I played all day (with scrapbook paper)

This past weekend, my sister and I participated in an all day scrapbooking event given by Shelby of Embellish IT! in Charlotte, NC.  The weekend started with a bang as we had to move up our original travel plans to avoid the sleet and freezing rain that were forecast for Friday afternoon.  We didn't exactly miss it, we drove through it early Friday morning.  It was not fun, but we made it to the hotel in Charlotte iwthout incident.  We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening relaxing in the hotel (plus a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with our aunt who also came to the event) and were ready bright and early the next morning for a full day of scrapbooking.  

I had not scrapbooked in several months.  Between the discomfort of standing on broken toes, and just a lack of motivation, I simply haven't felt like creating with paper.  Happily, this weekend really seems to have broken through my loss of scrap mojo.  I finished about 14 pages for our honeymoon album!  I won't share all of them today, just a few.  I used a lot of Basic Grey's "Soleil" line for these pages.  The bright, sunny colors were perfect for a tropical trip.

This first layout will be the beginning of the album.  I won't repeat my story about the leis, which is what the journaling covers:

I loved those pretty flowers.  Personally, I think we should wear leis on a more regular basis.  Next up, a layout showing off two of my favorite photos from Oahu.  The statue in the vertical photo is of Duke Kahanamoku, who considered to be the father of modern surfing.  We hung our leis on his arms on the day that we left Oahu.

Next, we have a two page layout covering our visit to Pearl Harbor.  I used a postcard and our admission tickets as part of the decorations for this page.  

This next layout covers our visit to 'Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu.  We couldn't take pictures inside the palace, so there's just the one outside photo for the layout.  I did include our tickets, which are reproductions of invitations to a royal ball at the palace.  The main reason that I wanted to visit the palace was to see Queen Liliuokalani's crazy quilt.  She made it while held prisoner in her palace by the United States.  It is a beautiful work of art.  

A closeup of the admission tickets:

Finally, here's a layout that I made using one of our class kits from that weekend.  The colors and layout of photographs was perfect to capture the walk Alton and I took through Honolulu's Chinatown in the afternoon after our visit to the palace.

I have to say that the entire day was very enjoyable and relaxing.  Shelby is a fun instructor, and the fact that we were all sitting in one room for so long, not rushing from class to class, made things feel much calmer than they normally do at a convention.  Shelby has said that she intends to return to Charlotte for another "Play all Day" event in the future.  I really hope she does, because I definitely want to do that again!

I'll share more of the layouts in the near future.  Til then, I hope everyone has a wonderful, creative day!

It's time to start the wedding album!

Yes, I've made two shower albums, and although I have decided to make another mini-album documenting activities from the day before the wedding, I don't have the budget for acquiring the perfect album yet.  So, I am taking the plunge and starting on the wedding album itself.  There are somewhere around 800 photos to sort through and organize.  The mind boggles.  I have decided not to try to plan the whole thing out ahead of time, as my head might explode.  Instead, I'll take one little bit at a time.  So, I started with a simple page showcasing the invitation:

This page is sporting some seriously old Rusty Pickle paper.  Ah, what a fun paper company that was!

One more page has been finished.  I used a ton of Websters Pages for this one, which is about the way I felt waking up the morning of my wedding:

I had some issues with the title, I started by adding a light layer of gesso to the paper, thinking that would make the letters stand out.  When that wasn't enough, I went back and outlined the letters with black ink.  Someone small and furry distracted me mid-trace, so I didn't do a perfect job.

I cut the wedding dress, the scalloped paper, and the heart out of spare bits of paper, and then added a few pearls to the dress to give it a little more bling.

It was a fun page to make!

It seems that any time I'm working on an album, I end up with way more photos than I actually use in the album.  Some people might be able to choose what they want to scrap ahead of time and order only those pictures, but I just don't seem to be able to work that way.  So what do I do with the leftover photos?  They are perfectly good images, and it seems crazy to throw them away.  But shoving them all together into a large bucket (which is what I had been doing) gets a little nutso too.  You can't see any of the pictures, and should I for some reason want one of them, it takes forever to dig through everything.  The other day, I found these 200 image albums at AC Moore for only $1 apiece.  I grabbed a few, and I think I'll end up going back for a few more.  I'm going to stick labels on the sides so I know what's in each one, and hopefully this will make for a more organized photo collection.  And look, I found albums with birdcages on the front!

On the stitching front, I have been working a bit on 'Black'd Skie', but I don' t have a photo tonight.  I'll have to share later this week.  I've also been working on a couple of Halloween ornaments.  Photos will go up when I finish them.  I have finished gather goodies for my Halloween exchange, and I plan on making a trip to the post office later in the week.

