layouts lately...

Happy Easter! We had a really busy day yesterday...several different family gatherings to attend. It was kind of a long day for me as I have developed tendonitis in my right foot. Just what I need, right? The doctor at Urgent Care on Saturday said, "oh, well just don't walk for 3 days. You'll be fine." Ha. You can imagine how well that's going. I'm home from work today to try to avoid standing on it most of the day. Still have drama kids coming. But at least that's only a little 3-hour window in my day.

I guess I've reached a point in my scrapping life that I have been waiting for....for years. About a month or two ago, it would take me about a week to finish a layout. It would sit in the basement in front of the TV, and every night I would add a couple of small things to it. I don't know what happened - but now I somehow seem to be putting out a complete layout every time I sit down for 2-3 hours.

This is the best thing that's ever happened to my scrapbook life!! I'm accepting that it's okay if I don't make the perfect page every time. And I'm actually loving my pages more even if I don't think they're perfect - just because they are done. So exciting. I'm hoping this attitude stays around for a long, long time.

Anyway - here are some of the recent quick layouts. All of these have been created since a week before last Saturday, March 27. And they are all based off sketches I have found online, and in Creating Keepsakes magazines. I am loving sketches lately. And I have about 4 more layouts done that weren't "post-worthy."

Love my occasional Archiver's shopping sprees. :)

All the hype in the Creating Keepsakes world (and all over the blogosphere) is to make pages about yourself. Here's one of my first attempts. This one makes me sad today because my foot hurts so much...I have no idea when I'll get to run (or walk) again. :\

Coldstone yumminess at the Lake of the Ozarks after our first Murder Mystery gig last year. Really like these photos. The light is interesting.

Since I made a page about me, I wanted to make a page about Andrew, too. This was one of our set build days for Little Princess / Secret Garden last February. This was about the time I learned about tilting the camera for artistic value.

And apparently I can't take a straight photo. I got this to my computer to crop it and said "seriously? that's the best you can do?" Anyway, this is from the Michael Hogge radio interview for Little Princess / Secret Garden. I invited some of the homeschooled cast members to attend along with us. We all had a great time! Andrew took the "ON AIR" photo for me (he actually said "so you'll have a title for your page!" - awww).

I'm thinking since I'm home today, I may be able to get in a few more pages. And maybe I'll get around to printing off another round of photos. I haven't printed anything later than June 2009. Definitely time for some new material to work with.

Here's hoping the foot has a miraculous recovery today!

springtime inspiration

Last night's project. Actually finished this in less than 2 hours!! :) Based on a sketch I found at Bella Blvd.

Supply List:
Patterned Paper - Dear Lizzy + American Crafts, DCWV
Flair Button - Dear Lizzy + American Crafts
Flowers - Prima
Letter Stickers - Colorbok
Circle Die Cuts - random $1 Store find
Pen - American Crafts

ouch.

My left foot is really sore today. I have no idea why. But it's now at the point where I'm limping. I'm hoping it goes away overnight. I have too much to do at work to even think about calling in sick.

I was supposed to spend this evening on video edit projects, but had so many things come up that by the time I could have started working...it was 9pm. I knew I wouldn't get much done, so I just decided to wrap up my latest sketch challenge from Studio Calico. Here's the result.

"Crazy Mess"
(documenting the state of our house during Little Princess / Secret Garden at BSCT last year)

The photo is blurry because my foot hurt too much to carry the page and the camera to better lighting. Sorry. :\

Loving that I am consistently making at least 1 scrapbook page each week. It might not seem like much, but it's a huge improvement and the sense of accomplishment (on something other than work, classes, cleaning, boring life stuff) is amazing.

today.

It's the first day of spring. It snowed. A lot. It's like a winter wonderland outside.

UGH.

We stayed home all day, and I have been doing laundry and crafting. Finished up a couple of scrapbook layouts, and am currently sewing pillows for the living room (finally!).

Here's a glance at my latest scrapbook creation - got it finished just in time to enter the Sunday Sketch challenge on the Studio Calico blog. Woohoo!

Hoping for a heat wave overnight so all the snow will be gone when I wake up... We'll see.

ah, weekend.

It's a glorious rainy Saturday. And I'm spending it at work. Not quite my ideal day. :\

Working today means I did not have to work yesterday - and it's sometimes equally as nice to have a Friday off work. We spent most of the day working on the disaster area garage. Here's a before photo.

All this stuff has accumulated over the course of the entire 2009 AGDT Season, as well as BSCT's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Pretty much what happens is, at the end of a performance, everything gets thrown in the back of the garage and I just hope it will disappear. Unfortunately, it never seems to get the hint.

Here's what it looked like at the height of the disaster yesterday, after we had pulled everything off the back wall to sort and reorganize.

It's not finished yet, but I'm hoping to wrap the project tomorrow afternoon. I have a huge carload of stuff to take back to my mom's house, another huge load of stuff to take to BSCT, and yet another huge load of TRASH to be dealt with. After I move all of that out, it should be a nice sensible organized space.

Here's my layout for this week's Studio Calico sketch challenge. It took me most of the week - finally finished it last night. I love having a timed challenge to inspire me to get the page done!


This was a fun night of babysitting a little over a year ago. I can't believe how much these kids have grown up since then. Time is just flying by...can't even imagine what it's going to be like when I have my own babies.

Happy Saturday, all!

i've been saving these pics for years...

Inspired by my winnings on Studio Calico's blog last week, I hurried to make up this week's Sunday Sketch. I made the whole thing in under 2 hours at my Crop Club at work last night! Yay!

These pics have been favorites for a long time. I bought the paper probably 8 months ago and have been waiting for inspiration. SC's layout this week had an umbrella as part of the title...it was perfect. :)


Supplies:
Patterned Paper (Autumn Leaves "Wellies and Brellas", Creativity Inc)
Vellum (Hobby Lobby...no idea what brand)
Water Drop Stickers (Joann)
Die Cuts (Ellison)
Silver Glitter Chipboard Letters (K&Company)
Ribbon (Hobby Lobby)
Brads (Spare Parts)
Smooch Accent Ink in Moonlight and Sugarplum
I can't remember where I got the "shopping fun" stickers. actually...maybe the $1 Store.

scrapbook love.

Latest project.

I have been making pages lately. Not a whole lot. But usually about one per week. And for me - that's a great amount of progress.

This was a Sketch challenge from Studio Calico this week. The challenge was posted on Sunday. I finished this page on Monday. Talk about incredible, considering my normal idea-to-finished-page process!

This page documents the very very first scrapbooks I ever had - a couple of old magnetic photo albums given to me by my Aunt Lisa back when I was about 13 (so...probably sometime in the year 2000). I realized last spring that they were ruining my first cheesy scrapbook pages and had to remove the pages to put them in an archival-quality album and it wasn't practical to keep these. But I don't want to forget them! I poured my heart and soul into those early scrapbook pages...even if they were just white computer paper and glue and Lisa Frank stickers. :)

Hopefully I'll have more to share soon. yay!