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.
Scrap Happy!

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!

Those Geeky Teenage years

Everyone, I don't care how cute you are, goes through those awkward years! I have, too. I even did a page in my "Childhood Album" entitled "Those geeky teen-age years". I used to wear Knee high socks, floral dresses, have huge New Kids on the Block pins on my jean jacket (with padded shoulders), posters all over my walls, and a home perm. (NOT ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!) I still look back at those pictures with a little bit of nostalgia! I guess I hope to one day show them to my daughter and have her see that I was once a teenager, too! Hopefully, I'll be a cool enough mom that she won't lose all respect for me once she sees those pictures!

Tip of the Day: For this page, I simply cut my pictures into perfect squares. I then put them on the page along with different colored squares of paper in this order, picture square, paper square, picture square, paper square...alternating the whole page. You will have 5 pictures and 4 paper squares on a 12x12 page. Add a few stickers and a page title and you have a colorful page that probably took you 5-10 minutes, tops!

Get together

A "Get Together" is the new name for a Creative Memories Party. I was able to go to one; to learn how to do it. It was surprisingly fun! What you do now is make a 7x7 sized card, and your consultant supplies some paper and stickers and a journaling mat for each guest. There is no cost to you or your guests. I used some doubles to make an actual card for my friend, Hailey. The cool thing is that you could put the finished card right on a page! I still have to try that! I had a good time, and even with the same supplies, I was surprised how different everyone's finished cards looked. Now that I've experienced it, I can't wait to share this with other people. If you would like to host a get together, please e-mail me directly. Or leave a comment below.

Tip of the Day: Make sure to take pictures of everyday life. Posed pictures are nice here and there in your album, but your child's love of wash off tattoos is what you're really going to want to remember.

ABC Albums

For my daughter's 2nd birthday, I gave her an ABC album. I decorated the pages with a mish mosh of stickers, all starting with the correct letter. I used alphabet stickers to make both a large A and the small a. I included pictures on each page and some were even 2 page spreads. In the pictures, I had people that's names start with that letter as well as items that start with that letter. I made it like an I Spy book because I want her to enjoy looking at it for years to come. For example, on the Gg page I had Gramma standing on the porch by the grill (with a giraffe magnet stuck to it), wearing a green shirt, gloves, and googles. On the table in front of her is a goose mug, globe and some grapes. I was even more clever in some that don't even seem posed! But I had fun and she loves to look at the people she loves. Grownups enjoy looking for the different items in the picture! The funny thing was that I procrastinated and didn't get going on the pictures until a month before her birthday! I was calling people and asking if I could come over to take their picture and asking them to wear certain colors and I think that a lot of them thought I had a screw loose! Once they saw her album at the party, I think everyone understood why I needed to get that picture of them!!!

Tip of the Day: This is such a great gift idea for kids you know! You don't even have to put pictures in it! Use the smallest sized album, the 7x7. I usually just decorate the pages with the alphabet letters and a sticker or 2. It is a personal present, created just for them, and the kids really love it! I often like to include a photo of my daughter with the birthday child on the Jj page. Nn is a tough page to do! In My daughter's book, I just used the square punch and punched out pictures of all different people and character's noses, and this is fun for her to look at and try to guess who the noses belong to.
You can include as little or as much as you want to. I've done a book where I had an animal theme, one where I included all die-cuts on the pages, and one where I made sure to include every shape and color that started with that letter. I like to include numbers as well, one starts with O and zero starts with Z! I have done at least 7 books for my daughter's friends. They have always been a hit!
Scrap Happy!

My Challenge

Using this as a way to keep myself accountable, I am going to try to complete 50 pages this week! I'm starting with last Friday, and going to this Friday, the 30th. It's a big challenge, but I have a lot that I need to accomplish! I already completed at least 10 at my workshop on Friday! I'll let you know if I complete my mission!

Tip of the Day: A simple patriotic page idea: Take a strip of red paper about 1 1/2 inches wide and 12 inches in length from top to bottom and rip it from top to bottom. Do the same thing with a strip of blue paper. You have just made a border. Use one half of each and place the flat side of the red along the side of the page. The torn side will be facing in. Place the ripped side of the blue facing the ripped side of red. Leave a small strip of the white page showing in the center. You might use the leftover strips to do the same thing on the facing page for a 2 page spread. This is so easy, but it is very patriotic!
Scrap Happy!

