March in Instagram

Last year I started doing monthly pages using nothing but a bunch of Instagram photos and liquid fun.  Or, patterned paper, cardstock and embellishments.  Either way...  

And then I stopped.  Because all good things must come to a grinding halt. :P

You know how some people are like "I just have so many ideas! I wish I had more time!" ??

Yeah. I don't say that. Ever.  I'm more likely to say "Hey, look at this tired old horse of an idea that I've already done.  Look! I recycled it!"  And then I'll sit back and act like I'm saving the planet or something.  

Well, hey! Look at this old horse of an idea that I've already done! Look! I recycled it!  Yay me!  :P

One of the things that I mention in the process video is that these layouts are a nice monthly overview, but as far as actual memory keeping go, they are totally, 100% inconsequential.  And it's funny, in that mindset, I have a lot of fun just throwing embellishments on the page without feeling like they each have to have some kind of relevance or deeper meaning.  So ultimately, these pages are a little more fun to scrapbook.  

Also, I'm clearly not killing myself to come up with a clever title.  Just sayin'.

I also mention in the video two liquid adhesive solutions.  The first are these bottles available at Amazon:

The picture makes it look like you're getting two different sized tips, but you're not.  Two bottles, same tiny tip on both.  I think I'd like to have a leeeetle bit fatter nozzle, but I'm still okay with the fine gauge that I have.  And it's so much better than the enormous hole in the Scotch Quick Dry bottle. 

The second thing I said that I'd link to is this video:

No Plug Glue Toppers for Paper Crafting

The lady in this video replaces her liquid adhesive tops with silicone baby bottle nipples.  The glue doesn't clog in the nipple because of the nature of the silicone.  Also, the tiny hole in the newborn nipples allows for a perfectly consistent, fine bead of glue.  

Also, when she says "...and grab my nipple....(pause) my baby bottle nipple"?  Priceless.

Okay, it is waaaay past m'bedtime!  Thank you for stopping by! I've loved having you!

Hands, hovered over the keyboard...

waiting for the first line to come.  Alas, it does not.

So, maybe, instead, we'll just cut to the picture:

First, I have to say that this looks much better in real life.  The cardstock warped when I painted on the gold(ish) hexagons and the top left corner ends up looking dirty in the picture. :(  Wilna Furstenburg recently mentioned on the Paperclipping Roundtable that she uses watercolor paper because it's thicker than American Crafts cardstock and doesn't warp.  One of these days, I'm going to have to try some, because the warping gets on my nerves.  Although, here's the irony: it looks fine once I put it in the album, since the page protector is snug enough to keep it in check.  So the warping gets on my nerves because it doesn't photograph well...or show up on the blog well.  And since I am more likely to scroll through my blog than actually flip through my album, the warping bugs me. :P

And if you enjoy watching process videos, here's one for this layout:



And if you're not a process video watcher, I'll share some sad news from the video.  I think my Silhouette died this weekend. (insert, big crying frowny face, with big, fat tears of despair)  I tried cutting a word, and the software showed that it cut, but the machine didn't budge.  Thinking that maybe my cable was bad, I saved the design to an SD card and inserted it into the machine.  Normally you hit the pause button to enter the SD card menu but when I hit the pause button the menu would flash for a nano second and go back to the normal screen.  I'm simply beside myself that one of my most prized possessions has bit the dust.

I think that rather than sit here whining about it, I'm going to take advantage of the time difference between Ohio and Utah and call Silhouette's customer service and see if they can't talk me through the fix.  (IhopeIhopeIhopeIhope!)

Sorry I'm not more chatty.  Maybe next time.  Thanks for stopping by!

I made a process video!

I love watching process videos.  If you're not a die hard scrapbooker, you may not be familiar with the term - it refers to videos wherein a scrapbooker records herself scrapbooking.  Usually the video is sped up and narrated, and the creator talks about her mindset, products and techniques used.  I love seeing how other people work and hearing the thought process behind decisions.  I'm always inspired and I frequently learn new things.

Needless to say, I've wanted to make one for a long time.  Oh, to be a cool kid!  But there's a lot of stuff to figure out.  How do you mount a camera? How the hey how you edit videos? Or add the narration??  It was all overwhelming, so I didn't do it.  Until I said something to Kerig, who became a dog with a bone until we ironed out enough details to at least make me try it.

Here's the layout that I made:

And here's the link to the video: Holla for Challah

Some notes:

I used SketchBook Pro - an app on my Kindle - to write the word Challah.  I then saved it as a .jpg file, imported it into the Silhouette software, traced it, did a little offset to fatten it up for easier cutting and cut it out.  I'm tickled with how it turned out.

I used Bebas Neue for the word "HOLLA" - and it's cut from Amy Tangerine's Plus One paper "Counterpart" I mention the My Mind's Eye alpha stickers - I used it for the word "for" but I failed to turn my camera back on, and it's also where I got the "Amazed by you" and "in love" stickers.

Okay, that's about it! Go watch the video! :D

Thanks for stopping by!

