Lovely Weekend

Well, still no pictures of the almost complete scrap room. I did get it mostly cleaned up yesterday.

Saturday was a great day. Went to Rebecca's (and Renee's) house for a fun and laughter filled day of scrapbooking. There is nothing like spending time with friends that you can really laugh with (and at sometimes). Part of our laughter was over trying to be quiet while Renee had a couple clients at the house.

I did actually get a fair amount done on the current baby gift album I'm working on. I even almost finished it but hit the wall at 11:30 pm and just didn't have a creative bone left. Rebecca, Sandy and I were the last ones standing, well, actually Rebecca and I, Sandy was drifting in and out. Rebecca finished her book club mini album and it is really cute. Misti and Sandy looked like they got a lot done and Stephanie had fun cutting things out with her Cricut. Fun was had by all.

Yesterday was my sleep in/pj day. I spent a few hours organizing ribbon and putting it on floss cards. It's amazing how much you can have in a big pile. It didn't look like so much but I must have used at least 75 floss cards. Its a good task for a day when you don't feel like thinking too hard about anything.

Well, time to get back to work. ttfn.

Composition and Lines

Here are some pictures I took for my photography class. The subject was composition and lines.

Mom's card

Oh, and here is the card I made Mom.

Almost Done

Ok, my scrap room is almost done. Here are a couple in progress pictures. I finally got it all cleaned up last Thursday but last weekend was all about Mom.

Mom turned the big 65 and we made it an "All About Mom" weekend. It started with Sherri and I taking her to Outback for lobster tails. They even brought out a slice of cheesecake instead of the usual ice cream. Friday we headed up to Chattanooga to the Tennessee Aquarium (pictures to come later) and even stopped at Crackle Barrel in Dalton for breakfast on the way. Mom saw her first 3d Imax movie and we had a blast. We went back to Dalton for dinner because lo and behold there was an Outback there. Guess who had lobster tails again for dinner. I think she may be good for a while. I'm afraid I stressed out a little Saturday because the house was still in disarray and everyone was coming over for dinner but made it through and we had a really nice time. By Sunday Mom and I were ready for some down time. It was a lovely pj day. So, you see, it was quite a busy weekend. Hopefully will get some finished pictures this weekend.

Lot's and lots of paper. Mom is such a trooper and helped me sort it all.



No, I don't think I have too much stuff. I am going to use it all some day.



Round two of organizing stuff.

ScrapRoom

Well, last Friday was a very exciting day. Decided to drop off my Jeep at the car wash in the parking deck here at work since it was looking very disreputable. Long about lunch time they called to say they were done but they just saw some smoke and sparks. I'm like, well, okay, I'll be right down. Sure enough there were some sparks coming from the cable for the winch were the casing had rubbed off and the bare wire was hitting the front grill. Now what is a girl to do?

4:00 rolls around and I drag one of the guys down hoping that we can wrap the worn spot with electrical tape so I can drive it. Well, move the cable a bit and flames shoot up. That was really exciting. Now I'm worrying that the whole thing is going to go up in flames or my coworker will get the shock of his life. Finally wedged some plastic lunch plates and a plastic handled tool in there so it stopped sparking.

To try to make a long story shorter one of the security guards got involved and finally disconnected the wire from the battery by man handling it (since the screw was stripped) and then he was able to jump start the Jeep (battery was completely drained from all the sparking). After a couple hours of all this I was finally able to drive home without incident. Friday I'll have the shop look it over to be sure but between God's help and the toughness of Jeeps it seems to be fine.

So back to scrapbooking. The girls have all been asking to see pictures of my room. It is still very much in progress but here is what we have so far.

Before - Mom had her English country in the front living room and I was trying out my purple phase in the dining room. I had to try it out but it was too dark for that room.

Inspiration - I found this pillow at Pier One and fell in love with the color combination (bought it of course) and I found some dishes on clearance (picture another time) that pull together these colors. The foyer is a duskier version of the teal and I needed something that would go with that and go with the red kitchen.

In progress with Scooter helping out.

