A Little Basic Cleaning

I admit, this is my attempt at brown-nosing Mary Frances.


I hope it inspires everyone who reads this to try it too - what better way to clean house than with a little scrapbook motivation? And besides that, this vacuum's main job is sweeping up all the bits of scrapbook scraps that fall on the floor. Between 3 young girls and me, it can get pretty bad. So it ties in nicely. :-)

The story of this vacuum is that it is about 25 years old. I think dh inherited it from his mom when he got his first place or something. And it was really ugly. Scratched and faded. But it works good and they still sell bags for it! So I tried to give it some new life. Now, the bag didn't paint too well. I'm working on how to improve that. But still. Who doesn't like a little Basic Grey colors to cheer up their vacuuming time!

I feel like an overgrown kid! :-)

I bought some Prima Paintables. I was going to submit for the contest at 2Peas, but never got around to it. So this weekend I finally got to play and i am having a ball. I have always loved watercolor, so i was all over these.

Here's my take on it - the first one. I've got another in progress and i hope to post it later this week.

My Productive Weekend!

My girlfriend Kristy over at KT Crafts was running a weekend crop and i got motivated and really got some pages done! The number of Disney photos i want to scrap is a little overwhelming, but doing some during a crop seems fun and so I dipped into the box and pulled these out. I like the idea of journaling a lot on one page and then having lots of photos on the following pages.

And you'll be seeing a lot of this Scenic Route line on layouts to come. Why?

I bought it twice. Yeh, I really love it. You'd think that would mean I would remember buying it? No, it seems that what it means is that I knew I really really wanted it. :-)

But these 2 pages, I love them! Nuffing cracks me up because I hear it everyday and I still love how she says it.

And dh had a rough day. I saw this picture of him and knew he needed to be imortalized for the fabulous father he is.

Last Scrapper Standing

NOT!

hee hee. these dares push you to do something really different. not because they are extremely difficult but i think because they are a bit edgy in their own artwork and they inspire others to be a little edgy too. And I am so completely Not edgy. i'm like a powder puff edgy. but i am at least inspired to do something different and have fun. so...

here's the first dare -

use 8 transparent things on your scrapbook page.

and i used all stuff i had in my stash for a couple years. thats a good thing too.

And I made it to round 2, so here is my newest attempt, we were to scrap about 7 random things. fun to think about, and it gave me an excuse to play in a format i would never use on a "real" page. ;-)

Some Reminiscing

They're having a contest over at Reminisce, and as luck would have it, we just received some of this at Scrapbook Corner. So i'm goin for it baby.

Here's my work to date!

And my favorite... i think...

Woo Hoo! Digital Freebies Coming!

Being a part of Everyday Digital Scrapbooking Blog has really stretched me in the digital world and I've learned so much! Especially from the very talented girls who participate in the CT. Lots of well-known designers are contributing to this kit - so it's one to keep an eye out for. In order to be notified, just subscribe at the blog.

Words of Wisdom

it was in an email string of funny pictures. but this one is my kind of humor and made me snort.

Booked

Ever watch Ocean's 11? When the bomb guy is telling them they're in Barney. and they look at each other like "huh?" and he says Barney... RUBBLE! and still they look, "huh?" TROUBLE!

DH just did this to me last night. We were laughing because thats one of our favorite lines - but he asked (with a mouth full of food) -
blahsomethingblah you booked?
and i said, "huh?"
Did you book?
"huh?"
did you make some scrapbook pages?
OH!
after how many years, he still doesn't know the right words. come 'on Steve. I SCRAPPED. But YAY! I DID!

We were given 2 lines of Reminisce to play with at Scrapbook Corner, and its been so absolutely fun! I don't know that a couple of these are magazine level - oh thats right, mine never have been anyway, :lol: but what i'm thrilled about is getting some of these pages done and ready for an album.

so here's a good question - i tend to work with current photos for most of my pages. but not in chronological order. So i'll have mostly 2007 photos on pages this year. but generally they are not sequenced by month or anything. How should I keep my pages, so they don't fall apart? I hate tearng apart albums and re-filling the pages. Maybe a box?

Here are the pages! some will be up at the store - hope they inspire.

In My Dreams

This post is dedicated to Mary Frances Fabbri, owner of Scrapbookeronline, and world renown vacuumer. As far as I can tell, this picture will probably make her swoon right at her computer.




