Scrapping update

Unfortunately, this weekend has found me less than energetic, so I haven’t gotten much done. Still need to pull together my photos & stuff for my “homework” assignment for last week. Last week as I was wandering around Recollections & stressing out looking for 5x6 inch cardboard squares for making a covered book, I had a sudden revelation; I could actually use one of my little 6x6 albums at home that I already have & save myself the work of making the book itself. This was followed by, it doesn’t matter what I use for that project, because there’s no right way to do things! Completely rocked my world. It's one thing to think the concept, but a huge step for me to actually believe the concept.

I’m getting behind in Donna’s class, but I’m not stressing about it. I’m still just trying to get stuff written on to the calendar & planner from week #1. That’s what I should have been doing today while I was flopped on the couch & later flopped in front of the computer. Instead I spent a few hours surfing though a list of scrapbooking clubs just looking at stuff. I’m not sure that I can convince Michael that a *box* of scrapping stuff arriving at the front door monthly would really be *a good thing*. I think it’d be a FABULOUS thing, but he might take some convincing....

So instead of subscribing to anything, I’m going to post the pics I promised of my version of the trial class project. I finished the last couple of photos this weekend, but the photos of the book I did last week to show my Mom.

I found the tin at Recollections, after I had bought an Altoids tin & made Michael consume the contents. {The things I make him do in the name of scrapbooking....} I discovered that the Altoids tin would need really narrow photos and I wanted more space than that. I really enjoyed the colors and I really liked having a project done in about 5 hours. Which is a record for me, I’m a fairly slow scrapbooker. It was also a lot of fun to go through my photos to find ones that I loved that described me. And then to go on a photo scavenger hunt to get the missing shots. One of the last pictures taken was of the cokes, because *Horrors* I had run out & needed to buy more.

The book is an accordion book that I made to fit the tin and each photo is an answer to the following set of questions (The hot pink phrases are my answers):

What is your favorite indulgence? Godiva Chocolate

If you had one free afternoon to do anything you wanted, what would it be? Be at Hawk’s Nest Bay Beach in St. John

What is something you use everyday that you could live without – but wouldn’t really want to? Music on my Nano

What is something you buy in bulk, just to make sure you don’t run out? Cokes

Where in your home do you love to be? My study, scrapbooking

What in nature most inspires you? Beautiful sunsets (Later included a photo of the lake at Mount Cobble, MA)

What stores would you not want to live without? Target, Tom Thumb, Recollections & Barnes & Nobles

What is a little thing you do to spread cheer to those you love? Lots of phone calls

What is your happiest color? Pink & green

What book has given you a new perspective on life? The Big Picture

What is your favorite season? Autumn

Do you have a collection? Lots of cardstock & paper

What is a symbol, character, motif or design that you love? Cats

List 3 words that describe you? See envelope

What is something you’re really good at? See envelope; Picture for photography & picture for writing

Big Picture Scrapbooking

One of the scrapbooking gurus whom I love is Stacy Julian. I heard her speak at the CKU-Album Course in Dallas March 2005. She just recently wrote another book called Big Picture Scrapbooking & I LOVE it! There's now a website to go along with the book which offers scrapbooking classes at reasonable prices, at - get this - on whatever time schedule I want. Remarkable idea isn't it?! For someone like me who's never been on time to anything ever, who works some pretty awful hours, and frankly likes to hang out at home in sweats & fuzzy slippers, this is the perfect format to take classes.

So when registration opened I signed up for two. Hers and another gal's named Donna Downey. I was a little chicken about Donna's since she's got a reputation of being the "Altering Queen" and altering stuff has been a bit beyond my comfort window. Yeah, paint, ink, really just good ways for me to make a huge mess. So I signed up for just 4 weeks instead of for the quarter or the year. Thought I'd just "try it out" and not renew if it turned out to be too "out there." Turns out, I'm loving her class too. I'm about a week or so behind because well I have a rather all-consuming type job. But I'm OK with that. And I'm having fun. And guess what -- I altered something & it came out cool & I didn't make any kind of permanent non-fixable mess.

I also downloaded the trial class, and spent about 5 hours on New Year's Day doing the project. It's about 95% done and I just got the last couple of photos taken today. So I'll post that in a while.

In the mean time here's what I started with and below that is what I made! It needs more ribbon on the spirals, and I discovered that I really like hot pink & orange together -- they make me happy!

It's my cyber show & tell!

In spite of a very busy weekend on-call, with lots of babies to see, I actually got some scrapbooking accomplished. I'm quite proud of this two page spread I did to hold Christmas cards. The mosaic page is a total scraplift from a page by Ali Edwards The pocket page I put together myself to hold my favorite few cards that I didn't want to cut up to bits. I'm pretty pleased with these pages because they represent a bunch of "first's" for me:

• first pocket page I've made
• first really creative use of vellum I've done
• first time I've used Rub-ons {I think I'm in love -- Boy oh Boy was that fun & I want to go out and buy *lots* more!}
• first time I used a pre-done vellum quote
• first time I used metallic rub-ons (green color on the tree)
• first paper mosaic I've done
• first time I've taken a scrapbook project from conception to creation in only 3 hours, i.e. all in the same day.

I'm so tickled with how the entire thing turned out. It pleases me to no end that now I have a pretty way to go back to these cards & see them & reflect on the people who sent them to me, instead of them laying in a box in a drawer somewhere like the last 10 years of Christmas cards are doing....