made lots of contacts and even some money. (everybody loved looking through the stickers!) Thank you to everyone who stopped by to visit! I was never bored for a second!

Tip of the Day: I made a sunset page today by tearing paper and making pink cloud shapes, which I then stretched across the top of the page. I also made sand at the very bottom of the page by tearing my tan paper in a thinish strip. I couldn't see just having a sky without the ground.

Scrap Happy!

And the Winner is...

(The page above shows how I made camo. See the Tip of the Day at the end. April 2007)

Howdy! I had a workshop last night, and at the workshop we had a small group, and two of them were brand new! We had the most delicious cheese and crackers, I'm telling you, it was hard to stop eating them! We also toasted S'mores midway through! I hadn't read the instructions, so we had to improvise and use tea candles as a heat source!
The gifts were packets of paper, stickers and journaling boxes, and I shared an article from Lasting Moments magazine about cleverly using your leftover papers and stickers.
As for the scrapping, we all participated in a page title for a page Hailey did of her son, Daniel in his crib. She really has an entire page of him standing in his crib, because he's that cute! I had the idea to write "Welcome to my Crib", which we all liked. But then Hailey pulled out these adorable frog stickers and said she wanted to use them on the page since they matched the mobile in his crib. We all started brainstorming ideas like, "This crib is Hoppin'" and other things of that nature! But the winning title came from Bekah, "Welcome to my Pad!" Hailey crafted a lily pad for the little frog in the middle of the page, and we all agreed it was adorable!!!

Tip of the day: To make camo, which is really "in" right now, simply tear brown, tan, and different dark shades of green and layer it randomly all over. Another way to make camo is to carefully cut the same colors out, fitting them together somewhat like a puzzle.

Scrap Happy!

Easter Memories and traditions

Growing up, I knew the real reason we celebrated Easter. In fact, in my family, we went to church on Easter Sunday, as we did every Sunday. But other than that, we didn't celebrate. We didn't have easter egg hunts and visits from the easter bunny. We very rarely had an easter dinner. I have pictures of us from one Easter when I was in my early 20s, and my boyfriend at the time, now my husband had given me roses. I have pictures of my siblings and our family dressed up, and then a picture of my little brother holding a piece of pizza over half his face, our easter dinner! I remember that Easter was very special, and I loved to steal away to my own little church in the woods, where daffodils grew. Nowadays, I still avoid the Easter bunny, because he is just a distraction of what Easter is all about. My husband and I hide an Easter basket for my daughter, but it's from us. (That is the one thing I missed as a kid!) She has gone on egg hunts, and dyed eggs, but mostly because it was important to my friend Hailey, so she organizes this and invites my girl. I love dressing my daughter up in a special dress, squeezing into our full church, looking at the stained glass windows, and celebrating that my Savior is alive! We have Easter dinner with our families now, both my husband's and mine together. One new tradition I have personally, is watching the Passion of the Christ. I do this prior to Easter, to be in the right mindset. I do it alone, because it's rough and I sob through a lot of the movie. Easter is special to me, a time of new life and new commitments.

Tip of the Day:
Easter page idea:
I have a page of pictures from church one year, and I made an empty tomb for the page and wrote, Jesus is alive! I put some flower stickers right outside the cave. I made the cave with the cutting system, using an oval for the tomb, and cutting the bottom off to make it flat. I made the stone in front of the tomb with the circle punch, and layered the hole it left in yellow. This makes it look like the yellow is in the cave.

Cm has a new pack of stickers that is called Delicate Days. I can't wait to use them this year!

Lambs, flowers, chicks, bunnies, crosses, stained glass, baskets, nests and eggs all work with the Easter theme!

Scrap Happy!

A little bit of this...and that!

Stolen moments of scrapbooking are getting me far! I just did 8 pages yesterday in 2 hours. I was working on the book for the 10th grader. I am aching to get to my daughter's pictures, before my husband and I get back from our getaway in early May. The only problem is that Creative Memories is coming out with all new Disney stuff! I wish it was coming out earlier than May, because I want to use it now! It is so cute, and It feels like it was made just for me since I am the Disney Freak! There is an album, a Mickey maker (punch), and papers, it even looks more grown up! So, maybe I'll use this stuff for my cruise, since it is a Disney Cruise!

I am also very excited, with March being over, because I signed 3 consultants, plus one that just signed up for all the stuff in the kit! I am signing another consultant this week, as well! I am very happy that my business is doing so well! It's the reason I'm able to ge on this Cruise! I really feel blessed.

Tip of the Day: With all of the flowers outside blooming, and smelling so yummy, I'm starting to think about Easter pages!
*The cutting system has an egg shape that I use for Easter eggs, just using marbled papers and others.
*I have made an Easter basket out of paper and stuck stickers in it, as well as some green grass, created by cutting green paper really thin.
*For a "Dying Easter Eggs" page title, I used white letter stickers and colored them in pastel colors for a dyed look.
*One year, my daughter got a giant chocolate egg! I have a whole page dedicated to it, with the page title how she used to say it, "Choc-O-lot" I used brown paper to make several sizes of eggs. I think brown and pink, like the color of my daughter's dress that year went really well together!
*I made some of that plastic grass you get for easter baskets, by shredding pink paper very finely. I taped it using double sided tape and stuck it to the page in a nest shape. I stuck an egg sticker in it, and a chick sticker just nearby.
*If you run out of "g" letter stickers like I did at Easter, just use a lower case "q" (Cm makes their sassy ones without a hook in the back) and a comma, and cleverly cover the spot they meet with a sticker or die-cut.
*Last Easter, I stuck with my new favorite scrapbooking theme of making all my pages of an event go together. I used 2 pieces of paper from the textile pack on every page for the whole month of March.
I'll put more Easter Page ideas on another day's blog!

Scrap Happy!

Scrapbooking with Friends

Last night, we had more than a workshop; we had a bonding of women! My sister-in-law is here with her baby girl, and she is fussy in the afternoons and into the evening. All evening long, we women passed her around, shushing and swaying, snuggling and burping the poor little thing. Amazingly, we all accomplished album making as well! It was a group of women, working together, giving motherly advice and telling stories of the time our kids did this, or "I heard of this method..." all working towards a common goal, and all the time, it was edifying. I love this about our group of scrapbookers! I don't ever feel disappointed after we meet, like I used to when I scrapped other places. I always feel like I have completed some pages and filled some place inside that only the fellowship and conversation of good friends can fill! Even with the stress of a crying little one, I felt at peace, because I was among friends.

Tip of the Day: I completed 14 pages yesterday!
For an idea on a bowling page, try this: I wanted the page to be girly, so I chose to use pink, both for the bowling ball and the pins. The lane was drawn with a pink pen, with lines wider apart near the bottom left hand side of the page that got smaller as they stretched to nearly the upper right hand side. Don't put it all the way to the top, because you need to leave room for the pins.
Bowling Ball: I used pink ( of course) paper with a bit of a marble look to it, punched a circle with the circle maker and drew 3 dots on it, with a black outline on the dots, just on one part, to give it some shading. I placed it at the widest part of the lanes, down near the bottom of the page.

Bowling Pins: I folded a piece of pink paper so that is was 4 pieces thick and cut the pins out freehand. I just drew two lines (for the rings) around the neck of each in pink, and stuck them at the smaller end of the lane.

Scrap Happy!

Life Through the Eyes of a Three Year Old

So, it's been awhile since I've written and scrapped, since I've been very busy getting everything ready for our guests. I'm pleased to announce that my sister-in-law and little tiny niece are here! I was able to pick up my daughter's roll of film in my spare time :) , and the pictures are so interesting! What other way can you see the world literally through your child's eyes? One memorable picture is of her dad and I at our brick, the one he bought me with our names on it and the date of our wedding. It is also very strange to see myself as the subject in so many pictures! I'm usually the one TAKING the picture! Sure, many of them are tilted at an odd angle, and our heads might be chopped off completely in one or 2, but what's important is that it's her memories, recorded on film. There is one picture that really stood out to me. It's a close up of my chest, and at first that might seem like an automatic dud, but looking closer, I noticed the dogtag that I wear around my neck to remind me to pray for my brother. I started wearing it daily just days before she took the picture, because he is in the Army and had just gotten deployed while we were at Disney World. This is one picture that will be treasured, not for the quality of the photography, but for the time in my family's lives that was captured and held forever in that one, fuzzy picture.

Scrap Happy!