My own dh has vacuumed for me a couple times, but only because i am not home at the time and somebody is coming over before i get home or something.

The thought of someone vacuuming for the pure love of it - thats MFF's territory.

Now for the crafter part...
Do you know any men that would forego a football game to hang out at a scrapbooking show? And would you choose to go with a dude, instead of a scrapbooking sista? thats the question. :-)

oh you Fancy Pants

so, i submitted some stuff to a contest. first time i've put myself out there in quite a while. and i had a totally fun time making these pages!
Its using Fancy Pants paper, some of my favorite, and i still only got a couple new ones made. but here they are. they should be up in the mfr. gallery at pubcalls.blogspot.com soon.

Remare Beardon and the art of collage

So I'm learning about art through my 1st grader.

And they studied collage and Beardon. Except Jillian was sooo proud of herself - she was the only one that remembered his name - which she insists is RemarDY Beardon. So i'm the smart one and i looked it up on the internet, and now i know for sure its Remare. but i'll let her grow up and if she really still cares she can find him on the internet too. :-)

But now i'm really inspired to create something. I love this collage she made in art class and i want to do something similar!

Fun new things

well, new to me!

I used pizzazzill card stock today for the first time and did some Disney layouts!

So patterned card stock is possibly the best thing ever because it is subtle, and when I feel like a layout is lacking something, and i should fill in some of that white space - Pizzazzill, its in there!

this is a short post, maybe more will come this week, but don't hold your breath because its a holiday on weds and that means off schedule and not getting on the computer much. :-)

Inspired? - not so much

While away on vacation, three scrap related magazines came in the mail. So i should be really excited and going through them, and loving all the wonderful pages. but nope. not so much.

So this is my question - is it me, or is the industry hitting a stall? have we reached the pinnacle of scrapbookdom? Have all the ideas been found, and all the new ways to put photos on paper discovered? have i seen it all???? wow, that didn't take long. i hope not.

Anyway, inspiration is not me lately. I have been scrapping , but truth be told - they are quickies. Did you Ever do a scrap quickie? i don't do a lot of embellishing, and yes, i fake it. i use maps. lol.

So while you're here, to entertain me and whoever else may be interested, tell me what you think - are you bored with the examples du jour? where do you go, what do you do to get your mojo going?

This is what happens

the Internet is addicting isn't it?

I mean to check 1 thing, but as soon as I sit at the computer, I fall into my bad habits of going to about 5 different sites, and I usually forget what brought me there in the first place.

Here's what happens when i stop to check my email. An hour later, i'm still there... I took a picture of this - it's old but the story hasn't changed. This is what happens when the kids are being kept busy while mommy "works" online.

Kentucky Scrappin!

My online group got together in Kentucky!

I feel like these girls are friends i've known forever, but in truth I haven't met most of them more than once, some I'd never seen in real life before! Yet it was like a reunion.

And it was soooo fun. We were in the middle of horse country at Baxter House Bed and Breakfast. We were spoiled and over fed and given the run of the place. We took it over definitely. Here' a picture of all the stuff. I'm looking at the picture, and it doesn't reflect the total mess we made, spreading all of our stuff everywhere.

I'll post some of the things I worked on in the next post. think mini albums.

i forget who mentioned that they ought to take up scrapbooking so they can justify going away for a crop. but they should! ha.

Good Stuff

I got a box today. husband asks - what came today?

and I of course answer him - scrapbook stuff.

and daughter#1 quips in - why did you even ask that? of course its scrapbook stuff.

and husband gets all defensive and says to her - well i was hoping to get more of a description than just scrapbook stuff. so what is in there? (notice how we all already know its scrapbook stuff)

And i can't really remember whats in the box. I know I really wanted it though. So i answer him that there is paper and ribbon and stuff in there. That should hold him off for a bit. and its a no-brainer (duh!) that there is paper and ribbon in there. but he would never appreciate the finer subtleties of Junkitz verse 7Gypsies. so we just say paper.

and now that we've mentioned the elephant in the room (the box), we can go on. husband can feel he's done his part and talked about what interests me, and we can both continue our little denial game. and not have to worry again about this little problem mommy has of boxes showing up, and paper and ribbons being collected.

so for my new friends on my new craft blog - here is a peek inside the box. good stuff.