Throwback Thursday: Three Wishes

Looking through my old layouts has really helped me understand why the Silhouette was destined to be my best mechanical friend:

This layout is from 2003 and looks like it's been through the ringer.  But that title...  Even back in the day, the title was the thing for me.  If I was feeling lazy, I'd print something out on the computer, but most of the time I'd find an appropriate font, get it sized the way I wanted and print a mirrored version on the back side of my cardstock and cut it out with an Exact-o knife and micro-tip scissors.

Molly just turned 14 and I just shared the layout about her making her cake, so this seemed appropriate to go along with that.  She was such a beautiful little girl.  Blond hair, chubby cheeks, big brown eyes...  And dear lord, was she feisty!  Well, some things haven't changed.

I'm going to put the journaling here because it's really hard to read, even on the layout itself.  At least this way if it continues to fade I'll have a record of it.

Three wishes, one for each candle on your cake.  Health: I want you to be strong and healthy, both physically and mentally...eat healthy, exercise, get lots of rest.  Be confident in who you are. Trust your judgement. Know who to trust in life (hint: Mom and Dad! We always have your best interest at heart!) Happiness: I want you to know joy on a daily basis.  Some days will be hard, but even in the toughest times there is pleasure if you remember to open your eyes and heart to let it in.  Laughter: Let humor be your safety net. Take yourself seriously, always try to be the best you can be, but don't forget to laugh often.  Find humor in everything you can, including yourself! If you can manage to laugh , health and happiness won't ever be far off!

Thanks for stopping by!  

Taste the Rainbow

Molly turned 14 earlier this month.  Specifically, five days after I broke my arm. Lucky her.  (#sarcasm) She'll just have to wait to get beat at putt-putt golf.

Instead, we had a DIY b-day celebration.  I picked up some Duff's Tie-Dye Cake Mix from Target and crossed my fingers that little Miss Moody, er, wow, did I say that outloud?? Yikes. I crossed my fingers that little Miss Molly would find the idea of making her own cake acceptable.  Luckily, she did.  Plus, her sister Maggie hung around to help (thank goodness...I was in my very helpless days back then).  But Maggie's presence always helps Molly's mood.  (I feel like that's one m-word away from being a killer tongue-twister)

They set to work in the kitchen, I curled up on the sofa with an ice pack and Kerig took over photographer duties.  God bless him, because if there's food being made, he's there to document the shit out of that occasion!

The cake prep involved no less than 12 small bowls for tinted cake mix, 200 hand strokes of the batter, and 13 readings of the directions.  I was bracing for a hot mess and had to remind myself that even brown Easter eggs make tasty egg salad.  And let's face it: chocolate cake is brown, and no one has a beef with that, right?

Guess who was wrong?

The cake actually turned out very cool looking!  There was probably 4 times as much frosting on there than I would have preferred, but it was apparently necessary for the overall design aesthetic.  Or something like that.

I wanted the layout to convey the same joyful exuberance that the cake did - lots of colors and sprinkles everywhere.  Had I thought about it at the time, actual sugar might have been used.

I used tons of Bella Blvd papers from their Scattered Sprinkles, Summer Squeeze and Classic Calendars line.  The font for "rainbow" is called Blackout and I've gotten a lot of use out of it.  (See: here  & here)  The font comes the way you see here - with the blocks already cut out around the letters.  I've used the letters themselves as well as the negative space frame, like here.  I love it.  I used my old standby SNF Lollihop  for the word taste.  Truth be told, I don't love it here.  The word taste should be - well, I don't want to say smaller...I think I want to say "less bold".  It's just so visually large, but honestly, I did the title towards the end and I was just plain and simple running out of steam at that point. I did cut it out with a rainbow of cardstock colors for underneath, but you had to be viewing at just the right angle and have perfect close up vision to see it.  Lord knows, that detail is lost to me, but my daughter swears she can see it.  Either way, the word is too big, but I give myself a sold B for the effort.

I also used a very old Heidi Swapp mask and some new(ish) Heidi Swapp color shine sprays to break up the starkness of the plain white background.  I was on the fence about how it came out, but on the finish page, the actual design gets lost (probably a good thing) and you're just left with some blobs of color...and that's okay.

This layout has EIGHT photos on it.  Holy cow.  That's a lot.  And I haven't done a two page spread in years and years.  it was weird, trying to remember how to work all of this.  But I like so many of the photos and I had a hard enough time working it down to just these few, so I'm really glad I came up with a way to squeeze them all on.

Thanks for stopping by!

This Year...

So I mentioned being a part of the community at Paperclipping. I love it there!  It's so nice to have a little home on the internet to talk about scrapbooking.  I also mentioned in the Christmas in July that we're doing some challenges...and that I love me a challenge!

So this is for another challenge.  It's a sketch challenge with a twist: it's supposed to be about us.  Here's what I came up with:

and it's based on this sketch:

I had to adapt the sketch to make it 8.5x11 friendly, which means I just lopped off the the space on the right side and moved the thought bubbles into where the circles are.