Making room for growth and baby

Well, I have been working all day today on my business, in my pajamas! Isn't that cool? I did take a few breaks form the computer for lunch and a couple of board games with my daughter. My sister in law and the baby will be here in just a few days, and since they will be staying here, I have been digging all of the baby stuff out of storage and cleaning everything up for their visit. That has taken up a lot of my time, but not all of it! I am squealing with excitement to announce that I am now a Senior Consultant! This basically just means that I have 3 consultants signed up now. But it is a promotion and I'm happy! But I'm boring you! I don't really have much to write about, as far as scrapping goes, because I've been all business! I did take my daughter's roll of film to get developed yesterday and I can't wait to see the photos! They are from when we were at Disney World, and she took them with her own princess camera. I love seeing things through her eyes. Speaking of which, she is trying to get my attention, so I'd better go!

Scrap Happy!

My Blooming Business

It must be the spring weather that turns woman to thoughts of scrapbooking! I have been busy filling orders and talking to people about signing up to be a consultant while the cost is down. I have had several people contact me about hosting a Get Together as well. I'm trying to be less of a procrastinator, and organize my time better. I myself have been scrapbooking more. I've been stealing away for a blessed hour here and there in the late afternoon/ evening after my husband is home, just to get some pages done. I'm once again working on the 10th grader's album, and I have been completing 8-9 pages each time I sit down to work on it. If I can get this done, then I can start to work on my daughter's album. I can't wait! I went to a friend's today to scrap the day away. I only got 6 pages done, but that's better than none! I was at a Mary Kay party tonight and really got inspired by the way this lady handles her business. She has an organizer where she keeps everything, all in one place, imagine that! I dislike home parties, even though I always enjoy myself when I'm at one! I always keep a sharp eye on the consultant and watch how she works. I learn a lot this way!

Tip of the Week: Creative Memories has a new punch or as we say in CM land, "maker". It is so cool! It's a bubble punch and you can use it in so many ways! Don't let yourself be hampered thinking you can only use it to make bubbles, OH NO! I used it on a music recital page by punching a pink border, and sprinkling musical note stickers on it. I have punched with the bubbles,( there are 2 different designs on it by the way!) and then punched a circle. This would make an excellent pizza, moon or other planet, or just a cool decoration, like I used it for. With a slight variation, you could make a piece of cheese! Add a cute little mouse, and you have a cheesy page! The bubble punch is great for wedding pages, birthday pages, pages of the kids blowing bubbles, in the bath, at the aquarium, at the pool, at the beach or on a cruise, there really is no limit to where they would work! Use them with the circle makers! I love my bubble punch! o o O o oOoOoo
Scrap Happy! OoOooOo
oo OOooooOoOoOooOOOo

Although I have so much to write about, I really don't have the time tonight, so I'll keep this brief! I just saw a picture of my brother in Iraq! It was sent via e-mail by my dear sister in law. Seeing it made me sad. He is so thin and he looks tan! He never got tan, even at the beach! He does look happy though. Happy and relaxed, even though he is slouched in the seat of a Hummer, in dirty fatigues. A little girl has adopted him as her best friend, and she is standing in the picture, too. She looks as though she isn't sure if she should be having her picture taken. She is in the head wrap and long clothes, just like all the pictures I've ever seen from women in Iraq. I just can't get over how different my brother looks. He looks like a soldier. It's funny how much you can read from a picture.

Tip of the Day: This isn't scrapbooking, and it's probably old news to those of you who have been computer literate for longer than I, but I wanted to share it anyway. I have been using pictures of my far away loved ones as "Background" for my computer. When I turn on my computer, I usually have a picture of my dear little niece looking at me. It has really brought me closer to her! I have never met her, and seeing her face when I turn my computer on and off, is like a little visit and a reminder that she is out there, my own little niece! I'm putting my brother on today, since I have a new picture of him! That's the neat thing! I can change it once a week, or once a day, or leave it on there forever, it's up to me! I am going to use this as a reminder to pray for my family. I'm going to try to put a different picture up there once a week, and pray for that person when I turn my computer on and off.

Scrap Happy!

St. Patrick's Day workshop

We had a really good scrapfest last Friday! It was Saint Patrick's Day, but there wasn't any green beer! Everyone was able to get something done. I completed the album I was doing for my friend's son, Julie started her youngest son's album, Bekah started her Disney Trip, Emily kept plugging away at her and her husband's photo album and Missy completed 6 pages of her son's album. We even have a knitter who comes and knits while we all scrapbook, just because she likes the company! We don't have a dull moment! This week, my husband rigged up a curtain in front of the garage door to keep the draft out. It really seemed to make a difference! Spring will be here in a few days and then we will always be comfortable at workshops. I love everyone who comes to scrapbook (or knit) with me! I really look forward to these Fridays!

Tip of the Day: CM has pens that enable you to write on black pages in red, orange, green and blue, and actually be able to see the writing. You probably knew that, but did you know that you can also use them to write on colored paper? I have found that you can use the red on red paper and it shows up! It almost has the same effect as a glowstick. You'll have to try it to see what I mean.

Scrap Happy!

That looks like fun!

I'm so excited and I just had to share that I signed a new consultant today! My sister ( by marriage, to my brother!) has been attending a new Bible Study and the women all get together to scrapbook after the study. She has been sitting there, with her new baby, and watching them. She is very artistic, so she decided that she wants to give it a try! She called me tonight and I am getting all ready to send her the info to sign. This is the perfect time for her to get into album making! Her baby is 4 months old now, she's living with her family while my brother is over in Iraq, and she will have more free time now than she ever will! I know that she will love it!

Tip of the Day: What a great idea! Getting together after a Bible study or other kind of meeting to scrap for a little bit every week! One of the ladies told my sister in law, "If you don't do it here, you'll probably never get it done." Which might not be true, but it is for some people I know! I have workshops for those who want to come, but if you wanted to just get your own group of friends together and plan to scrapbook, the best way is to make it a priority, stay consistant with the day and time so people don't get confused, and keep it simple. If you have snacks, don't make it a big ordeal. Everyone is there to scrap, not eat! And if people have to bring a dessert tray plus their scrapping supplies, it gets to be 2 and 3 trips to the car. Another idea might be for everyone to pitch in on supplies and tools so that everyone can use them. One idea is to buy the sizzix or the cutting system by having everyone pitch in and keeping it at the place you meet, if possible.

Scrap Happy! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

remembering last month

I just got my pictures back today! These are pictures from February, and early March. I'm happy with them for the most part. I like that I have some unposed pictures. I was able to capture the look of concentration on my daughter's face as she painted. I also caught her laying on the couch just watching Saturday cartoons. Because I just looked at the pictures I took last year, these pictures show her looking so much older! At least that's what I see. The way her hair looks, and the expressions on her face just make her look so much older than she did a year ago. Just thinking that she used to be 2 at this time last year, is unbelievable. Two just seems so young now that she's almost 4! I'm so glad that I have a workshop tomorrow because I'm hungry to get these pictures into albums! Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!!

Scrap Happy!

Lasting Moments

I received 2 Creative Memories magazines in my order yesterday, so I have been reading through them every time I sit down at the table. There are so many good ideas in them! I'm one of those people who turn down pages that have ideas I like on them. Let me tell you, these editions have a ton of great ideas for making simple, safe photo albums. I've had subscriptions to other scrapbooking magazines in the past, and the one thing that differs between those and the CM magazine is that I find a lot more ideas that I can use! I remember the other magazines using any type of product in their albums, and I'm not just talking about some brand name or what ever, I'm saying they used cardboard, different metals, pebbles...basically anything goes! Sometimes they did issue warnings about using the items in your scrapbooks. " Make sure that you don't use the original copies of your photos." Well, the whole point of me putting my priceless photos into an album is to protect them! So, Lasting Moments magazine is just what I need!

Tip of the Day: Just looking at these issues in order to steal an idea to tell you left me feeling that everyone should have their own copy! They are just chockfull of ideas that are easy when you see them, but too difficult to describe. I have to say, that I did see at least three ideas in there, that I have already done, years ago, so that made me feel good!Here is one that I hadn't thought of ! For spring, make a few seed packets out of a rectangle of paper decorated with a title ,("seeds" works well!) and matted square stickers. ( They recommend using the Months in Bloom sticker pack) Make one more rectangle seed package, but leave it plain. This will be your open seed packet. To make an open flap, just use a lighter shade of paper and round the edges. Now, use the extras (dots and commas) from the ABC letters and make it look like seeds are falling out of the open packet.

Sccrap Happy!

