Test…test…is this thing on?

 

Sigh, its been a long time, hasn’t it?  I am sheepishly poking my head back here onto the blog and apologizing for the long long break.  For a while I had a really good excuse: all of my scrap stash was packed away and put in to storage while our house is on the market.  About a month ago I couldn’t take it any more and Mark went and brought all of it home.  Well, almost all of it.  I think I’m still missing a box…

So I’m back to scrapping and sharing here!  National Scrapbooking Day and the Creative Keepsakes/Big Picture Classes crop Saturday really helped out a lot!  So I’ve got a lot to share with you coming up!  This one is from the “Scrap without a Picture” challenge.

 

May Flaum’s Use Your Stash class at Big Picture Classes last year really has inspired me to dig deep into my stash and use up all of that yummy paper. 

[Sorry for the not-so-great photos – my beloved Pentax K7 is having some issues and has to go in for service for a while.]

New Layouts, Old Photos

Like most scrapbookers, I have a backlog of pictures to scrap.  Taking classes at Big Picture has helped get my butt in gear and scrap some of these older photos.  That's a good thing, because I got all of my childhood albums from my mom, and I want to scan and scrap them.  (Let this be a lesson to you -- take your photos out of those old magnetic albums, if you can, and burn those horrible magnetic pages!!  Photos grow to them over time!)

This one is from 2006:

To the Top!

Nic Howard taught us how to do these neat faux pleats in the Color?  Or is it Colour? class.

Products Used:

DCWV - cardstock; Core'dinations - cardstock; unknown swiss dot paper; Jillibean Soup - patterned paper; Adorn It/Carolee's Creations - patterned paper; Creative Imaginations - transparency, sticker; Ranger - stickles; Queen and Company - flowers

Tools Used:

Tim Holtz tiny attacher; Martha Stewart punch; Silhouette - title and flourish; American Crafts slick writer

Two Happy Things

A couple of weeks back, Big Picture Classes celebrated their fifth birthday by sending out Happy Mail to 500 students.  I was so surprised to get a big padded envelope in the mail!

I just love that little pink button!

And I need to share this:  the oh-so-talented Ms. Christine Middlecamp is about to share with us another of her wonderful project tutorials.  You might remember the doily project from my very first post.  Now she's come up with something new for the holidays, and it looks spectacular!

Hurry over and add her blog Retrospection to your reader so you don't miss a single day!

I Wish I Had a Cat's Life

Cat Naps

From Nic Howard's sketch for Color?  Or is it Colour? class for Big Picture Classes.

Products Used:
Scenic Route - patterned paper; My Minds Eye - patterned paper (ancient slab); American Crafts - cardstock; Hambly - transparency; Technique Tuesday - chipboard; Basic Grey - chipboard, stickers, sticker letters; Tim Holtz - grungeboard; Cosmo Cricket - sticker letters; Sakura - souffle pen; Heidi Swapp - rubon; Cat's Eye chalk ink; Versa Magic ink

Tools Used:
Cuttlebug - embossing folder

Colour or Color? PreClass Tags

I am so excited for Nic Howard's new BPC class to start Thursday.  The other day I showed you the beautiful teaser tags she made.  She gave class participants step-by-step instructions to recreate them.  Here's my try:

 I'm happier with some more than others, but I'm pretty happy overall with my first attempt at making tags.

Am I out of my mind?

Don't remind me that I have a kitchen and bedroom to paint, furniture to move, boxes to pack, and a house to clean.  Don't remind me that I didn't decorate for Halloween and before you know it I'll have to decorate for Christmas, or that I decide last year I would make my own tags and wrapping for the holiday this year.  Don't remind me I need to PACK UP my scrapbook stash very very soon.

Who could possibly resist those gorgeous tags??

I couldn't stop myself, so I signed up for Nic Howard's new class on Big Picture Classes, Colour! Or is it Color?  I guess I'm on a class kick right now, because I'm also looking forward to May Flaum's new class in February. 


This will be my first class with Nic, and based on what I've read and the pre-class materials, I think I'm gonna like it.  I'll be working hard on my version of those beautiful tags in time for the start of class on the 28th.

Dreaming of a New House…Literally

Mark and I are moving.  Now, we have to do some renovations and replace carpet, so the house isn’t even on the market yet.  But we’re still moving.  We’ve been looking around at new houses, and it’s about all we talk about.  So it’s no surprise that it’s crept into the subliminal.  I’ve been having very vivid dreams lately about buying houses and touring houses.  It's keeping me up at night, and I can’t wait until we find one, hopefully with a room I can devote to my scrap stuff!

Until then, I wanted to capture some of my feelings and memories about our current house.  It’s another layout from the Use Your Stash class.  

This Door

The chipboard letters are from  the Dollar Spot at Target from ages ago, but they were teal striped, so I painted them with Tim Holtz Distress Paint, which sort of flaked off, so I sealed them with Diamond Glaze.  Also, I read somewhere about stamping on cork, so I pulled out a package of Quickutz cork, cut the scalloped circles with the Cuttlebug, and stamped it with Staz-On ink. 

Products used:

JoAnne’s – Kraft Cardstock; Core’dinations – cardstock; MME – patterned paper; Sassafrass – patterned paper; October Afternoon – patterned paper; Target Dollar Spot – chipboard letters, brads; Quickutz – cork; Offray – ribbon; We R Memory Keepers – brads; Karen Foster – brad; Tim Holtz – Distress Paint; Diamond Glaze; Staz-on – Inks

Tools used:

Cuttlebug, Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder, Nestabilities scalloped circle die

Using Your Stash is Fun!

May Flaum is one of my favorite scrapbookers.  She has a fun, irreverent style, and is a great teacher to boot!  I’m taking her class, Adventures in Scrapbooking: Use Your Stash, right now at Big Picture Scrapbooking.  The premise of the class is to take out your pictures, grab stuff from your stash, and USE YOUR STUFF to SCRAPBOOK.  What a concept! Stop hoarding all the stuff you bought and use it for what you bought it for, and capture your memories to boot!

The class is great fun, and we’re starting the third of four weeks.  I’ll be sad when it’s over.  But there’s been tons of inspirations and challenges that I haven’t been able to get to, so I’ll be going back to this information for a long time to come!

One challenge was to use neutral cardstock to scrap an everyday picture.  Here’s my version. Ozzy makes an appearance:

Butterfly Love

Products used:

American Crafts – Cardstock; Little Yellow Bicycle - Patterned Paper, butterfly diecut, stick pins, stickers, epoxy stickers and buttons; Maya Road – rub on; Cosmo Cricket – chipboard letters; Crystal Stickles; Mist – homemade.