I chose to drop the journaling into a glassine envelope behind the pictures.  I used a library card, ran it though the printer so the top says "quite the adventure" and then hand journalled the bullet points of the year.  Frankly, I didn't want to cover up the math paper, which may be my favorite paper, ever, of all time.

I found this to be hard one for me. I knew that I wanted to use these pictures, but when I printed them I realized they were really dark...the kind of dark that meant I had to chose my papers wisely.  It also rained on Wednesday, which usually I love, but it really sucked the life out of me.  But in the end, even though it seemed to take 3 times as long as it should have, I'm okay with the end result.  :)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

Christmas in July

About this time last year I floated the idea of making one Christmas tree ornament every week for the rest of the year.  The idea quickly sank.  I barely tolerate Christmas at Christmas time, the idea of voluntarily taking on that kind of project was ridiculous on my part.  Laughable, in fact. Ha ha ha ha. I'm still laughing.

And yet, here I am, in July, sharing a Christmas tree ornament:

I'm mentioned my love of the Paperclipping Roundtable.  When 2Peas announced they were closing they scrambled and created a message forum to fill in the void that was created. While I was never really an active participant at 2Peas, I am really enjoying this new community that's forming at Paperclipping.

One of the things that's come up is challenges.  And I do love me a challenge!  I think it's so fun to work within some restriction, have a deadline, think outside of your box.  Love it.  And this one was to do some Christmas in July - finish a December Daily album (psssh. I never started one of those, so that was out!), work on some cards (oops.  this is an area that I'm terrible about.  Every year I vow that I'll send cards...and then they never get done), and the last option was do anything Christmasy - a project, ornament, a layout, etc.  Okay, now we're talking!

I'd like to say that I whipped the Santa ornament out in a matter of minutes, but it took almost two hours.  Just riffling through my scraps to find appropriate papers took an hour. :P  But once they were picked it was fun and straightforward.

And in the interest of full disclosure, Santa was not my first attempt at this challenge.  Last night I spent far too much time working on this:

The whole thing is just dreadful, but the lump that the brad creates to the left of the nose is just terrible.  It looks like maybe he has an infection of some sort.  Poor, sad, short armed reindeer. :P

And with that, Officer Taylor is home.  Time to think about food! Later! Thank you for stopping by!

This happened.

(Twice, actually.)

So back in January I was on the Paperclipping Roundtable.  I thought it was a once in a lifetime experience, and I had snapped a selfie, but I never got around to scrapping it - I think it was a combination of time and pressure - being on PRT was like that rare trip to Disney...just way too WOW to tackle.

At the very end of May, I was asked to be on again! WOOT!  Again I snapped a selfie (far less flattering this time!) and vowed that I would get it documented sooner rather than later.  Today was the sooner:

Thoughts:

• I'm okay with the selfie from January - our apartment is chilly in the winter, and the scarf was there for function not looks, but let's face it: scarves hide a litany of flaws.  The shot in May?  I look sort of hot and gross.  I converted it to black and white which helped, but I decided that I would just as soon hide the second shot.
• I've been toying with the idea of joining a kit club for a year now and I caved in May.  My first Studio Calico kit arrived this week and hot diggity!  So much fun!  I tried to stick with just items in the kit, but the green stars paper is from my stash.  The #selfie paper is actually the b-side of the same green star paper.  The stickers I used for "happened" are also old(er).  They're Kelly Purkey from Simon Says Stamp and I love them.  The glassine bag isn't part of the kit, but I did buy them as an add on.  I think they're handy and I use them with some regularity.  (These glassine envelopes are new, but I have other sizes in my stash already)
• I used Studio Calico paper called "Up Hill" as the base.  I suppose at first glance that doesn't make sense.  But I think of the "scrapbook community" and that Paperclipping Roundtable is...idunno...a cross between the local pub and the weekly call in radio show.  Or something. ;)  But there's definitely that sense of community/neighborhood, which makes the paper make more sense.
• I was surprised that there wasn't a bunch "this happened" choices in the Silhouette store.  I think there was only one, and I wasn't a fan.  However, I was pleased with the word "this" in the "this year" shape.  I figured I could easily do "happened" in either a block letter or in Thickers.  Fun fact: I own exactly ONE package of Thickers.  They look like the font used in Spongebob Squarepants, not exactly the look I was going for here.  But who only owns ONE SET of Thickers??  Well, me.  Because I'm cheap, and the Silhouette saves me oodles of money that way.  (Yes, let's just ignore that I used other letter stickers. :P)

So, like I said - I'm not a fan of the selfie taken in May. So I hid it.  I decided to tuck the journaling in the glassine envelope.  I loved using all the fun, happy colors that came in the Hello, hello kit.  The pictures span seasons, so I didn't feel obligated to gear the colors toward winter, even though that's the season of the picture that shows.  To me, the color scheme is "whatever makes me happy!"