Lessons from Monk

I was watching one of my favorite shows today. The show is Monk, and if you don't know anything about it, here's a quick run down. He is a private detective with a multitude of phobias and quirks. He's a really smart and sweet guy carrying around a wounded heart. His wife, Trudy, died 9 years ago. He still wears his wedding ring, still talks about her to anyone who will stand still long enough to listen, and misses her so much that he keeps her pillow in a sealed bag in the closet. Some nights, he gets out her pillow and just smells it. He's certain that he can still smell her strawberry shampoo and that lilac lotion that she used to wear. Sometimes, he even sees her and talks to her. But everytime she almost kisses him, she disappears. He was having a Trudy moment, seeing her and holding her hand, when he said, "Look at you. You are so beautiful. I should have taken more pictures of you. I should have been taking pictures of you all of the time."
As I heard this, a lightbulb went off in my head! That guilt I sometimes feel for taking so many pictures of my daughter, just disappeared. Sure, film and developing and scrapbooking materials are expensive, but they are hardly a waste! Just yesterday, I decided to look at pictures of my daughter a year ago. I pulled out her album and was amazed to see how much she has changed in one year. She has lost a lot of the roundness and baby chub that she had a year ago. She just looks older! She knows so much more than she did at 2 and a half. She likes such different things. I can't believe how much she has matured. I'm so glad that I take as many pictures as I do.
Scrap Happy!

A Day with Mom

This week, I spent a relaxing day at my parent's, just visiting. It was so nice not to have to do anything! As my Mom and I talked, she mentioned how she didn't like some of the pages she had completed in her empty nest album. These pages were special to her because they were from last year, when she and my Dad went to Texas together, and toured the sites after my brother's wedding. I asked her to show them to me, and we spent a little while adding a little bling to her pages! It was nice and relaxing, scrapping together, and just adding that little bit extra, to make the pages stand out. I didn't move any of the pictures she had already put on the page, and I left the journalling the same. All I did was add a little paper, in the form of "rocks" to mimic the spanish missions they were standing by, and matting a picture. I also added some stickers, not very many, but just a couple on each page, keeping the theme. Then I decorated with a pen, adding some lines here and there, attempting to keep the viewer focused on the beautiful photos.

Tip of the day: I used brown and tan to keep the attention on the photos and tie the pages together, since they were all taken on the same trip. I used cross stickers, and stained glass, to keep the mission theme. The rocks were made using the square punch. I then rounded all the corners of the square and placed them unevenly in the blank places on the page. The pictures are what is important. The point of scrapbooking is to showcase them.

Scrap Happy!

check that off the list!

I worked so hard yesterday to get the laundry, housework and everyday stuff done, all with the thought that I would get some scrapping time in once I was all caught up. Well, my husband came home from work, and the laundry still wasn't done, but I decided to take a break and scrapbook anyway. That's just what I did! I sat down and completed several pages before I had to stop for dinner. It felt so good to do that! I felt no guilt and I really accomplished a lot! I am pretty close to completing this album for my friend's son. After that, I hope to get to my daughter's at last!

Tip of the Day: The laundry will never be done, there will always be more dishes to do, and the bathroom will just keep geting dirty! So, make time to scrapbook. Write it on your list of things to get done in the day. (If you are a list maker, like I am!) I wonder just how much I could accomplish if I spent an hour a day scrapbooking! I know one thing; if I scrapbook for a little while, I feel great. I feel like I completed something and relieved some stress. If I scrapbook for a really long time, sometimes I feel all tense from sitting, my knees hurt and I am just sticking things on the page trying to get it done so I can stop. If it isn't fun anymore, or you are frustrated with a mental block, STOP and call it a day. Scrapbooking should be a fun thing, not a chore!

Scrap Happy!

Signing a consultant!

When I heard that Creative Memories was offering the whole consultant package for $119 dollars this month, I was hoping that everyone else would think it was as amazing as I did! Because you can buy an album, a cutter, corner rounder, tape runner and pens and almost be paying as much for this $500 + kit, in which you get all of that and more. This has prompted me to do some homework, figuring out how much I really do get my scrapbooking products for. I was pleasantly surprised, because it really does give me great discounts!

I just signed a consultant yesterday! WOO HOO! She had been interested in becoming a consultant for some time now, but it just wasn't the right time, because she was pregnant. Now that she has her little one, and she has observed all the work I do at workshops (on my albums, not actual work!) I think she realized it would be more than worth it. So, she came over and signed the papers. She already has a group of friends who scrapbook, because she has hosted shows and crop clubs for me in the past. So, she has a ready made customer base.

I'm excited and I just wanted to share that with all of my blog readers! If you are interested in getting over $500 worth of stuff for $119, e-mail me and I'll give you all the info you need, whether you want to sign up or not. It is an amazing deal, unlike anything I've seen Creative Memories do in the past. I actually have a customer coming over today for an order (the one I described above that is around $100), and I'm going to tell her about this, because she could get so much more for only a little more money. Since you can decide to quit at any time, just by not placing an order, it's a great deal.

Scrap Happy!

Love Letters

Around this time every year, I write a letter to my daughter. I call it a "Love Letter from Mama". In it I write how I feel about her and the little things that we do together that no one else shares, like princess kisses and praying in bed each morning before we get up. I'm so glad that I write these things down because they change from year to year and even from month to month! These are the things that I don't want to forget! I create these albums mainly for my daughter, but in a big way, I create them for myself as well. I love to look back and see the things she used to say and the little things she did . I love to read the different nicknames we've had for each other, and remember the way her dark little eyes used to look at me when I'd come into her room in the middle of the night to comfort her when she was a little chubby baby.

Tip of the Day: In years past, I have changed the way I do my love letter, but in general, I have a photo of us on the same page as my letter. You can make lines on the page or use lined paper from Creative Memories. Last year, I had a professional photo taken of the 2 of us looking at each other. I put the 8x10 photo on one page and the letter facing it. All I did to decorate the letter page was to use heart stickers and create a little envelope with a piece of heart paper sticking out of it. In mini red letter stickers, I wrote the title, "Love Letter from Mama."

Scrap Happy!

The future

After all this talk about preserving the past, I thought it would be timely to put some thought into the future as well. Our children are the future, as everybody knows. Even if you don't have children yet, you can write down your hopes and dreams for them to read later. For grandparents, write to your grandkids. Aunts can write to their nieces and nephews. This is a personal part of yourselves that you are leaving with them. It's always good to have goals. When I think of what I would dream for my daughter, I think of both serious things, like saving herself for marriage, as well as silly things, such as her becoming a violinist. It's important for you to write down the hopes and dreams you have for your children. A good place to do this can be on a page where you put just one picture, of the 2 of you snuggling, and fill the rest of the page with journalling.

Tip of the Day: another idea that goes along with this is to ask your children to either dictate or write down what hopes and dreams they have for their own future. This can be as simple as what they want to be when they grow up. For instance, my daughter wants to be a singer and a ballet dancer! You could pair this with your hopes and dreams for them. Write it on the page and include a picture of them singing with a michrophone, or wearing their little tutu. (See, I just got a page idea for pictures I'd already taken! Whoo hoo!)

Scrap Happy!!!

Save What's Behind You!

I've praised the merits of cropping your photographs in this Blog before. But there is a time and a place for everything! I love looking at the background of old pictures. Is that really what carseats were like when I was a baby? Looking at what's behind your subject can tell you a lot about the time of the year, the occasion, even the decade that it was taken in! So, don't be too quick to crop those old pictures! Even now, when I am cropping current photos, sometimes I leave things from the background in because I want my daughter to be able to look back and see how the carseats looked in her infancy!

Tip of the Day: When I am sorting photos for other people's albums, the backgrounds often help me to determine where or when it was taken more than the people in the photo! If you are doing an album of someone elses, or even your own photos, make sure you search the background for clues. Some things I've found in the background that help me determine when pictures were taken have been a calendar, Christmas decorations, the color of the leaves on the trees through a window, a pack of diapers, balloons, and framed photographs.

Scrap Happy!

An Album for Daddy

A couple of years ago, my Dad came back from a visit with his parents carrying a scrapbook his mother had made for him. It contained pictures from his childhood through his adult life. She had collected articles from the newspaper and everything. The pages were now amber, and she had used glue to secure them to the page, and sometimes ordinary tape. I loved looking at that book and seeing drawings he had done as a child. I had never seen most of the photos. Of course, I didn't waste any time getting them out of there and into a Creative Memories album! Judging the amount of photos, I decided to use an 8 1/2 x 11 album. I used black pages because most of the photos were black and white. I also used black portrait sleeves to hold the newspaper clippings and things that he had made out of construction paper, just because I didn't like them being next to the photos. If you don't know what a portrait sleeve is, it's a page that has a clear pocket the same size as the page on both sides. It has a piece of paper in it, which you can remove. I gave my dad the finished album for Christmas, and he loved it. I like it because I know that his pictures are safe!

tip of the day: use subdued colors to compliment your photos, especially when working with sephia. You probably won't want to use a bunch of cutesy stickers if you are trying to keep it true to the time the photos were taken. Of course, CM has packs to help you. Heritage stickers, all different decades, starting in the 40's, and a legacy paper pack.

Scrap Happy!

