Testing 1,2,3 Testing 1,2,3

I was poking around on the world wide web today and I came across another top ten list for sprucing up your blog.  The very first bullet point was "use a light background."  And then she went on to say "I won't look around a dark blog - it hurts my eyes."  And then she backed it with studies.  Hmmm.  I guess I can take a hint.  Or a kick in the pants.  So white.  Boring, but clean.  With a couple of my favorite colors to make ME happy when I visit.

So this is a test post and I really don't have anything new that I can share.  I contemplated sharing something very, very old, but that got ruled out.  Not from embarrassment, but from the sheer pain in the neck-ness of photographing or scanning 12x12 layouts.

However, I did download the Instagram FOR ANDROID app yesterday.  And yes, that's yelling.  Don't even get me started on the whole thing.  I have one word for you: Sneetches.  Ok, that's too vague.  I love the Dr. Suess book The Sneetches - you remember it, right?  There are the Star Belly Sneetches and the Plain Belly Sneetches.  Of course the Star Belly Sneetches are the cool ones! Duh!  And one day a man comes to town with a machine that will put stars on the bellies of the plain belly Sneetches.  And OF COURSE once the Plain Belly Sneetches have access to stars, stars instantly fall out of vogue.  The man re-jiggers his machine and makes it a star-off machine.  And then (of course) all the Sneetches are running through his star-off/star-on machine, throwing all their money at the man until they're broke and exhausted and no one can remember who was cool to start and who wasn't.  And I'll leave it at that...  ;)

So anyway, I loaded Instagram yesterday and suddenly everything needs to be photographed.

Like this cute and rusty Bug.  Which is cute enough already, but the little smiley painted on the window pushes it right over the top. CUTE.

And then we dyed Easter eggs today.  I am 43 years old and I don't think that I have ever ONCE dyed a good looking Easter egg.  I think every good looking egg I've ever seen must have been PhotoShopped.  Even the pictures I saw in 1979.  I don't think dying a good looking egg is even possible.  Aren't Easter eggs supposed to be pastel colored?  And no...the jewel tones are not an effect.

Did you notice the weird spot on that red one? (Ted said it looked like a buckeye. And damned if that's not an accurate assessment).  Well, we had 12 cups that were deep enough for the eggs, but that wasn't enough colors according to Molly.  The little Pyrex condiment dishes really aren't deep enough and that's what happens when the egg isn't fully dunked.

Maggie, the overachiever and artist that she is, looked at that wonky pale spot and said "That would look cool with a silhouette in it."  Um. Ok. I guess?  Well, no need to guess:

And can't everyone have a thought like that then pick up a fine point Sharpie and freehand Victorian woman's silhouette on an egg?  Hell, I couldn't even do the ovals she did around the lady's head.  Oh, and there's a matching Victorian man, too.  You'll just have to take my word on that.

Okay.  That's the end of my mic check.  Let me know if you like it.  If you hate it, pretend you didn't stop by. :P

The Game Day Chili project

So last week I shared the page and card I made using the Jillibean Soup Game Day Chili collection and mentioned that there was one other item left.  Well, once again I'm at work with not enough customers to keep me busy.  Thank goodness these slow periods come only occasionally...otherwise I'd have to spit polish my resume.

By the way, I wonder what my non-scrapping Facebook friends think when these weird, non-scrappy titles show up in their newsfeeds.  Yeah.  Nothing to see here, folks. Look away.

So anyway...

One of the things that I was asked to play with was a Maya Road acrylic ATC stand.  It came with four teeny, tiny little pieces of chipboard.  I thought about the different possibilities, but I have to admit: I tend to like my pictures BIG.  That's probably been one of the biggest challenges I faced when I switched to 8½x11, and these tiny pages weren't going to do.  So I started thinking.  Calendar? Not enough pages.  (Although, you could so easily add extra pages to this format) Luckily, the next thing that popped into my head was a keeper.  Ted plays travel baseball and I do take a lot of pictures, but there's other stuff I want to remember: names and numbers of his teammates, who they played and the final scores, and then Ted's highlights: home runs, good pitching, getting the game ball, that kind of thing.  The format is small, but I created a little pocket for each page and used my Cameo to cut tiny little tabbed pages that I can fill out and tuck in the pocket.  I know I'll need a couple of pages for each pocket, so they're cut and ready to go.

I'm really pleased with the way the project turned out and Ted  seemed to think it was a neat idea.  The Game Day Chili was the perfect line for this - sporty, fun, graphic, and not over-powering.

So here are some pictures:

So this is the cover.  I love the "for the record" title - it's just straight from the Silhouette store.  The Game Day Chili is kraft cardstock based, so I just flipped it over and cut it out using the plain side for easy readability.  I cut out 4 or 5 and stacked them all together to give it height.  Darn that Nichol Magouirk for getting me hooked on this technique.  I truly love it, but of course I'm going through paper like crazy and putting extra wear and tear on my blades and mats, but that's OK! It's worth it.  The L'Oreal of scrap techniques, I tell you!

Again, love the title, but this time it's Kerri Bradford: Studio from The Ol' Ballgame collection.  I love her work - it's so clean and graphic and she really prides herself on giving you a ton of options to play with.    Again, multiple layers for some dimension.  The pocket was cut from the blank side of the GDC (as I like to call it when I get tired from typing Game Day Chili over and over again).  I traced the curve of the chipboard page and cut it out carefully and adhered using Red Line Tape.  That stuff is pretty amazing.  Just make sure you're only sticking where you want something to stick for-ev-er.  Here's a secret: I don't actually cut any better than anyone else does.  The way to have that curve be just right is to take a sanding block to the edges to work out any of the hard edges and make the two sides become one.  I guess I should have mentioned that I adhered that stripe strip before I did the sanding.  But you knew that, right? ;)

Whereas I will unabashed proclaim my love for the other two titles, that will not be happening here.  I guess it's okay looks-wise (I can say this, since I just put it together using fonts on my computer) but this is the title that took about a day and a half and caused me to lose several fists-full of hair. That was the day my Cameo was acting up.  The title is fine, but every time I look at this I know my blood pressure will spike a little bit.

Not much to say here.  35 is Ted's number, so this is the page that I intend to record his hot-shot-ness.  Let's all hope this page doesn't end up blank at the end of the season. :P  This is Ted's first year on the A team and I'm worried that he's gone from big fish/little pond to normal fish/big pond.  That's the mother in me though.  He'll be fine.  It's me I'm worried about.  ;)

One other point of note.  The chipboard that came in the kit was standard grey.  I covered it in black cardstock (again, by tracing, cutting and sanding) and then used a Staz On ink pad to black up the edges.  I don't like the middles not matching.

I think this came out really neat.  It's one of my most favorite things that I've made in a while.  Up there with the owl treat boxes and the bird ornaments.  I shouldn't play favorites, but I do.  ;)

Thanks for stopping by!  I have three lines that I'm working on for April, so I'll have more to share later.  But of course, it'll be a while.  ;)