And these are the two inserts.  So many pretty colors!

Okay, that's it for me today! Thank you for stopping by!

Drive by posting

I have to work early tomorrow morning, so I should really be heading to bed 20 minutes ago, but it's my birthday and my girls are in the kitchen frosting cupcakes. So I'm typing as fast as I can in a race to the creative finish! May the best woman win!  :P

This is from Molly's softball game last week.  The opposing teams pitcher didn't get off to the best start and was throwing balls left and right (quite literally).  I managed to catch the one shot with the ball bouncing just in front of home plate.  Molly was pretty good about not wildly swinging at everything (even balls that were less obvious than that one) and ended up getting walked.  

Kerig listened to the Paperclipping Roundtable last week when I was on.  One of the questions that was asked was "What's your favorite part of the process?" and I talked about that moment just after you have the "a-ha" moment and you have something that grounds you and gives you direction, so you still have lots of little decisions to make, but the big decision is made.  While I was working on this layout he kept asking me "Did you have your a-ha moment yet?" and honestly, it took a while.  But I was scrolling through my Silhouette library and saw the word "Calm" and everything jiggled into place.  While I think "Keep calm..." is way played out right now, I liked the idea of using it since it tied into the idea that Molly was, in fact, remaining calm and doing what she needed to get on base.  (And if you haven't watched the movie Moneyball, you should!)  For this, the color scheme was nice and easy. So it was just a matter of coming up with a title and some decorative space fillers!

For the millionth time I used the stacking technique for the title where I did the bottom layers in a fun color and the top in black.  I should find a new trick pony to ride, but I just love the way this looks!  

You can't see it in this photo, but I used two photo corners that I colored black with a Sharpie.  I talk about this technique in a blog post here, and while it's the world's simplest thing, I love that one package of photo corners has managed to be used so many times without feeling like I'm compromising because of the color.  And I was really pleased when my oldest daughter looked at the layout she specifically pointed them out and said she liked the way they looked.  Oh, la, la! They got a notice by a real live art person.  (Maggie is studying industrial design, which is sort of like if an artist and an engineer had a baby.  One day she'll design some funky lamp or clock or children's toy that you look at and say "ooh, that's cool!")

Okay, this has rambled all over the place!  And for the record, the "best woman" was Molly and Maggie.  The cupcakes were delicious! And now it's way past my bedtime!  Thanks for stopping by!  

Take Two.

Last night I sat down and wrote a big ol' post but when I hit preview there was nothing there.  I hit back and there was nothing there, either. YIKES.  Oh well.  So let's try this again.

I mentioned in my last post that there was a layout I did a couple of weeks ago but never photographed, so let's do that one first:

Molly got her hair cut a month or so ago.  In the past haircuts have been about trimming off the yucky stuff at the bottom but keeping it long and ponytail friendly.  Not this time! While it still has to be ponytail friendly (softball season is almost here, after all!), but this time it was about style. Long layers, side swept bangs and enough product to make the bottom spike-y with a badass punk rock feel.  Molly is going through (what I hope is) a phase - listening to music that no one likes, eye balling Doc Martens and asking for a pierced lip for her birthday -- "It's the only thing I want!"  Yeah, well, it's among the many things you're NOT getting.  So the slightly punk hairdo was the easiest to accommodate option of her "I need to express myself" desires.

I like all the fun colors, and I think that patterned paper is semi-perfect for teenage girls.  They all embrace "peace" and the peace sign.  But I'm old enough to remember the original peace culture.  So it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of using "peace" paper (which recalls hippies) on a page where the kid listens to metal and wants to pierce her face.  But if I let go of the 70s connotation....yeah, it's perfect. :P

Can you tell I had just gotten sequins?  There are certain trends that I have a hard time with (I struggle with twine and never quite got ribbon), but flair and sequins?  Those I like!

Next, I've got a couple of layouts from this week.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think sport pages are very challenging.  And when I finish one that I like, that feels serious and manly and does Ted's effort justice, well, then I'm happy.  And I'm happy.

The title for this actually came from a text I sent him after this game.  I know how he is after his team loses - he's quiet and thoughtful.  It might look grumpy from the outside, but I know he's running game reels of every play that could have gone better.  I respect that reflection, he's not dwelling or wallowing, he's learning.  I love that.  But this game. Wow.  It was a playoff game and both teams were playing very, very well.  He pitched the entire game, which I think is incredible, but even more so when you factor in that he's a freshman on the varsity team.  That's a lot of pressure.  He's up against a lot of talent.  And to hold that team to 3 runs?  That's impressive.  So I sent him a text telling how impressed I was and how with experiences like these he was going to be a beast in his junior and senior years.  Once the pictures were printed I knew what the title should be.

But know what the title will say and how it should look are two entirely different things. My first instinct with titles is always to go to the Silhouette.  Always. So I went to the software, wrote out the word beast and scrolled through my font options.  When I came to the stencil font it clicked: use the Silhouette stencil material and spray mist to create a title that looks stamped on.  The stencil material is easy to use, and I just squirted a couple shots of spray mist into a plastic container and used a cotton ball to dab it on.  I really love the way it turned out - it's masculine and really seems to fit the mood of the layout.