Welcome to the Family

My brother got married a year ago to a girl we had just met! They had a quick courtship of 4 months! But when you know it's the one, and you are about to be shipped off to war at any moment, there isn't any reason to dilly dally about it, I guess! We are lucky, because she is great! She is better at keeping in touch than I am. We can and do talk on the phone for an hour a week, if not longer. They had their baby in November, and at her request, I sent an address list of the family so that she could send out birth announcements. She saw the names, but being so new to the family, she didn't know who the people were and how they were related. She mentioned this to my cousin, Rachel.Instead of telling her who they were, my cousin decided to make her a "Welcome to the Family" photo album! What a great idea! For instance, she will have a page with a photo of my Aunt Cricket on it and write who she is and how she is related to my brother. (Mom's younger sister) On the pages following, she will put my cousin, Kelly and his wife and kids, as well as my other cousins on the pages after that. I love that idea! I think it would be nice to give that to any new member of the family! What a wedding present! I would love to have one of these for my daughter, because our family is spread out across 6 states, all the way across the country! I like her to know who I'm talking about when I talk about family members, even ones that she has never met.

Tip of the Day: If I did a book like this I would start off with a family tree. If you use a 7x7 album, I would put Aunt Cricket on one page, Kelly and Sara, his wife on the next. The kids would be on the next page. If you use a 12x12 album, you could probably make a 2 page spread with Aunt Cricket and her kids and their kids. Using a 7x7 might make it easier to add on if someone has a baby.

Scrap Happy!

Tracking down the pictures

When I was younger, professional pictures were a luxury for our family. Sometimes, when my mom would get a picture taken, she would send it to the grandparents, because they lived so far away, and she wouldn't even get to keep a copy! As the years go by, some of the pictures have made their way back to us. It's so neat to see photos of yourself that you don't even remember! My Aunt JoAnne made us a calendar one year filled with photos of the family. Since she had taken the pictures with her camera, we had never seen them! How cool it is to remember the birthday parties and backyard BBQs that went with those pictures!

Tip of the Day: Don't limit yourself to the pictures that you have been given. Ask around to see if you can get your hands on any more photos. Take them to get photocopied or scan them on the computer. Then return them! Who might have possession of these photos? Aunts, especially great-aunts, grammas, even cousins. Send out a letter to everyone letting them know what you are looking for, why, and include your promise to return the originals promptly. They might know of someone who has pictures that you never would have even thought to ask!

Scrap Happy!

Memories of my Grandfather

My Grandfather has been getting increasingly more senile. It's so sad. The last time I talked to my Gramma, she said that he had found pictures from his childhood. They both have saved photos from when they were young. If they ever were to leave me anything, the photos are what I would cherish the most. Sadly, my gramma found Grandad's photos on the floor, torn in half. I never was very close to my Grandfather, but I always wanted to be. He just didn't know how to relate to children. We didn't hug until I was a teenager. His side of the family is shrouded in mystery, to me at least. All I have are the bizzare stories that my Gramma has told me. I would like to have a photo album filled with pictures and what little I know about these people I call family. Someday, I am going to make an album like this for my daughter. I'll include photos from both sides of her family, if I can search some out. I think that she will really appreciate that when she has kids of her own.

Tip of the Day: When working on a heritage album, like the one I just described, be very gentle with the photos! Removing them from an original album can be tough. Creative Memories has a tool called the Multipurpose tool, that works great at getting Photos out of albums, even if they were glued in there!

Scrap Happy!

I think the reason that I'm having so much trouble thinking about what to write is that I haven't been scrapbooking this week. I really want to get to that today, but I have so many things I have to get done just to keep my house organized. Don't think that all I do is run around cleaning, though! I have friends over, go to meetings and lately I've been reading and knitting more than I've been scrapbooking.
I am trying to organize a special contest for my friends and customers to earn free scrapbooking supplies if they participate in my Spring Fling Contest. The main goal is to complete pages and attend workshops. I am still figuring out all of the details, which I hope will be done soon, as my contest starts on the 1st of March! Wow! I can't believe that spring is almost here!

Tip of the Day: So, what can you do with those albums that would hurt your pictures? My Aunt covered an album for me as a wedding gift. It's beautiful, but I can't use it for my photos! Instead, I have placed my engagement, shower and wedding cards in there, very lovingly, so that I can look back through them if I want to.

Scrap Happy!

The last picture

I watched Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow, a very cute movie. Gweneth Paltrow plays a reporter, who gets to tag a long on the story of a lifetime. She is clicking away with her camera, taking pictures of robots huger than buildings and other amazing things. She ends up losing her extra film and then is extra cautious of the shots she has left. She is seeing all of these absolutely incredible things, and she lifts her camera up to take a picture, and then she sadly lowers it without taking one. Just 2 shots left and she doesn't want to waste them! How often do I feel like that girl! Those of you using digital cameras probably never have that prediciment, but I look at my number of shots left all of the time. I think it's important to always take extra film with you, just in case! I'll leave it to you to find out how she use her final 2 shots. It's as if she realized what was the most important thing to remember, and after all, isn't that what taking pictures is all about?

Tip of the Day: A fun way to make letters: I have used the circle punch, a hole punch and a few creative rounded cuts to make letters. For example, making an "O". Punch a circle, use a smaller hole punch to punch the center, turning it into an "o". Keep your cuts rounded. This has worked best for titles, since the letters tend to be on the large side.

Scrap Happy!

Trains

Trains are loved most by little boys, and often big boys, too! I myself have a train that travels high around the living room on a suspended track. This train was given to my daughter for Christmas in 2004 by her Pap Pap. When she opened it, I think she was only half as excited as her daddy was! So, I thought I'd share a few ideas dedicated to trains and the boys (and girls) who love them!

Tip of the Day: Train stickers are sold in the toddler trinkets and toys pack, but you can even make your own train on a page pretty easily. My friend did a page for Christmas entitled Babe in Toyland. She created a train out of different colored rectangles of paper, using the circle maker to punch wheels, and connecting the train by hand-drawing connectors. She added a personal touch by punching a square in the engine and putting an extra photo of her son there! She then filled the empty cars with toy stickers found in the pack mentioned above. It looks so cute!
Another idea is how I decorated my daughter's page of her opening her train present and watching it get set up. I used a black page instead of white. I had only 3 pictures, so I saved room for journalling. I drew a train track along the bottom of the page and put a train on it. (using stickers) I wanted the train to have smoke coming out of the stack, so I used some leftover cloud stickers for that. I then used black and white letter stickers to write "CHoo CHoo CHoo" coming out of the smoke stack. I used the white letter stickers to write on the black page and the black letters to write on the white clouds. Result - ADORABLE.

Scrap Happy!

Worker Bees

Last night's workshop was very productive! We all completed pages, and I personally completed 18 pages! There were only 3 of us, and we were on such a roll (no doubt fueled by the snacks we were munching!) that we kept right on going past 2AM! It was fun! Oldies was the music selection of choice, and except for a few commercials that we could have done without, we all were singing along from time to time! People don't know what they are missing! This is the cool thing to do on a Friday night!

Tip of the Day: My favorite page last night was also my simplist! I had 3 photos of the baby playing with his toes, and I adhered them to the page, drew an outline around them which acted as a mat, and then made a little rectangle decorated with hands and feet stickers, inside which I wrote, " How neat, I found my feet!" That was it! So simple, so cute! By the way, Thanks goes to Hailey who came up with the little ryme to put in the journalling block. Just one of the perks of scrapping with a group of women! Everyone's input is so refreshing and no one gets hurt when you don't take their suggestion.

Scrap Happy!

Workshop night

I have a workshop tonight! I'm excited because I'm really in the mood to scrapbook! I wanted to scrapbook with a friend today, but when her plans changed and she couldn't make it, I just cleaned, baked and watched a Veggie Tales movie with my daughter. So, tonight is my excuse to scrapbook! I may end up working on someone else's album tonight, because I need to get these other albums done, and because I'm still in the laying it out phases of our Disney vacation and I am so weird about doing these pages with other people around. I just want them to be perfect!

Tip of the Day: If you ever decide to do albums for other people, have a list of items you need to start, such as a couple paper packs, stickers, tape refill and the book and page protectors. Add them up and this is what the down payment will be. Decide how much you want to charge per page and give them a written cost sheet. This way, they won't be surprised at the end. This is what I am going to do from now on!

Scrap Happy!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day has come and gone! This year, we kept our daughter with us for our crab dinner, and we all went to the Mall for a special dessert, ice cream! We have given up keeping ice cream in our freezer at home, so ice cream is now a special treat! I took a picture of my husband giving my daughter a rose, and I took a picture with the automatic timer of the 3 of us. This is when a digital camera would come in handy! I can only hope the picture took, since I can't look at it right after I take it. I took so many pictures of my daughter at the parties she attended this year! We made a really cute backpack box for her valentines, so I took a picture of her wearing that, and looking in it for valentines. She enjoyed Valentine's Day immensely this year!

