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!

My Bachelorette party

If you're looking for stitchy photos, you can skip this post.  It's all about scrapbooking today.  For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on a small, 8x8 album documenting my bachelorette party last March.  The party was a total blast, and the album was fun too make too.  I made the album using the "Fashionista" and "Let's Celebrate" lines from Websters Pages.  I was able to use loads of bright, fun papers for this album, more so than I usually seem too, and I really enjoyed the change of pace.  So without further blather, here are a few of the layouts:

We all posed for one photo at the end of the adventure:

 We started with a limo ride from Lumberton to Fayetteville.  It took a ridiculous amount of time to get there, but we didn't care.

We were quite jammed into the limo.  We sang along to 80's music, played at full blast.

 Fortunately, we had some delicious drinks to enjoy during the long ride.

 At the spa, there was delicious food, massages , mani/pedis, and gifts.

 You can't tell from our expressions how much fun we were all having, can you?

Not all of the layouts are posted here so as not to overwhelm you, but I wanted to share a taste of our fun, silly afternoon.  It was just what I needed to relax from the stress of wrapping up my caseload, moving, and planning a wedding in such a whirlwind.  I love these women.  They took such wonderful care of me during my 10 1/2 years in Lumberton.

That's all for today.  Scrapwise, I'm moving on to another mini album for my Hawaiian themed shower.  Stitchwise, I've been doing a good bit of model stitching.  I think everything will be released by the middle of next week so I can hopefully share some photos by the end of the month.  Til then, I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend!

Ort Report for August and an annoying accident

Hello, everyone!  Hope you're having a wonderful, relaxing weekend.  There have been happenings since last I posted, and I have been far too grumpy and listless to post an update until today.  Two days after my last blog post, I fell down the stairs while carrying a load of laundry.  I could not bear to put any weight on my left foot, and the pain was quite unbearable, so I drug my husband home from work and had him take me to urgent care.  I have what appears to be a fractured toe and a sprained/strained foot.  For two or three days, I could do nothing but sit on the couch and sulk (well, I only sulked a little bit, but I just didn't feel energetic enough to even stitch.  Pathetic, I know).  Fortunately, my foot seems to be slowly mending and I can move around in my little boot, as long as I don't do too much at one time.

On Monday after I fell, I was thrilled to get my receive my kit of threads and goodies for the Cabinet of Curiosities course that I've signed up for.  I won't share any photos, in case anyone reading this is also taking the course and doesn't have their package yet.  Let me just say that it was a wonderful treat to brighten up a rather gloomy day!

Once I got back to stitching, I mostly worked on models for Mom.  I can't show any of  them yet, but hopefully I'll be able to share by the end of the month.  If you look at the state of my ort jar this month, you may notice that the top is full of lots and lots of black threads (think Halloween, hint, hint):

See the birdfeeder in the background?  It provides hours of entertainment to myself and the cats.  Earlier this week, I went out to refill it, and as I hobbled back into the house, I realized that the impatient birds weren't even waiting for me to retreat before swooping in for a snack.  Usually, they are too shy to tolerate my presence on the deck.  Remember how punky I told you the juvie cardinals look?  See for yourself:

I just love his little ragged crest on the top of his head!  And the hummingbirds were not to be outdone in bravery.  I heard the whirring of rapidly beating wings just before I spied this fellow at his feeder:

 It's mating season, so the hummingbirds are going a little nuts, whizzing around the yard as they chase one another away from the feeder.  It is amazing to watch.

I have been doing a little scrapbooking as well as stitching, I even made it to the scrapbooking convention in Charlotte last weekend (it was exhausting on this stupid foot, but I still managed to enjoy myself).  I think I'll save those photos for my next post, though.

The cats have been enjoying my disability.  I suspect that they are happiest when I lie still and allow myself to be used as a pillow.  Of course, when I'm not in the mood for cuddling, Scout might snuggle up with a good read:

At least he has good taste.  I have started rereading The Stand by Stephen King while I'm mostly couchbound.  Good stuff!

That's it for today.  Til next time, have a wonderfully creative day (and be careful on the stairs!).