And last:

After my stencil success on the beast layout, I decided to try the stencil material again.  So I used this 6x8 hexagon design, ungrouped it and started deleting hexagons all willy-nilly like.   And I really like the matte medium people are using.  But...I never know what to buy...and then when I see the price my cheap side takes over.  So I McGyver'd it.  I used my Nori paste (which I love and use for my wood veneers) - put a spoonful into a plastic container, spritzed it with powder blue Mr. Huey, gave it a good stir and smooshed it into the stencil with an old gift card.  I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I sprinkled a tiny bit of blue glitter on the design while it was still wet.  I'd love it if some real matte medium would show up on my doorstep, but in the meantime, I'm pleased with my homemade version.

When Molly was a toddler she was always on the move UP.  We'd have to pull her down from precarious positions constantly.  We couldn't turn our back on her for a second.  So she was dubbed Mountain Goat Molly.  Eventually she was re-dubbed Coinslot Molly because she couldn't keep her pants up and we were constantly eyeballing her butt crack.  Hopefully there won't be a "Coinslot Molly" page in our futures. ;)

Anyway, on Mother's Day we went for a walk around downtown Cleveland.  This was a go-to activity back when I was super poor, and this was our first time doing this with Kerig.  We had a great time and found a whole bunch of new places.  This was taken at the Sailors and Soldiers monument.  While the rest of us were walking around looking UP at all the sculptures and reading the plaques, Molly had perched herself up on this ledge.  She was definitely waiting to be photographed.  And she even suggested the title. Sort of.  She seemed to recall that we called her monkey, but that was easily fixed. ;)

So that's it for today! I hope you have a happy  Friday!  Thanks (as always) for stopping by.

I missed you. Did you miss me??

blah blah blah
student teaching
blah blah blah
so happy to be finished
whatever.

It's been a great couple of days!  Filled with kids, Kerig, food, Cleveland and scrapbooking.  Since this is a scrapbooking blog, let's talk layouts!

First up:

Pharrell's song "Happy" has been everywhere this Spring.  And regardless of what mood I'm in when the song starts, if I sing (or clap or dance) along, I can't help but be happy by the end of it.  It's genius on in its ability to suggestive sell a mood.  The lyric that gets me is Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof.  I have two thoughts about this: First, I think about 'raising the roof' - a celebration of such magnitude that the roof wasn't just raised, but raised off.  (welcome to the weird way in which my brain works) ;  And Second, I think about a glorious glass ceiling.  Not one that represents oppression, but rather all the glorious comforts of the indoors with all the incredible views of the sky.  You see, whether it's puffy white clouds on a mostly sunny day, or stormy grey clouds or snow or rain - the sky is indeed beautiful.  So I like that lyric.  It's evocative and clever and it makes me happy.  Like a room without a roof.

Okay, that sounds super hokey, but it was lyric that was begging to be used as a title.  So I used it.  The picture is of Kerig and I at a car wash.  We have a weird love of car washes.  They make us...happy.  And a sunny day in March after a long, cold, snowy and gray winter, that also makes a person happy.  

Here's a couple of close ups of the title and the stuff above the photos:

I journaled in my own handwriting.  What?!  I know, right? NUTS.  And I stamped.  And I heat embossed.  And that never happens.  I like all the pops of color, and the smattering of black to keep it grounded.  

Next up:

Have I mentioned that Friday was my last day of student teaching?  ;)  On my way to school I decided to take a quick selfie to commemorate my accomplishment.  I am not above taking selfies, but it's not something I do daily either.  At my age, I don't want or need daily reminders of what I look like.  That said, I really love this picture.  I am - genuinely - happy.  

When I got home and was doing my scan of the internet, I was pleasantly surprised that Kerri Bradford had a great Friday Freebie. There are a hundred ways to take the phrase "Let's just do today" and in this context (for me) it means: let's crush this; let's make today amazing; let's wrap this up with a red ribbon and walk away proud.  

Some details:

Once again, I'm happy with all the great color, the black title that both pops and grounds, and I simply adore that math paper.  I might need a couple more sheets. 

Because I also used it for the cards I made for my cooperating teachers:

Yep.  I like that paper.  That number border is less that a half inch tall.  I am always amazed at my Silhouette!  

Okay, that's it for now, but I realized that I have one more layout to share.  I did it a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday night.  I figured if I didn't take a creativity break I'd explode.  But then I had to hide the evidence, so I forgot to photograph it today. ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello! Remember me??

It's been almost exactly a month since my last post.  And very likely it'll be a month again before my next post.  This student teaching thing has been quite an eye opener.  And I'll leave it at that.  I'm a little more than half way through, and I hope one day soon things will sort of go back to normal around here.  For a little bit, at least.

