Scrappy Times

I haven’t been scrapping very much lately…as many of you know, 2010 has been a difficult year, so motivation to do much other than go to bed has been pretty low.  Then, when I would want to scrap, I’m faced with this mess:

Yeah. I have to navigate the mess, a commitment just to get started. So…no scrapping.

Enter the scrapbook convention and The Original Scrapbox. After much discussion, Andrew and I decided that it would make both of our lives a little better – mine because I could scrap again with an organized area, and his because he wouldn’t have to stare at that mess in the living room all the time.

Here’s the result:

When I’m not scrapping

When I am scrapping

Going up to Laurie’s to scrap this weekend inspired me to finish getting all of my scrapping stuff put away (I’d done most of it as of a couple weeks ago, but still had a few little bits of stuff hanging out until this past weekend).

Finally got back to my 2006 pictures, doing a few at Laurie’s, and continuing Sunday and after work Monday and today. It feels so good to be creative again. Here are a couple of my favorite layouts from the past few days’ efforts:

Tags: comfort, scrapping

Even crazy-thesis-ladies get a break from their thesis every once and a while

I haven’t been scrapping with Laurie in a long time, so we decided to get together in February around her birthday. Sadly, Laurie’s household was all sick with the flu when our scrapping date came around, so we postponed until this past weekend. I spent *all day* Saturday up at Laurie’s house. Really, all day. I think Laurie was sick of me by the time she kicked my arse out, but, hey, it’s her fault for not kicking me out sooner.

For part of the time Laurie’s friend Kirsten joined us – she’s new to scrapping, so we had to show her some things that she *needs* to waste…er, invest, her money and time on to improve her scrapping.

Felicia also came along, since I was starting on her scrapbook. She and Ruby helped out with our scrapbooks.

Here are a couple of my completed pages:
  

I was very naughty on Sunday, and continued scrapping instead of working on my thesis. Oh well, at least I feel nice and refreshed and ready for writing this week. (That actually was not sarcastic, though it might have been hard to tell.)

Tags: build-a-bear, scrapping

Scrap, scrap, scrappin’ away

I’ve been looking for scrapping groups in my area for a while, but the recent crops have coincided with my travel schedule. Finally, yesterday, was a crop that I could make. The crop was run through Scrapeppers (who is merging with another area crop organizer in 2008 to become Crops Plus).

I ended up at a table with the other 3 ladies who were new to Scrapeppers, and we had a great time. I was there from about 10 AM to 8:30 PM, and completed four spreads:

Jenny’s wedding

2005 biking pics:

And Pandamania pics:

I’ll be back for the Scrapeppers Holiday Crop in December. Oh, and Sarah’s Cropping Corner crop in November.

Tags: scrapping

Mental Note

Drinking an entire pot of tea in half an hour makes it very hard to get any scrapping done.

Tags: scrapping

Scrappy Day

Laurie came out my direction today so we could shop and scrap. Sadly, my normal scrapbook store was completely uninspiring today. They’re supplies seemed to be a bit thin, though they had gotten in a few new papers since I’d been there last. One problem might be that they’re making room for the new stock they’re expecting &#150 scrapbook companies trot out their new lines at a convention in mid-July, and then ship to stores sometime after that, so new stuff should be on its way soon, I assume.

Anyway, despite the uninspiring store, we did walk out with some fun new supplies, and went back to my house where we each worked on a spread. Laurie did an awesome “Connor’s first ballgame” spread, and I worked on a spread with my two nieces.

As usual, we didn’t have enough time together, but we did get re-inspired to work on our own, and are talking about getting together in a couple weeks.

After Laurie headed home, I worked on a second spread of my Halloween pictures from 2003. I’m finished, for now, with the major scrapbooks that I had on my list (i.e. wedding and cruise), so I’m now going back and scrapping my random pictures from each year, going back to about 2003.

Tags: scrapping

GASC: Saturday

My day started bright an early with a class at 8AM – a very difficult feat after the midnight crop last night. The class was called “What do I do with that?”, and promised to introduce us to various embellishements that we may not have seen before. This class was well worth the early wake-up! The coolest thing the teacher showed us was “magic mesh” – check out the pictures below. We used it as a page decoration with some “confetti” beneath it (I use the term confetti in quotes, because it’s actually more like crinkled up tinsel, but the teacher called it confetti).

I had just 45 minutes between my morning classes, but I popped out to the convention floor, and hit the dollar-scrapping booth, which had been hard to get at yesterday. I found a bunch of cool things there, including “irregular” paper (which was only printed on the wrong stock of paper, not smuged or anything) from Arctic Frog.

My second class was sponsored by Paper Tapestry, a company that supports a village in India where their paper is made. The paper is spectacular, and I ended up buying a supply after the class. In the class, we made mini-books that fit nicely in a box. Check out the pictures:

I have special plans for that book, and will post pictures when it’s done.