Tip of the Day: Last year, I took just 3 pictures of Valentine's Day. One of her writing valentines, one of her outside the library in her little red dress with her box of valentines, and one of her with some friends from the library party. I used the extra space to keep her valentines. I used an empty CM sticker pack and filled it with her valentines. Then I stuck it to the page, punched out a few hearts in pink and red with the makers and stuck them all around the bottom of the page. Very simple and really cute. Did you know that you can use the CM sticker packs to keep memorabelia in? Well, you can, it's photo safe!

Scrap Happy!

scrapbooking with kids

Yesterday, I had the chance to teach scrapbooking to almost 20 kids and their parents. I love watching kids scrapbook! They see things so differently than we do! As with any craft, they love doing it! Girls of all ages take to scrapbooking right away. The funny thing to me was that while the boys had to be strongly encouraged to participate, once they started, they loved doing it! They didn't ever admit it, but you could see how much fun they were having, especially when it came to using the tools! Boys of all ages catch on to the tools naturally faster than girls. I'm always impressed by the occasional male scrapbooker I come across. Guys are just as good at scrapbooking as girls and they have such a unique perspective!

Tip of the Day: Teach a kid to scrapbook! I have old supplies that I can give to my daughter and let her go to town while I get some scrapbooking of my own accomplished. Save your photos that aren't quite good enough for the album you're working on, or give them the doubles. When working with the kids yesterday, I used the clear photo splits instead of a tape runner. This controlled their tape use, and kept my tape runner from getting all messed up! Watch them as they use tools. Corner rounders and makers are fun for them to use, and pretty sturdy. Most importantly, don't confine their creativity to what you think a page should look like!

Scrap Happy!

Scrapping Something New

As I mentioned yesterday, I have Disney on my mind, since I'm working on that right now! Most people have a favorite vacation spot and go there over and over again. Sometimes it's nice to get the same comfortable pictures, to show that nothing has changed, or on the other hand, to show that tree that used to be a sprout, which now shades the whole pool area! But if you look around a little bit, I'm sure you can find things to catch on film that you have never taken pictures of before. It might even challenge you to try something new! We try something new each day of our Disney vacation! We were challenged to do this because we use the Passporter, a book that includes an area for us to write down little things that happen every day. It prompts you to record your most magical moment, the worst moment, and others as well as "Today we tried_________and the result was______."If you're looking, it's easy to find new things to try! Do a little planning before you go, or pick up a brochure that looks interesting.
We try new rides, (at the beach this year, we rode a speedboat for the first time!)
new restraunts,
fishing, (or anything else that you don't do that often back home)
hunts, ( at Disney, we hunted for all the characters, at the beach this year we hunted for lighthouses.)
and new locations. (one year, we drove to a tiny town nearby O.C. that had been used in a few movies, at Disney, we like to visit and stay at different resorts.)
Well, I think this even doubles as a tip of the day! Scrap Happy!

I'm going to Disney World, well...in pictures!

I am currently working on my Disney pictures, laying out pages so that I can tell how they will work. When I do my Disney vacation, I combine chronological order as well as themed pages, so it can get tricky. I create themed pages for different parks, usually Epcot and the Magic Kingdom, where we spend a lot of time and take the most pictures. I also do themed pages of our resort. I do this because a lot of times I end up taking just random picture here and there, on different days. Since we went during the Christmas season, I took a picture of each park's Christmas tree, so they will all be together, and I took a picture of the gingerbread creations they had at different resorts, so those will all go together. You would think that I would run out of pictures to take, since we go to WDW yearly, but I never do!

Tip of the Day: When working on a trip like this, I first lay out the pictures by pages, then I work on one page at a time, starting from the beginning. On the individual page, I first lay out the pictures, then I crop them, and then I design the page, picking out which stickers and paper I want to use. Finally, I adhere everything to the page. Lastly, I journal. I often save the journalling for another day and just work on designing another page or more. I never show anyone, including my husband, any of the pages until the whole trip is scrapbooked.

But that's just me! Scrap Happy!

Phantom of the Opera

My Mom and I were given Phantom tickets for Christmas and we really looked forward to the show. It was worth the wait! As I watched this beautiful production, I kept catching myself with my mouth open! I kept getting chills, and my mom was crying! "How did they do that?" was the question of the night! I love the music, and I managed to watch the whole show without singing. I have the night locked away in my mind, and it will always be a special memory.

Tips of the Day:
Don't bring a camera! You can't take it in! If you must get a picture, have someone take one of you outside of the theater in front of the sign or marquee.

You can save your tickets and the program and write down your memories so that you won't forget a thing. The programs are thick, so here's an extra tip; if you want to include them in your album, go through them and remove the advertisements, and unnessesary pages. Then use photo tape to stick it to your page, or make a pocket to hold it in.

Scrap Happy!

One month down...

February is here and I have a chance to look back and see how I have been doing with my resolutions. Surprisingly, I have kept up with them pretty well! I'm excited to tell you that I lost weight and fit into my jeans! (all except one pair!) I can wear jeans that I never was able to fit into. I'm happy, but still not satisfied. I have been tackling one thing I want to change per week, and I think it's easier that way. The last week, I ate more snacks, and didn't work on any particular thing I want to change. I think it's important for me to write my goal for the week down.
As for scrapbooking, I have been working on my daughter's album, and am caught up to our trip to Disney World in December. I spent hours last night organizing the trip pictures so that I can start on them. I'm always a little nervous when working on vacation pictures, because I want the pages to be perfect.

Tip of the Day: Do you ever have just 2 or 3 photos from an event, but not a whole lot to journal about? I often make a page combining all the different photos and a rundown from the month. One of my recent combination pages was of 2 of my Aunts who ended up visiting us from Arizona with in a month of each other. I made a page which I titled, "Aunts from Arizona" and I'm so happy with the result! The hardest thing was deciding which color paper I wanted to use. The colors in the 2 groups of pictures weren't the same and I had to use something that would compliment all of them. I used a 3 inch wide strip of paper right across the center of the page so that I had the 2 photos of the one aunt on the top and the photos of the other on the bottom. This helped to gently separate the 2. I used letter stickers for the titling and just 2 southern stickers. It's a very soft page. I love it.

Scrap Happy!

Sick Days

Last night and today, my daughter and husband were sick. Last night was the longest night of my life! While I didn't take any pictures today, I have in the past taken pictures of my feverish little girl. She just seems so sweet and vulnerable when she's sick, and it hurts me, as her mom, to see her like that. But taking photos is my way of recording her life, the good and the bad times. I remember when my little sister was young and my mom took pictures of her in the hospital. She had little bandages over her eyes and she looked like a bug. The pictures are sad, but they are exactly what I remember my life being like at that time. I'm glad she recorded that.

Tip of the day: My mother took the photos of my sister with black and white film. I think that they capture the feelings and hopelessness we felt looking at her in her hospital crib better in black and white, because there are no distractions.
On the other hand, when I took the picture of my daughter, I used color film, and that's what I would recommend. You wouldn't have been able to see her severely flushed cheeks had I used B&W film, and that would have taken so much away from the picture.

On that note, Scrap Happy!

Scrapbooking the Steeler's Super Bowl Win!

I'm so happy that we won the super bowl! We have a group of us that watch the game together every week, so it was really special to be with them for the big game! I decided to let my daughter stay up for the whole game. We usually try to have her in bed with the lights out at 8pm, so I tried to get her to take a nap right after lunch. I held her, read her a book without pictures, and even took her on a car ride. But she never closed her eyes!
Her little friends left to go home to bed around her usual bedtime, and that's when she came in with us to watch what was left of the game. I'm so glad I let her stay up! I now have some wonderful memories of her really watching the game! I was able to get some pictures, of course!!! I have a picture of her with her arms up in the air cheering at the end of the game. I didn't get it on film, but tucked away in my mind is a shot of her pointing at the TV and yelling along with everyone when her guy, Polamalu recovered a fumble. She really does understand a lot more than I realized about football and the Steelers. The general consenses is that Jaelyn won't remember the Steelers winning the Super Bowl, but I disagree. I think that with the help of pictures, she will remember and be happy that she was there when the Steelers took the Bus to the Super Bowl!

Tip of the Day: During one of the games, I took all the kids outside and took their pictures next to a bunch of golden mums we have in our yard. I then made a journalling box by punching out squares of the mums from extra pictures, and making a frame of them in a rectangle shape. I journalled inside the rectangle. It gave a girly feel to a sporty page!
To make it even more personal, I also punched squares of the kid's faces out, one kid to a square, and put one in each corner of the rectangle instead of the mum squares. I get a lot of compliments on that page.

Scrap Happy!

Here we go Steelers!