Meanwhile, I've had a couple of layouts up on the Silhouette blog and another one over on Kerri Bradford's blog.  Want to talk about intimidating?  Imagine having a layout sandwiched between Nichol Magouirk and Laura Vegas.  Holy cow - they are both so amazingly talented in ways that I will never hold a candle to. So yes.  Honored. And humbled.  See:

They say comparison is the thief of joy, and if I sit here and compare this to Nichol and Laura, sure, this pales.  But taken on its own, I love how happy this is.  I love the colors and the photos and the random memories of December.  That's a win. Right?? Right!

Next up, a recent trip to the zoo:

I love gray.  I love the way colors pop off it, but it's not as harsh as black or as stark as white. (um: duh. Hello, you can call me Captain Obvious) but the yellow here makes me happy.  And so do the different title treatments.  And I got some of the Silhouette vellum and it's beautifully thick.  It prints wonderfully.  Photo credit: Kerig.  I brought my camera.  Would have been nice if the battery were charged.  After all these years of being the sole photographer, it's really nice to have Kerig and his mad skillz around. 

This is up on the Silhouette blog today and I really like it.  A lot.  And it looks better in real life.  For the background, I used Silhouette stencil to cut out this polka dot lace, then poured a little glue on top of it and used an old gift card to smear the glue into the dots.  I sprinkled it with white glitter and then very patiently waited a full day for it to dry.  (This is HUGE for me.  I have absolutely no restraint when it comes to waiting for things to dry)  I really do love the way it turned out, although, in retrospect I wouldn't use the glue that I used - I would have used Nori paste which is thicker and wouldn't have soaked the paper.  That said, I'm perfectly okay with the imperfection.  The idea was to mimic the bottom picture of the streetlights through the slushy window.  

I'm also very pleased with the title.  (yay me! :P) I had such a lovely evening on this particular night and yet had no pictures.  Well, aside from these two, which really aren't the point.  But hopefully the title and odd pictures will compel you to read the journaling.  And maybe not YOU you, but you know...um, my kids and stuff. I guess.  Oh, and I'm pleased with the shape of the journaling block and the way it looks on that vellum.  That's good stuff!

And now might be a good time to mention that I've officially told Silhouette that I'm not trying out for the next Design Team.  I've had SO MUCH FUN doing this and they are a fun, supportive and generous company.  And I'd LOVE to do it again in heartbeat under different circumstances.  But this school thing: Oy!  And the fact of the matter is, I'm hoping to turn this into a "real" teaching position in the fall.  And if I'm struggling like this now, I can't imagine what it would be like to have my own classroom AND try to have other commitments.  It just seems like a bad idea and horribly unfair.  I will, however, continue to be in love with the company and all their very cool products and share that love here.  

If you're considering trying out: GO FOR IT! It's a wonderful experience for sure!

I hope that you are finding Spring and vice versa.  I know I could do with a few more 50º afternoons and a few less 0º mornings!  

Coming out from under my rock....

(but only briefly!)

It's been a while, right?  This school thing...WOW.  It's been an emoticoaster ride!  Last week was the first FULL week since I've been student teaching.  We've had calamity days for the extreme cold weather (but oddly on the days there's snow up to my kneecaps we've not been cancelled. :P), holidays, and teacher in-service days.  And last week was the first week since winter break ended that we had a full, five day week.  It felt sort of triumphant.

Coincidentally, it was also the first week where I didn't cry after coming home.  I suppose it may seem weak to admit this.  But it's just the truth.  I want this very badly, and I'm pouring everything I have into it.  And there is a HUGE learning curve.  There is so much that goes into teaching - it seems so obvious until it all falls on you. But when things start to jiggle into place, when you say "Can I get an 'a-ha!' if you get it" and get a rousing "a-ha!" in response? Oh my. It feels GOOD.  I want to be better and more consistent, but I'm still learning.

At any rate, I've not been blogging much lately.  I haven't been scrapping much either.  I miss it, but when I finally get a chance to play at my table, I'm really cherishing it.  I thought I'd take a minute to share a couple of the layouts that have been up on the Silhouette blog recently:

Working backwards:

I really love this one.  Mostly because the story just cracks me up.  This was the day that we went to the park and Kerig jumped off the swing, and ended up wiping out (and breaking his cellphone case).  He was fine, and after dusting him off we all shared a laugh.  I wish I had taken a close-up of the journaling on the tag.  It's a series of questions with the answer "key" at the bottom...upside down.  Remember the puzzles in magazines like Highlights and World?  They would do the same thing with their answers.  I think I'm so clever. :P

And before that, there was:

(Things that make me crazy: I failed to size this properly and Photoshop has decided not to open for me.  Again.  It does this periodically, and the only way to "cure" is to reboot. Grrr.)