After that class, I had a few hours before my third and final class of the day. I was walked around the show floor, buying the things that I’d been thinking about (though, I talked myself out of several things, yay me). I also participated in several make and takes, but couldn’t seem to get in on the one at Little Black Dress. That one was really cool – it cost $4, but was well worth it. The participants made a little mini match-book type book (though larger than a matchbook). They embellished many of the pages with stamps and flowers, but the coolest thing was the front cover. There, they put an embellishment that’s made from that confetti I used in my first class this morning, but rather than just gluing it down, first the make and take teacher would iron a pat of the stuff on an inked stamp, and it turned out really cool. After getting home, I tried it myself, though I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it, the picture will give you an idea (you might need to click through to the larger version to see it better):

My final class was another mini book. This time it was made from plain papers, but we first folded the papers into a “paper bag”, and then into a book. The book has several places to poke and hide pictures or tags and journaling. We also played around with the EZ distressing inks – I need more practice with it if I’m going to use it, though!

After this class, I stopped by the convention floor again, to see if I could get in on that Little Black Dress mini-class, but it had just begun, and I was too tired to stick around for the half hour that it would take for it to finish up again.

All in all, though, a great convention. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for it again next year (and hopefully Laurie can go with me, at least on Saturday!).

Tags: scrapping

GASC: Friday

I went off to the scrapbook convention today. I had signed up for a bunch of workshops a few weeks ago, and my first one was a 10:30 this morning. The convention show floor officially opened at 10, I arrived at about 10:05, and the parking lot in front of the North Hall (the hall for the convention) was already nearly full. I parked in the back of the South Hall’s lot. Wow!

My first workshop was actually a jewelry-making class, but some of the techniques could be used for scrapbook embellishements. The teacher was great, and I had a lot of fun. Plus, we ended up with a bunch of extra wire to keep and bring home. See pictures below (and click through one to see them all at flickr).

After that class, I went to the convention floor and walked around all the booths (and stopped at the Make and Take pavillion a couple of times. I tried not to spend too much, since I knew that I’d be back tomorrow, and I really wanted to try and get things that I can’t get at my normal scrapbook store. The booths were great, though, and I found a bunch of new products (that will be on my birthday and Christmas lists ;-).

My second, and last, workshop for the day was at 4:00PM, and it was a page layout. One big thrust of the class was on adding doodling to pages. The teacher commented that many of the new rub-ons and products that she’s been seeing are basically pre-done doodles, and suggested that we might want to add them ourselves. The page, before the doodles, is really not all that interesting (see picture below), but after doodles it’s pretty cute. I only had time to just barely get going on the doodles, but I have a picture of what I finished in class. I’ll post an “after” picture later, when I’ve finished the doodles.

Before the midnight cropping party, I grabbed a quick dinner at Taco Bell (yum). Then it was back to my car to pick up my cropping supplies, and back into the convention all. I didn’t think I would stay until midnight, but when I finished my second page, it was 10:45, and I thought I could complete the third, and last of Sweetie’s 30th Birthday party pages, before midnight, so I pushed ahead. I did finish (and I think the pages turned out reallly well!), and it was a good thing that I stayed, because I won one of the door prizes during the 11:20 drawings! Yay me!

Here were my table-mates, Heidi and her grandmother Judy, and Donna:
 

One odd thing about the four of us at the table is that we had all lived in either North Dakota or Minnesota (or both). We didn’t know each other before the crop, and just happened to end up at the same table. I suppose it might just be that midwestern nice-ness.

Here are my completed pages:
  

All in all, a great day. I’m looking forward to tomorrow , even though I start bright and early at 8AM!!

Tags: scrapping

Eclipse Scrapbook Done!!!

I finished the eclipse scrapbook today! Actually, I should say scrapbooks – I had to use two books to fit all the pages. Yay!

Here’s the last page I did – the intro page:

Tags: scrapping

Scrappin’, scrappin’, scrappin’

Laurie and I scrapped until we couldn’t scrap any more yesterday. I headed up to her place in the morning, and we promptly headed off to Great Scraps, since any proper scrapping day starts with a trip to the scrapbook store. After lunch, we headed back to her place and scrapped until about 4:30. I finished my Naples/Herculaneum intro page spread, and Laurie did an awesome page from her trip to Myrtle Beach last year with some friends of theirs.

Then, we packed up our scrapping supplies, and headed off to Recollections in Columbia for their midnight crop. We were both a little nervous about what to expect from a group crop. I mostly scrap alone, and when I’m not alone, I’m with Laurie and/or Sandy. That’s it. We all think our pages and methods are great, but what if the cropping group was catty or snotty?

Turns out our fears were unfounded. The ladies there were a lot of fun. They already had their little cliques, but we felt that if we showed up a few more times, we would easily fall into one of the cliques. Plus, just because the ladies there had their groups, they were more than willing to talk with us and show off their work (and even share their tools, if we’d wanted). I think we’re going to try and make these group crops a regular thing – not every time we get together to scrap, but maybe once every couple of months.

Tags: scrapping

Just Scrappin’

Light blogging here because I’ve been scrapping almost every night. Yikes. Apparently I don’t have much of a life.

I’ve finished Cyprus and started Rhodes. Here are a couple of my favorites:
Cyprus’ Temple of Apollo
  

Rhodes’ Lindos Acropolis

As usual, most of my scrapbooking results are on my Flickr page, tagged with “scrapbook”.

Tags: scrapping