I am so excited that our hometown team is in Super Bowl XL! I'm a Steeler's fan year round, I'm pretty attatched to certain players, and I love seeing the black and gold all over town! Being a scrapbooking freak, I have to document it! I have been taking some pictures of the fans we cheer with weekly during the playoffs, in fact I was blamed for Jerome's fumble! "Who took that picture?" I also was able to get some pictures from the pep rally at Heinz field. My daughter still isn't old enough to understand exactly what is happening. She recognizes some jersey numbers and players, knows that they are in Detroit, and sings an adorable rendition of "Here we go", but I know she can't possibly understand what the super bowl means! Someday, when she is older, she will. Then she can look back at the photos and see how cute she looked in her Polamalu jersey, and remember all the fun she had playing with her friend Zack while the adults all watched the game.

Tip of the day: Over the years, I've done many pages of us being fans.
*One idea for pages are to copy the black and yellow bands that are on most Steeler jerseys and use that either running across the bottom or top of the page, or lengthwise along the outside edge.
*I saved confetti from the last home game at Three Rivers stadium, and included it right on the page. I often save my ticket stubs and include them on the page of us at the game.
*CM has football stickers, as well as metallic paper, which has a true gold I love to use. I also like the metallic pen set's gold used on black pages.
* Freehand draw your team's logo. I also copied the label of a Heinz ketchup bottle for a page title.
* Titles: Sports fan, Tiny Football Fan, The Love of the Game, Defense-Offence-Fans behind the fence, Cheering for the Home Team!, Luv our Black & Gold!
* places to take pictures of your favorite team or fellow fans:
the stadium, they let you bring in a regular camera, but not a video camera!

Training camp

autograph signings, often there will be a sign or someone telling you that you can't get photos of you with the athlete. However, you are allowed to take pictures while they sign their autograph, so do that. You might even be allowed to go around behind the autograph table and have them take a picture of you as the autograph is being signed. The key is to being fast! They are only trying to keep the line moving!

Charity events

Wherever you normally watch the game

Scrap Happy! Let's Go Steelers!

Starting the new year off right

Happy New Year!
I usually don't make or keep resolutions in the new year, but this year is different! I have the feeling that this year is a clean slate, and a new start. I'm very excited about my resolutions, which I keep adding to! It's easy, because the list is in my head! I of course want to catch up on my daughter's album, get more organized, lose enough weight that my jeans will fit comfortably again.... the list goes on! I have already completely organized my daughter's room, even the closet. I have not eaten any junk in the new year, yet! It has been a whole entire day, though!
I am starting a new project. An album for a friend of mine's son. She has 2 boys and feels that if I just help her get caught up on one of the 2 albums, she will be able to keep it up from there.

Tip of the Day: Have a friend help you when you are sorting a large amount of photos. They won't know the month or events like you will, but having an extra set of eyes might catch things that you missed. If you are alone, sort your photos and then go slowly through them one more time to make sure that none of them are out of place. I hate finding a photo from Christmas in with my Easter pictures. Chances are, I found it as I was getting ready to scrapbook the Easter pictures and I have already scrapbooked the Christmas pictures pages and pages ago! In that situation, I end up trying to squeeze it onto an already ccompleted page, or just pitching it altogether.

Scrap Happy!

' Tis the season!

I haven't written much lately, have I? I'm sorry, but these last few weeks have been insanely busy! We are finally leaving for our vacation tomorrow, a day late due to a death in the family! I have finished my Christmas shopping, created a few of the Christmas gifts I am handmaking for family, sent the presents for out of state family members, decorated the whole house, packed, baked all of this year's Christmas cookies, had family Christmas photos taken, signed and sent all of my Christmas cards, and hosted my Christmas Open House!
Leaving for 2 weeks in December is harder than at other times of the year, as evidenced by my list above! Can you believe that I actually have found some time to scrapbook?! I have! I have been working on the album pages that I give the grandparents and my sister. This year, I'm also making one for my little brother, who is leaving for the Army in the new year. I have also decided to make 2 of those do-it-yourself calendars you can buy. That's just like scrapbooking a 12x12 page for each month. I have to finish all of this by Christmas and I will have one week to do it in! So, yes! I have been scrapbooking every spare minute, and often late at night.

Tip of the day: Don't buy vegetable spread to use as butter in your Christmas cookies! OH! Sorry! You say you want a tip that has to do with scrapbooking?
When making 4 albums for different family members, I'm often working with a lot of the same pictures for all four of them. In order to keep from getting bored, doing the same layout 4 times, I choose a different theme for each album and stick to it as much as I can. One of my close friends, Bekah, is making sister albums for herself and her 3 sisters. In her case, she has chosen to make the books identical so that no one will be jealous or cry "favoritism!" But she has confided that this can be very monotonous.

Scrap Happy!

Thankful heart

I had a great Thanksgiving with my family today! It was so special, because it was the first time in a long time that my mom was able to be there. She usually has to work. We had my family over, (minus my brother and his little family,) and my husband's family, which consists of his Mom and Dad. My husband is an awesome cook! He made a very memorable meal. We all loved the sweet potatoes, even those of us who HATE sweet potatoes usually. We all ate in my workshop area, since that's the only place we could fit everyone! We don't have a dining room. With the carpet and faux fireplace, it was really cozy!

I'm thankful for so many things! When I start listing them to myself, I end up going on and on for 20 minutes! My newest blessing is my new niece! She made me an aunt for the very first time! She is a tiny, little bundle, weighing under 5 pounds right now! Alas, I haven't seen her as she lives all the way in Texas! Thank God for pictures and the internet! I have already gotten to look at photos from this very Thanksgiving day! Even through the computer, I can see that she has changed so much the week since she's been born!

As I celebrate my birthday tomorrow, I look back and marvel at all the changes that have happened in my life this year, and thank God that I don't look as old as I am!

Scrap Happy!

Breaking albums

OK, here is my confession...I bought albums on sale at Michael's right before I committed to being a consultant. This is just 2 years ago. I bought these albums and gave them as gifts to my Mom, Mom-in Law, and my sister that Christmas. Every Christmas, I get copies of my favorite pictures of my daughter from that year, and I make pages for them to add to their albums. I'm the "professional", so they always have me put the pages into their albums. This means I'm not constantly taking pages in and out of these albums, they have only been touched 3 times at the most. Can you believe that these books are literally falling apart?! Sure, they were cheaper, but no wonder! They are junk! I was putting some of the pages in this year, and the strap that runs along the back of the album ripped! This strap is made of paper. Creative Memories makes an album that looks just like that one. Their straps are plastic. They don't rip! Another pet peeve of mine is the plastic straps in the cheaper books. These straps are part of the binding and hold the album together. The plastic sticks to the page and warps the page protector. Creative Memories uses plastic straps that are buffered. I never knew why they were buffered, but it must be so that they won't stick to the page protectors. Creative Memories costs more, BUT you get a better product, a lifetime guarantee, and they test their products extensively. It's worth it to me! Anyway, I had learned my lesson, and knew to be very careful when putting the other paper strap on. IT BROKE, TOO! AAAAAG! Now I have really learned my lesson, and I am just going to buy a Creative Memories album and replace it!
So, let's review. I bought the albums to save money, and ended up having to replace them in 2 years. I ended up spending more money than if I had just purchased CM albums in the first place!

Tip of the Day: If you want to save money on albums, ask your consultant to give you a call any time she has specials. Buy all the albums you will need over the coming year at that time.

Scrap Happy!

Busy weekend

This weekend, I had a poorly attended workshop, (hey, it WAS light up night!) and a vendor fair. I've only done 2 vendor's fairs, and I've come to really enjoy doing them! I set up my table with some supplies, and then my cutting tools and everything I've brought for me to use. I sit there and I scrapbook! Sometimes I get so engrossed that I don't even notice that someone is at my table. This is actually a good thing, because they don't feel like I'm watching them. I figure this also shows people how easy scrapbooking is! Best of all, I get to scrapbook! I'm now almost done with August. Since it's now the middle of November, this means that I am still quite a ways behind! I want to try to get all caught up before my trip to Disney World in December.
At the Vendor fair, I booked 2 parties and had several people interested in my making their albums for them. I also was able to meet several scrapbookers who didn't have a CM consultant. I felt like it was a day well spent!

Tip of the day: It's always a great time to sign up to be a consultant! The sooner you do it, the sooner you start buying your supplies at cost! Most of the "work" I do as a consultant is done at home. I hardly do parties or shows at all. I just love my job! Does it show?

Scrap Happy!

Grown-up scrapbooking

I realize that not everyone who scrapbooks has children. So, I thought I would think back to three years ago, (which seems a long time ago) and think about what I was scrapbooking. I remember being completely caught up! I wasn't really however, because just when you think you are caught up, you realize that there is another album you could be working on! My goal in the year I was pregnant was to scrapbook my whole life up to that point. I completed 2 albums, as well as keeping my current album caught up. I scrapbooked my childhood, and did an entire 12x12 album of the years my husband and I dated. I left work a whole month before my daughter was due and spent a lot of that time finishing those albums. I also had insomnia, so I often scrapped through the night. I finished my goal just prior to her birth!