So anyway: I love Instagram.  I do scrap the pictures that have stories, but not all pictures have enough of a story to warrant scrapping.  Does that make sense?  But they are - ultimately - PART of the story. Part of MY story.  And so I'm wanting to make collage pages. Sort of a month-in-summary page.  I don't feel a big need to journal.  These pictures speak for themselves (at least they speak to me).  You might not get the utensil rack full of sea shells, but I'll know they were given to me by Molly after a trip to the beach in Florida.  "Buy Local" might seem odd, but it was doodled into the frost that had formed on the inside of the front window of the store.  And just after I doodled it, the sun came out and was setting, putting the whole window ablaze with that beautiful golden light.  The month also had lots of snow, my first weeks of student teaching and an amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity: being a guest on the Paperclipping Rountable.  Such a fantastic start to my year.  I hope the layout reflects that: how fun and busy and exciting things were this January.

And lastly:

Probably the least favorite of the three.  I love all the little sentiments, I don't like the execution, color scheme and the over all juvenile quality.  Kerig deserves something more dignified.  But it's fun and sweet and happy and celebrates him in a Valentine-y way.

So that's that.  I hope you're keeping warm and making the most of your February.   There are 28 days til Spring.  Which is positively laughable.  Today we had the warmest day we've had in a month. But while it was 39º it snowed like crazy for about 20 minutes. HOW? Tell me how it snows when it's that warm? CRAZY.  So, 28 days until the calendar says spring...we'll see how long it takes for that thought to catch up to Mother Nature.

Thanks for stopping by!

Speed blogging!

I'm downloading a software update and it says I have 25 minutes...oh, wait, 19...oh, wait...27 minutes...er, something like that until it's done. So, I could walk into the kitchen and eat another one of the treats that Aunt Dorothy sent home with us on Sunday - or- I could see if I can squeak in a whole blog post.

Today is my turn up on the Silhouette blog which means I get to get to share here.  I don't love all my pages.  Truth be told, I don't even like a fair amount. :P  But this definitely gets a strong LIKE from me:

As is seems the case about 90% of the time, I end up with these pictures that aren't pre-made embellishment friendly.  In this photo Maggie is playing a game called Headbandz that we got for Christmas.  In the game, you wear a headband and insert a card with a word on it.  Everyone else can see the card, but the wearer can't.  The person wearing the headband then asks a series of yes/no questions to figure out what does the card say.

Is it a person? No.
Is it a place? No.
So it's a thing.
Is it something you wear? No.
Can you buy it at Target? Yes.
Would it cost less than $10? Could be.
Do you find inside a house? Sure.
Is it made of metal? No.
Wood? Could be.

I can't remember all the questions that were asked (and let me tell you, asking yes/no questions is far more challenging than you might think) but she narrowed it down to something very close to a bottle, but WHO THINKS OF A BOTTLE AS BEING MADE OUT OF WOOD? :P

Hence Maggie's adorable, very confused expressions.

And yet, how do you scrap this with conventional embellishments.  Well, as luck would have it, I have a CAMEO. ;)  So I started scrolling through my library, not really sure what I was looking for but hopeful that I'd find something relatively generic.  I figured I'd just have to do a lot of journaling to explain what's going on here.  But when I came across the light bulbs I was thrilled.  Right? Because it the game she's waiting for that A-HA moment when all the yes/no questions result in the right answer.  And I loved the outline style of the bulbs.  And after I found a couple of bulbs to work with I decided to see if there was a bottle that might have a similar vibe to match.  I'm pretty happy with what I found!

So when I started, all I had was the background with all the circles, but I didn't quite no what was going to go on over on the border part.  All things considering, I'm really pleased with how that worked out.

And I was going to talk about the stacked title and show you a quick peak:

but it turns out my download is finished, so I can go back to 'work'. Yay! :)

Thanks for stopping by for a quickie!

Full Cycle

I started this blog a little more than 4 years ago.  I had just moved and I was on the verge of leaving a job that made me miserable.  Even though I wasn't happy with where I was, I was scared of the unknown.

Well, four years (and a couple of months) later, I've recently moved and I'm about to change jobs again.  Unlike four years ago, I feel blessed in my job and my personal life is  fulfilling. So I've come full circle, back where I started, but somehow on a whole new level.  I'm still a little scared about the future, but there's butterflies of excitement in there, too.  It's good.

But my blog isn't really supposed to be about that.  It's supposed to be about scrapbooking, the Silhouette and other crafty goodness.  So without further ado:

I really need to tweak a thing or two about this layout. I'm not satisfied with the word "short" and it's bugging me.  That said, I love that I got this picture out there with that statement.  For a solid year, every time I talked to Ted I would catch him looking at the top of my head.  Hey, buddy, my eyes are down here! (har har har)  He finally passed me up in early 2013, and he's not as fixated on my part anymore.  Somehow it just didn't sink in that he had gotten this much taller than me already.  And "When did I get so short??" was my true gut reaction to seeing this picture.

And in other housekeeping:  I was on The Paperclipping Roundtable this week.  Yeah. That happened.  For real.  Such an incredibly fun experience.