Autumn is here!

I have tried unsuccessfully to write this blog at least 3 times over the last few days! Computer problems! I have been watching the changing leaves, fearing that I'll forget to look for a couple of days and they will have all fallen to the ground! I want to get some pictures when they are at their most brilliant this year!

Tip of the Day: Cm has a new leaf punch, although I did hear a rumor that they have run out! I have one, and let me give you some page ideas I like and have tested! I punch leaves in the various fall colors and pile them in a corner of the page, or I create a huge tree out of brown paper, it can even be a 2 page spread, and attatch the little leaves to it's branches. I made a painter's pallet, and punched out leaves to put on it as if the leaves were the paint puddles normally found on a pallet. I used the page title," The colors of Autumn". Attatch leaves directly to the page and use a pen to make it look like the leaf is falling. Simply use thin dash marks in a light path from the top of the page to the leaf. Don't make a straight line from the top of the page to the leaf, make it look as if the leaf is lazily floating to earth by adding some loops.
Scrap Happy!

Days go by

The title of today's blog is a little shout out to my favorite musician at the moment, Keith Urban! "It's all we've been given, so you better start livin' right now. 'Cuz Days go by."
I've been livin' and not doing any scrapbooking!

Tip of the Day: (as it goes by!) Have you ever done a calendar page? What better way to capture life on paper? I did one a month for the whole first year of my daughter's life. You can buy calendar pages, which have squares, like a blank calendar for the whole page. You number them yourself. I used the square punch and included pics of my girl here and there to fill up the spaces. On days we went to the Doctor's, I wrote down her height and weight. I wrote down which friends we went to visit, when she took her first step, when something happened in the world. I filled the calendar up with stickers and decorated each month differently.
Scrap Happy!

Black and White

The first pictures I ever took using black and white film were of a friend's kids. I used white sheets and had the kids on them and had the baby in a diaper and the older one in a t-shirt and jeans. The pictures turned out so great! I took a whole roll, picked the best and put them in a black frame with a white mat for my friend as a gift. When my baby was a newborn, I took pictures of her and her Dad for Father's Day. The pictures captured her tinyness, without any distractions, one of my favorite features of B&W! One Easter, I had 2 cameras going and was able to take pictures both in color and black and white and put them right next to each other on the page! Black and white pictures can really soften a scene.
I've used B&W film to take pictures of my daughter on her birthday. I had her in a patriotic shirt and had a flag behind her. Black and White pictures can have a timeless quality to them. A friend has taken beach photos and even Christmas pictures with B&W film, with amazing results!
Tip of the Day: Make sure you have good lighting, but not direct sunlight. Keep the background as plain as possible. You want the focus to be on your subject anyway.
Something you may not know: Black and white film doesn't really cost much more than regular film and can be developed anywhere! It does not cost more to develop and you don't even need to tell them that it is special! If you have a digital camera, you may be able to get black and white pictures from your color film. Ask the person who develops your film. You can always purchase a computer program to enable you to change your pictures. Even pictures taken with a regular camera can be played with if you have the proper program. Just ask for your pictures to be put onto a CD when you drop them off for developing. There is a new program from CM like this, but I'm not sure what all it does!
Scrap Happy!

The fastest way to shed those unwanted pounds

This involves no dieting and no physical exursion other than the use of some of your scrapbooking tools! When I have been unhappy with the weight on myself or others, I simply find a way to avoid seeing it! At my daughter's dedication, I was still carrying quite a bit of baby weight. One particular picture from behind was extremely unflattering to me, yet it was a nice picture of our little family and I really couldn't leave it out! With the clever placement of a die cut church placed with the steeple at my back, you can't even tell what size my behind is! Another time, another person: With this picture, the subject was facing the camera. To crop the photo just below the subject's chest would have cut out important background that I didn't want to lose. Instead, I used the cutting system to cut an oval out of the picture, right around the person. Then I used the cutting system to cut a slightly larger oval out of a complimentary shade of paper.I put the photo (with the oval cut out of it) onto the page, attatched the paper oval in the blank space where the person had been, and then put the person in their oval shape right on top, like you would stack a cake! Now the person had a thin, oval frame around them in the picture. This served both to highlight the person, as well as hide their tummy. It turned out better than I'd hoped!
Sometimes the best way to get rid of unwanted weight, is just to crop it off!!!
Scrap Happy!