Before I had a child I took pictures of our everyday life. My friends, sporting events, home improvement projects, vacations, my dog, my friend's kids....Pretty much the same as I do now! Now the difference is that most of my everyday life revolves around my daughter, so she makes her way into almost every picture! And I've found that I often don't bring my camera with me if I didn't bring my daughter with me! That's not necessarily a good thing! I take photos to remember these times and events I'm living. When I look back, I should have pictures of the events that she wasn't a part of! With the way I'm losing my memory, I'll probably look back and not remember that I often left my camera at home, and I'll think that I didn't do anything without her!

Tip of the Day: Take your camera with you the next time you go out without the kids!

Scrap Happy!

Sports!

This year, we have been blessed by getting to go to a Pirates game, a Pens game and 2 Steeler games, the latest one being this week's game! And all but one of them have been absolutely free! Over the years, I have taken photos at all 3 of these venues and created layouts highlighting these pictures. I have a few tips on how to preserve these photos. These tips can also be modified for theater and concert fans. Be creative!
Remember, if you are going to any sporting event, act with class, come dressed to support your home team (even if you have to borrow a jersey or team shirt from a friend. It will make you feel like a true fan!), and cheer at the top of your lungs!

Tips of the Day:
* Use the team colors to decorate your page.
*Use the team's symbol to inspire you, using the colors in it, or even drawing the symbol right on your page!
*Include the tickets in your page layout.
*Make a little pocket by using a CM sticker pouch and fill it with confetti, either from the actual game, or make some of your own!
* Write down what the weather was, where you were sitting, any crazy things that happened and don't forget to include the final score!
* Be sure to capture the whole day, from tailgating to where you went to celebrate after the win.
* Ask someone outside of your group to take a photo of all of you together.
* Take pictures with the field behind you if possible.
* Take a photo of the stadium! You might feel like it will be around forever, but it won't!

Scrap Happy!

Christmas Cards

It's almost time to start addressing those Christmas cards! Are you looking for a different idea for your Christmas cards this year? I was! I found several ideas in the Family Fun magazine. I decided to make a collage of pictures showing our year. I laid out the photos and some memorabilia on a flat surface and simply took a picture of it. Some photos I included were photos of Daddy and daughter in the snow, our family at the beach, my daughter and her best friend, tickets from some of the sporting events we went to, a picture of one of the newest members of our family, Aunt Sara, a sea shell, Mickey trinket, and a picture of our dog, Elmo. I took this to the store and had photo cards made. These are our Christmas cards this year! It's similar to the idea of writing a Christmas letter. I liked it because I was able to incorporate pictures and trinkets, giving it a 3D feel!

Tip of the Day:I used at least one photo from each season to show how my daughter had grown during the year. For the best result, use close ups. Use photos that are very clear and bright. No dark pictures! Set up your collage outdoors for better lighting, but don't have it in direct sunlight. I set my collage up on the floor of my porch and stood over the picture to take it. I zoomed in a little so that the photos would be easier to see.

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the once a week scrapbooker

Lately I've been feeling that if I haven't scrapped, what is there to write about?! As a result, my blogs have been here and there, nothing very dedicated. I finally scrapped yesterday! I had a call from a customer who's more like a friend, and her and another friend came by to scrap with me! I got caught up in what I was working on, and couldn't stop, even after they left! I am pleased to announce that I have finished the second book for the 10th grader! It feels like I've been working on it for a long time, because I have been working on my daughter's as well. I like it and I hope the family loves it! Now on to book #3!

Tip of the Day: I'm forced to admit that often when I want time to scrapbook, I just start an endless parade of DVDs for my 3 year old. She is only right in the other room, but I feel guilty when she watches more than one video a day. Another option is for me to let her "scrapbook" right alongside me. She has her own scrapbook; an inexpensive paper one with a leopard print cover that I bought at Walmart. I give her stickers, markers, scissors, paper and sometimes doubles of my pictures, and let her have at it. This way we're spending time together and she is doing something somewhat productive.
Scrap Happy!

My 50th blog!

HI! I just had a day filled with scrapping! Today was the second of my Croptoberfests and I was able to meet my goal of having 12 people attend! Four of the girls came to both, because we had so much fun! Today, I made muffins and my mom brewed coffee to start everyone's day off right at 10am! We accomplished a lot in the 9 hours we were all together. The conversation was awesome! I love hearing the stories of how everyone met their husbands! Some shared pictures of their kids 20 years ago, and pictures of them going to their first dances and the prom. We praised the work of artists able to tie the right colors together, use scrapbooking tools in unique ways, and finding that perfect page element to tie it all together! We helped each other with page ideas, and shared our supplies. We ate together, laughed together, and congratulated the mother who didn't even shed a tear as she completed the pages of her youngest daughter's first day at college! My daughter "scrapbooked" with us for awhile, even sticking a few surprise stickers on Gramma's page when she wasn't looking! Through the door, I had the most beautiful view of the neighbor's tree in all of it's golden-orange splendor.
(sigh!) It was the perfect day!

Tip of the Day: I'm stealing this from a friend who was doing this at my Croptoberfest today. She is just starting a photo album for her daughter. She is alternating every page with pictures of her daughter on one page and her daughter's husband on the facing page. She'll do this as they grow up, until they meet. It is very sweet, and something you may have heard of, but I just wanted to remind you that you don't need to worry if your kids are already grown and you haven't made them an album yet! It's never too late to start!
Scrap Happy!

Croptoberfest

HI! I had my Croptoberfest today, the first of 2 if you are counting, and it was a lot of fun! It was hectic at first, and one person showed up an hour early, thanks to the time change. Over all, I think it was a long, but productive day!
Of course, everything happens all at once! My Aunt JoAnne from Arizona is in Pennsylvania today, but it was her last here day in a short weekend. (she just came in for a funeral) She and my Mom stopped by, and that was really special because I got to show her my business, and my workshop room, "in action"! She is actually a fellow consultant! That's not all! She is the person who got me started with the whole scrapbooking obsession! So, it was exciting, but hectic, and I wouldn't have changed a thing!

Tip of the Day: Take a second to thank the person who introduced you to scrapbooking. That first little 3 ring binder and tape tabs , and photo-safe tips my aunt sent me changed my life! It was years before I told her that she was the influence that got me started on what is now not just a major hobby for me, but a career! Thank you, Aunt Jo!
Scrap Happy everyone!

My Workshop Warmover

It has been awhile since I've written! I have done some scrapbooking this week and I have planned out my pages through August. Since I use Cm albums, it isn't hard to insert the pre-vacation pages I just completed this week. I would have done more scrapbooking, but my dear husband has been busy winterizing my scrapbooking area and I don't want to get in his way! My workshop area is in the garage and can get pretty frosty! So he bought me one of those fireplace looking heaters and put up insulation this week! He also dropped the ceiling lighting and now it's so much brighter! I'm excited to show off my new, warmer workshop area this weekend at my Croptoberfest! Croptoberfest is an all day scrapbooking event with prizes, and other special activities. I'm having 2 this year. One this Sunday the 30th of October and one on November 5th. My goal is pretty modest! I'm hoping that a combined 12 people attend. I'm also hoping to get some pages done myself!

Tip of the day: It's the time of the year when your hands need lotion 24/7. However, be very careful when you are scrapbooking, to have clean, unlotioned hands! Wash your hands before scrapbooking, and then dry them thoroughly. Make a habit of applying lotion to your hands upon the completion of the days scrapbooking. Before I go to bed, I put a liberal amount of Jergens Ultra lotion on my hands and I wear clean socks on my hands! You can buy fancy mits, but socks work at keeping the lotion on your hands all night.
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scrapping through the night

I had another one of those nights on Friday! You know the kind I mean. I could not stop scrapping because I just kept having ideas for pages! I have days where my creativity flows like a rain-flooded river and other days where I feel like I'm looking back at my own reflection from a dirty puddle of water. I was afraid to stop scrapping for fear that Saturday I would wake up without the great ideas. I ended up scrapping on Saturday, too. My pages still turned out great! It was perfect weather for scrapping; rainy, dark and cold. Better yet, I'm working on pages of SUMMER! So, for a little while at least, I was warm and still dressed in my bathing suit!

Tip of the Day: Lately, I live by the less is more when it comes to scrapbooking. I like clean lines on my pages, no clutter, few embellishments. But for my 4th of July page, I did something different! I covered the page with 2 different sheets of paper , one a patterned red and the other a star covered navy blue. I tore the blue, so that the tear showed white. These 2 large triangles of paper cover the page making a nice background for the 3 photos. (one is matted in black) I also made a tag out of white paper, trimmed in black. I punched a star-shaped hole in it, and shredded some paper to make the ribbon for the tag. I wrote right on my finger, and used my fingerprints to make a border to decorate the tag. I placed white letter stickers on more of the navy paper and cut around it, so that each letter has it's own mat. I used star stickers to dot the "i"s and to decorate the tag, which said "July 4th, 2005". I am so pleased with the end result! I think that some days are special and your page should reflect that! So for special days layouts in your photo albums, don't hesitate to go all out!!!
Scrap Happy!