Very Blessed

Well, I made some great headway with the scrap room this weekend. I am so blessed with friends and family. When I decided to paint my sisters, Sherri and Kim, showed up to help. I didn't even ask them. So there were four of us on the first day (mom is always a trooper) and then Kim stayed the next day and my friend Renee came over. It was a bit traumatic because the original color I picked out looked way too yellow in the daylight and we were almost done. So what could have been a day and a half job turned into a three day job. Such is life sometimes. Guess you could look at it as more fellowship time. ;-)

This weekend was the put together the cupboards from IKEA weekend and my friend Rebecca volunteered to come over to help. We made a really good team and got a lot done on Saturday. Sunday just about did me in though. Drilling the holes in the doors for the handles was pretty easy but when it came time to try to attach the doors it was not pleasant. I had two different sets of hardware to figure out. They must be in transition with their hardware vendor. They made it look so easy in the picture but it took forever and I thought it would never end. It did involve a little cussing here and there. Mom was a real trooper and tried to help but resorted to cleaning up the huge pile of cardboard left in the aftermath.

I'm used to being very self sufficient but it is so cool when people actually want to help you and volunteer. Thanks girls for all your wonderful help!!

Album for little girls

Well, I finished another gift album. This one was geared towards being viewed by little girls and I used the new DCWV Pocket Full Of Posies paper with all its glitter. The pictures didn't come out that well. That's what you get when you try to do it at night with lamp light and a flash. I really liked the paper but I still look at the pages and wish I had come up with something more to do. They look a little plain to me. The friend I gave it to thinks it's pretty and that's what really matters. I'm ready to start another one for a new mother of a baby girl.

Some day maybe I'll actually get back to scrapping my Paris pictures. And then there are the 2000 pictures from England that I'm trying to pare down.

My Sister's birthday card

Here is the card I made for my sister's birthday. I played with a glass effect on some of the flowers. The only drawback was that when it dried it curled a bit and I found out the hard way you don't want to straighten it out (cracks). I used a glass art bead to give it additional dimension.



Oh, and I did make it back to IKEA. I was a little overzealous thinking I could get the rest of the stuff in the back of the Jeep. I did manage to get the rest of the cupboards but it's going to take a truck to get the bookcases and table. I'll at least be able to tackle getting the cupboards put together this weekend and hopefully make some headway on organizing scrap stuff.

ttfn

Half a step closer

Well, I went to IKEA last night and bought as much stuff as would fit in the back of my Wrangler so I'm about half way done with the purchasing part. Going tonight to see if I can fit the rest of it in and get it home. Then comes the back breaking fun part of putting it all together. The dangling carrot is that then I will be able to move my scrap stuff in from the garage and get it all nice and organized. I can hardly wait! The idea of having a place to work and to put things away almost takes my breath away. And no I'm not exagerating. Once it's done I'll post some before and after photos.

Tomorrow is another day at Archiver's. Went last Saturday too. Two weekends in a row! That's just crazy talk. I'm working on another photo gift album and was able to get a good portion done last week. A couple more pages and then I'm on to embellishing the pages. This one is geared towards little girls and is all sparkly. Love all that glitter! The only draw back to working at Archiver's is they are quite popular of late and you have to get there almost a half hour before the store opens to get in line. Especially when one of the rooms is being used for other stuff for the day. If it wasn't for all the supplies available it might not be worth it. I'm pretty sure we are going to start rotating meeting at homes for a bit.

Today I received my February kit from Scraptivity and it has really great stuff. It has cotton linter and molds to make your own dimensional embellishments. Can't wait to try it out. The kits have really pretty paper but they are really a little pricey. If they didn't come with Gel-a-tin stamps each month I wouldn't do it. Once my subscription is done, though, I'm going to let it go. I have so many stamps now you'd think I'd have enough. But there is always some great new one coming out. Oh well, what's a girl to do. It's a good thing I'm not married cause I'd try any man's patience. Course he'd probably try mine too. ha!

ttfn

Planning the craft room

Well, a couple of weeks ago I trekked down to IKEA to see about purchasing the organization cabinets I had picked out and they were out of stock. That and after seeing them in real life I didn't like the color of the wood. So I looked at everything and picked out another line but that meant going back to the drawing board to figure out how much I need of what.

So now I've got that all figured out again and have to make another trek to IKEA and of course the really fun part of putting it all together. I can hardly wait to have an actual area to organize my stuff and to work. Right now everything is in plastic organizers stacked in the garage. It makes it really hard to get creative.

The other exciting thing is for Christmas I received gift cards to Showcase, a photography store. The also have classes so I'm now signed up for Photography 101. I am so looking forward to learning how to play with the settings on my camera. I think I take good pictures but I want to take great pictures. Every now and then I go to pbase.com and look at some of the really wonderful photos there and see just how much I have to learn. I love photos of nature and textures and architectural features.

Here are a few favorites from one of the trips to the Blue Ridge Parkway.