One full year of blogging, crammed into a mere 8½ (ish) months!

I started this blog in November of 2009 and squeezed in a whopping 5 posts before the end of the year.  In 2010 I was breaking a sweat with 21 entries.  Somewhere in 2011 I had this epiphany: if you're going to have a blog, you actually have to post.  Colloquially: Shit or get off the pot. So I ramped it up a bit, and logged 38 posts.  In 2012 I joined the Cord Scrapbook Studio Design Team and became sort of a regular blogger.  I had more to say, more to share, and a reason.  I wasn't just talking into the abyss, it was expected.  (I loooove having a good 'excuse' for things!) But then the year of academic hell broke loose and at that point most of my posts were me whining about school.  Wah. Wah. Wah.

Once school let out this spring, I was itching to scrapbook!  I've had a couple of busy patches, but I've been steadier lately.  And happier about scrapbooking than I've been in a long time.  I would do the design team again in a heartbeat, but I'm enjoying the freedom - now it doesn't matter where things were bought or whether there still available.  If I like it, boom, no second thoughts!  That's nice, ya know?

This is a good example.  The background paper on top is actually KIMemories - that weird clear, heavy plastic stuff that was sort of like a placemat.  I think that was out in 2009? Maybe early 2010?  And there's a clear acrylic flower on the picture of just Molly (it's hard to see) - that was circa 2005 or 06.  I had to bust open the package to use it.  I found it in the move and it's been sitting on top of my desk for the last two months.  My version of a creative threat: USE THIS PRODUCT NOW, YOU WASTEFUL WENCH!  Of course, I should probably start using the two huges vases of ribbon that I accumulated in my Cord days, but you can call me a wench all you want, it's just not going to happen.

So here's a little ditty about using old stuff.  So the little orange beads in the center of the flower? Cute, huh?  I used a little squirt of KI Gloo (long discontinued, I'd imagine) to hold the flower down and another little squirt in the hole in the center of the flower and sprinkled the little Martha Stewart beads into the glue.  Cute.  Naturally more little orange beads came out of the vial than what was needed.  I tried to just be patient and let the excess little orange beads stay on the page while I worked, but I couldn't let them.  At this point (almost) everything was adhered to the page, so I just dumped the little beads right into my scrap table trash can.

Only, not everything was adhered to the page.

And I had just unclogged a bottle of glue into my trash can.

So the little green bird fell right into a massive glop of K&Co white glue.  And like your slice of peanut butter bread, it fell "good side" down. I gingerly picked it out of the trash, and half-heartedly wiped the blob of glue off.

I had just finished listening to a Paperclipping Roundtable episode where Wilna Furstenberg talked about accidentally spilling an entire bottle of paint on her page, and how she made it work.  At the time, I snorted, because - while I love Wilna F's work - most of her pages look as though there was an accidentally spilled bottle of, well...something.  So I guessed this was karma.  And I figured, if dumb ole Wilna F could make it work, I could surely go to my basket of glitter and put that spilled glue to use.

And let me tell you, the beads and the glitter are probably going on 4 years old, too.  And I gotta say.  I'm not in love with this layout, but I flipping love that dumb sparkly bird.

Let's hear it for screw ups!

(*I feel compelled to note that I love Wilna Furstenberg's work and calling her 'dumb ole Wilna F' was my version of kicking the dirt in envy.  I'd start spilling shit left and right if I thought that would make my pages more like hers)(Not that I really want my pages to be more like hers.  I don't.  But she's mad talented.)