I have started going through my stash looking for supplies to make some of the cute ornaments I've selected from this year's JCS ornament issue.  This turned out to be a bit more frustrating than I'd expected it to be.  For starters, I found a rather large handful of stitched, but not finished, ornaments.  I thought I'd done away with that problem last year, but sadly, I have not!  I also got a little frustrated by these two skeins of thread:

I won't name the company, but THESE TWO SKEINS OF THREAD ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SAME COLOR!!!  And dude, they aren't even close.  I purchased them a couple of years apart, but still, that is a crazy color difference.  I guess I'll just put them both with the rest of the fibers for the project and decide which one I like best.

Okay, that's enough complaining for one night.  I guess I'm blessed that my biggest worry this evening is nonmatching dye lots.  So I leave you with miss Spike, who is celebrating the cooler weather by snuggling on our bed now that there is a nice cozy blanket thrown across it.

Til next time, have a crafty moment or two!

Aloha album, part two

Well, it has certainly been a rather interesting day around here.  I was starting to straighten up a bit as we will be having a guest staying over this weekend.  I was cleaning out the boot tray, which sits in our breakfast nook, when I noticed that the cover on one of the outlets looked like it was coming off.   Upon closer inspection, I discovered that this rather soft plastic covering was warping away from the wall, the plugs themselves felt a bit warm, and there was moisture running down the wall from under the cover.  Yikes!  THe outlet is directly under a window, so I can only assume that there is some sort of leak on the interior of that wall (wish I'd found this a week ago before our new home warranty ran out).  I think the problem has been going on for a while because I noticed what looked like a drip mark beneath the outlet 3 weeks ago, but I thought I'd splashed something out of the boot tray and just cleaned it up.  Anyway, the electricity to the outlet has been turned off (after many tries to find the fuse that belongs to said outlet), and I'm now waiting for hubby to pull the thing apart and decide what comes next.

Enough with the homeowner drama, though.  It's time for the rest of my shower album.

 This was another two sided insert tucked into a pocket.

 In this next pocket page, I tucked some papers that we used for playing games at the shower behind the photo insert.  As you can see, the photo is labeled 'prizes.'  Since the prize is a rather silly one, I will leave it discreetly hidden inside the little pocket!

 This was one of several funny stories about some of the wedding gifts we received.  I had registered for this pretty glass pitcher at Belks.  For whatever reason, the fact that someone had purchased said pitcher was never reflected in my registry, no matter how many different times it was scanned in.  So I received two pitchers at this shower.  And a week later, I received two more.  There's no telling how many pitchers we would have ended up with if I hadn't finally just deleted it from my registry completely!  But I love them, and ended up keeping two of the four.  They've been used a couple of times already, and are sure to be filled with much sweet tea in the future.

 One cool thing that some of the guests did was write down a short story about a favorite memory of me on the back of a card enclosed in their invites.  I tucked those cards inside the last pocket in the album.

The inside back cover was used to display one last photo:

And there you have it.  Wonderful memories of a wonderful party in a wonderful little album.  

I leave you with a snapshot of my most foolish cat, loving on my broken toe, which was (thankfully) safely protected by this ugly black boot.

Til next time, stay safe and be crafty!

Aloha mini album

Good evening everyone, and welcome to my new followers.  Wow!  I am getting pretty close to 100.  I'm going to have to think of a nice giveaway if I ever do reach triple digits.  Hmmm.

In the stitching department, I have no photos to share.  But I have been busy.  I stitched something for a Halloween exchange I'm participating in, now I just need to do the finishing.  I have also selected and ordered frames for 4 pieces.  This morning I pinned to pieces to their boards, and adjusted the pinning on one side of a third piece that my dad had so sweetly started for me.  One more piece to pin (and it's a huge one) and then I'll head back over to Mom and Dad's sometime in the next couple of weeks so that Dad can finish the framing.  I've decided to enter one piece in this year's state fair.  That is, I'm going to enter if I successfully managed to properly complete my entry form.  I'm pretty sure I did, but sorting through all those online instructions and picking categories can be a bit daunting.  I have pulled out a piece I started last September to work on for the rest of the week, so I'll post photos of it next week, most likely.

In the scrapping department, I finished a mini album documenting the Aloha themed bridal shower that was thrown for me back in March.  I'm super excited about this little album.  It might not be anything fancy, but it was so much fun to put together.  I don't do a lot of mini albums, so this was a wonderful break from my usual 12x12 layouts.

I got the album itself from Farmhouse Paper Company, which is a new company.  It's the cutest little thing, with little pockets and inserts as well as several chipboard pages.  I love the variety of the inside pages.  And all of the paper is from Graphic 45's Tropical Travelogue line.  The front cover was made using parts of two of the invitations.  I found out long after I had glued them down that my sister somehow ended up with no invitations, while I had two (which is kind of funny since she never mailed one to me), but it's too late to give her one now!

I used every bit of available space to include images from the party (except the backside of the back cover), because there were so many I wanted to keep.