The trees are falling apart!

Fall this year has been beautiful! We in Pennsylvania have had nice weather, and the leaves have only recently started to fall. Yesterday, my mom and daughter spent a lot of time outside, and they gathered up acorns, pinecones and leaves of red and yellow. My daughter was shocked to find the leaves all over Gramma's yard! "The trees are falling apart!" she said. Ironically, I had just finished my pages of our beach vacation that morning. Remember how I said I was going to try to use only certain sticker packs and paper? Well, I ended up using the ones I had planned for most of it, but using paper from several packs and adding a few stickers from different packs as well. I'm very pleased with the end result, and even my husband didn't seem to notice the error I had made, skipping an entire page and using it for a completely different day! If he didn't notice, then I think I'm safe, because he and my daughter were the only other people there!

Tip of the Day: Something my mom seemed to like in my beach pages: In a journaling area on one page I wrote the date, put a sprinkling of sea shell stickers to break up the page, then wrote a little something else, added another sticker, wrote...you get the idea.

Packing up the beach vacation

Well, all good things must come to an end! I am working on the last 2 pages of my beach vacation. It has been so nice...At least I now get to show other people my vacation, through my pictures! I love that part of scrapbooking, too!

Tip of the Day: I always put my pictures in chronological order, always. Well, I made a mistake with my beach pictures and ended up putting an entire page out of order. I mean, it's several DAYS behind, and I just couldn't go back and figure out how to squeeze it in. Fortunately, no one will ever know besides me. That's the great thing about a beach vacation! You are wearing a bathing suit in every picture! My tip, don't sweat the small stuff! In this case, I was able to let it go.
Scrap Happy!

Re-living my beach vacation

I've been scrapbooking my beach vacation, and (sigh) it is so nice to remember! I've been getting my pages done so fast, because I did page layouts ahead of time, and I have been doing simple pages; some cropping, a matted picture here and there, some stickers and paper for a splash of color, and plenty of journaling. There was one walk on the beach that I really wanted to remember, so I just have 2 pictures on the page, and a lot of writing. I went into great detail, so that I won't forget how the moon looked on the ocean waves, and the sweet things that my daughter said, and the cute things she does. Some things you just can't capture in a photo!

Tip of the Day: If you are going to be sharing your scrapbooking tools with other scrappers, make sure to label them with a sharpie or sticker. People don't mean to take your things, but it can easily happen when everyone's things get mixed.
Scrap Happy!

Pumpkin Patch

Over the weekend, we took my daughter to the pumpkin patch. I don't know why I never took her before! The drive was long, but it was in mostly rural areas, so we were able to enjoy the changing leaves. Once there, we took the hayride to the pumpkin patch, all 3 of us, sitting on bales of hay. My baby girl sat between her father and I, with one hand on each of our knees. It couldn't have been more perfect! Walking through the pumpkin patch was a treat, too. She was very particular about the pumpkin she wanted. The criteria was that it had to be small, like her, spiderless, and clean. This was a tall order, and she did adopt several pumpkins along the way. Mom and Dad were enlisted to carry them of course, but she eventually chose "the one", and to my amazement, it isn't near to perfection by a long shot!
I took almost an entire roll of film there! I just wanted to capture the day. It was so much fun!

Tip of the Day: I take great care to watch what's behind my subject when I'm taking a photo. It was killing me when I saw a mom take several pictures of her daughter with her chosen pumpkin, because she had the gravel road in the background. If the mom had taken the picture from a different angle, the whole pumpkin patch would have been behind her daughter; clearly a better background! Train your self to look at the whole picture!
Scrap Happy!

If you find yourself in a desert, make a beach!

I'm Back! I decided to just skip July and most of August in my daughter's album for now and go straight to scrapping our beach vacation! I am loving it! I don't want to tear myself away! I'm using Spargo pages, which is something new for me, but let me tell you, it looks so good with sand and ocean pictures! I'm also using the new wave paper from the Aqua paper pack, and Nautical Beach and Canada sticker packs. I'm going to try to do the whole vacation using just these products. I like to challenge myself, what can I say? I am probably going to end up using other paper colors as well, to compliment my photos. I've done 3 pages over the weekend, and I'm having a ball!

Tip of the Day: Every Beach vacation, I write the year in the sand, and sometimes I'll write "Ocean City" as well, and then I take a picture of my little one with the writing.

Scrap Happy!

A scrapbooking desert

Hi! It's me again, and I hate to admit that I haven't scrapped in over a week. My challenge didn't get the desired affect, and I failed miserably! I just don't seem to have the desire right now to scrapbook! Don't be horrified, it's probably just a phase, and I'll get over it as soon as I make time to scrapbook! Until then, here's a tip!

*.:Tip of the Day: Dots can make such a difference! :. Sometimes, I like to sprinkle a little pixie dust, if you will, all around a sticker, page title, even my pictures themselves.*. Here's what I mean. You have completed your page, but it just looks so blah! Using the fine tipped pens, draw some tiny dots right on the page, here and there. I like to use the round tip pen as well, but a little more sparingly. You can use as many colors as you like, or just one. Stop when it looks just right! .:
:*:Scrap Happy! :.*

Take me out to the ballgame!

For someone who often pretends she is playing in a go-go (baseball) game, my daughter really didn't pay much attention to what was happening on the field when we took her to her first Pittsburgh Pirates' homegame. It was the last game of the season, and a toasty 79 degrees in the stands! But the Pirates actually WON, and they even hit a couple homeruns, so we were able to see some fireworks! Best of all were the shots I got of my 3 year old, eating ice, wearing my too-big baseball cap, crawling through the pirate ship, and smiling with her mom and dad before the game. She loved the pirate music and the players turned into pirates that they showed up on the Jumbo tron. She ate the meat and tomatoes out of my gyro, loved having a huge pretzel, and made her dad and I crack up when she threw her arm up in the air and yelled to get the lemonade vendor's attention! These are the memories that I didn't get captured on film. But through the power of the pen, they will be remembered!

Tip of the Day: Save your tickets and put them on the page next to, but not touching your pictures.
Scrap Happy!

Why I Scrapbook

I want the same things that almost everyone else wants. I want acceptance and love. I want to be able to say to the world, "This is me. This is who I am, this is what I like, this is why I am the way I am; this is me. " Hopefully, people will still like me for me. If they don't, then I can find others who do. This is a new way of thinking for me!
So, why do I scrapbook? I like that creating these albums for my daughter helps to remind me of all we did together, and all that she has learned, and the cute things she says...OK, everything! I like that these albums will give her a good self-image, show her how loved she was, and let her relive all that she has already experienced. But I don't know if this is the only reason I do scrapbooking. I think I do it because I love to do it! Now that I'm grown up, I don't really get to paint and draw and play with clay. But doing these albums is the way I express my self now. It's my artistic side, unsuppressed! I'm not bragging, but I'm good at it! Seriously, there aren't a whole lot of things I can say that about!
I've changed some things in my personal profile. If you want to know more about me, feel free to check it out. My e-mail is listed in my profile, in case you'd like to write to me! Thanks for reading my blog!
Tip of the Day: Although I've never done this myself, I told my friend about this idea, and it turned out looking so cool! Take one 12x12 page and use the square punch to punch out the faces of everyone who came to your event. ( My friend used her snapshots from the cameras placed on tables at her wedding.) Using the squares like tiles, place them in neat rows covering the whole page. You might want to put a picture of the guest of honor in the center.
Scrap Happy!

Baby Shower

I have a baby shower to go to today and I'll be giving her baby scrapbook supplies from Creative Memories! I love to give album making supplies as gifts because it gives people a great start. This friend is an avid scrapbooker and when I asked her what she needed, she told me, "Give me any of the baby stuff, I need it all!" I don't know if she's having a boy or a girl, (I think she's having a boy, personally!) but that's Ok, because most of the baby stuff is neutral. I'm sure that she is going to be excited to start an album for her baby, I know I was!

Tip of the Day: The way I started my baby's album was this, I put her hospital picture on the first page along with some information about the birth and what her name means. Then I did a 2 page spread on me being pregnant, with a picture from each month. A page of the ultrasound and ultrasound photos, and us getting ready, (painting the nursery, choosing names, hanging little dresses!) and then a few pages about her shower. Then I went to the birth and so on. I want her to know how much we were anticipating her, and how she was such a big part of our lives from the moment we knew she was on her way!
Scrap Happy!