Hmm, pretend the image above has been rotated 90 degrees.  I made several of my embellishments stand up off the page with foam tape or pop dots.  And of course, there's lots of inking on every page!

Using the 6 tabbed pages, I divided the album into 6 sections: Food, Friends, Family, Games, Gifts, an Memories.  The front tab was covered with blue crackle paint, while the back side of the tabs were either inked or covered in white crackle paint.  I used a tiny crystal swirl on every tab except for 'Memories,' which was too long for the crystals to fit.

The food and drinks were delicious.  However, my hostesses definitely had a mischeivous side.  They snuck Spam sandwiches onto my plate (Spam is very popular in Hawaii, our honeymoon destination and the inspiration for the shower theme).  And they also spiked my punch with rum.  I am very fond of rum, but I thought it was a little wicked of them as I was rather sick with a cold or some such at the time of the shower and already feeling floaty enough as it was.

I know most of you are just skimming through these images and aren't really interested in the method behind my madness, but if you happen to make an album and add some images that only fit sideways, make sure that you turn them all the same direction so that the viewer only has to tilt the album one direction in order to look at the sideways photos.  Here, all of my vertical photos are laid out so that their bottoms are on the left hand side of the page.

See what I mean about the little pockets and inserts?  My photos showing the door prizes and room decorations can be tucked neatly inside of the little map image (this came in very handy later on in the album as I will explain later).

You can't tell we're related, can you?  : )

One of my friends gave me a sheet of Jolee's stickers as part of my gift.  I used most of the sheet in this album, and my favorite sticker was the lei.  I cut a portion of it off an added it around my neck.  Then I used the three leftover flowers to add a lei to Melissa's neck as well so that all three of us would be sporting flowers.

I really am so very fortunate to have such wonderful friends from so many areas of my life.  

Okay, that's half the album, and a ton of photos!  I'll post the second half of the album by the end of the week.  I am thinking that the next thing I will tackle scrapwise are the photos from our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  I am seriously tempted to make another mini album for those photos.  Of course, I'd want to find another Farmhouse album.  Wonder how hard that will be.  Til next time, I hope everyone has a little time to be creative!

WIPocalypse update #9? Well, at least it's a stitching update!

Hmmm, was I supposed to be working on old, unfinished projects this month?  Did I commit to doing that all year long?  Whoops, must have slipped my mind!

Well, it didn't really slip my mind, it's just that this month has offered quite a few distractions from stitching on old stuff, and I find myself at the end of the month with nothing WIPocalypsy (yes, I just made that up) to share.

But never fear, for my needle has been flying through the linen all the same, and I now have permission to share at least some of what I've been working on.  This month found me working on 3 models for Cherished Stitches, 2 of which will be released next weekend at the Baltimore needlework market.  Since they are so close to making their debut, I've been given the go ahead to share my not-so-professional snaps of the designs I stitched on.  First up is "The Sign of the Gravedigger".  This isn't the best photo, as my work is unironed and therefore quite bubbly, but you can get a bit of an idea of what she's created:

I love that name, "Berry Yew".  I just think it's too cute.  And perfect for this Halloween season that is so quickly approaching.  And speaking of Halloween, here's a photo of the other model I can share, called "Enter if You Dare":

A very quick and fun stitch!  The other piece I'm working on won't be released at this market, so I haven't been given the go ahead to share it, sadly.  And I think another design will be coming home with me on Sunday.  Good thing I like all these pieces she's got me working on, because they are taking up a good chunck of my stitching time!  : )

I did find the time to do some non-model stitching this month.  Lori of Notforgotten Farm shared a cute little freebie on her blog and challenged her readers to find a creative way of finishing the piece up.  I don't know how creative my end product truly is, but I had a ton of fun putting it all together.  I stitched the pattern on a piece of 36 count fabric from PictureThisPlus (the name escapes me at the moment) using a mishmash of various brands of overdyed cotton threads (so I totally jacked up Lori's color scheme).  Here's my finished stitching:

And here's how I finished it:

I've been thinking for a while that I would like to blend my scrapbooking and stitching hobbies together, and had actually been trying to conceptualize a Valentine-themed hanging piece for a while.  When I read Lori's challenge to come up with a unique finish for Tophat Jack, I decided to try out my hybrid banner idea with a Halloween theme first.  Here are closeups of each letter (sorry, I know they're a bit out of focus, I'm not really sure why I didn't notice that til after the banner was strung and my camera put away):

 Well, that's all for today.  I have that 3rd model to put the finishing touches on, a Halloween exchange piece to work on, and there are 2 or three Halloweenish pieces in my WIPocalypse pile.  Hopefully I can finish off at least two of them before the next update is due.  Oh, and I'm almost finished with my Aloha bridal shower mini album.  I hope to share photos of that early next week.

Til next time, I hope everyone in the US has a great Labor Day weekend, and the rest of you have a great, nonholiday weekend!