Apparently it was so amazing that it rendered me incapable of writing sentences like a grown up.  The good news is that during the podcast I don't trip over my words and I sound like I have an intelligent opinion.  On the other hand, you could play a drinking came for every time I called Noell "Nicole".  You wouldn't get drunk or anything, but it did happen.  Fortunately it only happened once, and in the pre-show I apologized in advance because I had a feeling I would do it.  Very embarrassing.  But hey, I didn't cuss, so there's that.

That's about it.  Today is my very last day at Dodd Camera.   I start my student teaching stint with an orientation on Tuesday evening and I'll be in the classroom to observe starting Wednesday at 7:45.  Not sure when I'll actually get to take over the classroom, but I'll be sure to mention it here.  I'm working with two cooperating teachers and teaching 2 Algebra II classes and and 3 Algebra I classes.  Yay!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and thanks (as always) for stopping by!

Chilly, Sheldon and 65

Ok!  Raise your hand if you're not sorry to see the end of the 2013!  Raise your other hand if you're hoping that 2014 has more ups and fewer downs.  Yep.  Me too.  Now put your hands down.  You look silly.   :P

I thought I'd sneak in one last post for the year, and it's a two-fer.  Because I was over taken by some nasty malware (which I'm not thoroughly convinced is gone.  If you have a suggestion for an ass-kicking malware detector, by all means, pass it on in the comment section!) -- anyway, because of malware, I was rescheduled on the Silhouette blog and by some fluke I was on both yesterday and today. It feels like all-Caroline-all-the-time over there right now. :P

First up, Chilly:

As is so often the case: I like this in real life more.  IRL it doesn't appear so lopsided - that element at the top looks like it was cut off in the scan here, but it looks more purposeful in person.  That said, I don't love this layout. However, there is one detail that I do swoon over:

I love the way the circles cut from the vellum look.  It reminds me of the snow in the Charlie Brown Christmas special, when all the kids are outside skating.  It just makes me happy.  It didn't show up well in the whole-page shot, but you can see it better in person. And here. ;)

Next up, a goofy layout featuring Sheldon, from The Big Bang Theory:

I realize this looks silly and made up, but I promise, this is a memory for us.  Kerig spent a couple of hours shooting our "tree" (really a spider plant with a silver silver ball hanging from it), the Christmas presents, the Christmas lights and other assorted shots with christmas light bokeh as the background.  I will look at this shot and remember him laying on the ground, fussing with his tripod, breaking out different lenses for different effects.

And I love my CAMEO:

There's something about that crisp, clean cut, the red against the white that makes my heart sing a little.  Can you imagine trying to hunt down a store bought title for this goofy picture? I think not.

So there it is.  This is my 65th post this year.  I had sent a pie-in-the-sky goal of 76 (twice what I did in 2012 and 2011) and I honestly didn't think I'd come this close.  Thank you for stopping by.  I hope that your 2014 is your best year yet!

Ho Ho Ho!

Yesterday was my day up on the Silhouette blog, which means that I'm free to share here. Whoopee!

I bought the Peace Love and Joy paper pack from Lawn Fawn to use on my Advent calendar.  Truth be told, I ordered two of those paper packs, just to be safe.  Turns out one has yet to be touched. Oops.  But I did use more of the paper here.  Because why search through my enormous stash of papers, when I can pick up the pad that never got put away?  The little sequins and plastic snowflakes? They're from an embellishment pack, also Lawn Fawn's Peace Love and Joy collection, purchased for use on the Advent calendar.  And, yep: same reasoning: they were still sitting on the desk.

And it's sort of funny how things unfold in scrapbooking.  I love the background paper.  It's from Elle's Studio and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.  It sort of reminds me of a prisoner's jumpsuit, but I'm willing to overlook that because color on gray is my favorite right now.  It did have two sayings typed on it.  And they were very drippy love related.  Nothing that I wanted associated to some random old guy dressed up as Santa. So I'm glad that the piece of washi tape that says "♥ Merry" covers up the saying without looking too out of place.



I love (love, love) the way the huge scroll-y snowflake looks.  I'm not taking credit - I didn't do anything other than pay for it and cut it out big.  Well, that and spend TWENTY FREAKING MINUTES CAREFULLY PRYING IT OFF THE CUTTING MAT.  Which makes me a crafting genius. :P  But that tool in the picture?  That's the Silhouette spatula that I've been raving about.  And this project (done a while ago) is why I'm now totally sold on this tool.  There's no way that I would have gotten that snowflake off the mat in one piece without it.

Now, that said: I do not like Silhouette scrapper. And I feel compelled to say this so that you understand that when I like something I really, genuinely like it. I'm not just a puppet-for-hire. This blog has been rah-rah-Silhouette loooong before they even had a design team, so yes, I'm prone to loving their stuff, but I'm also prone to not holding in my true opinion.

Okay, so that whole paragraph wasn't to bash the scrapper, it's to say this: when I cut something that has lots of negative bits that are left behind I use an old plastic gift or credit card to scrape them off.  At the right angle those little bits pop right off the mat.  It works best if the mat is laying flat - and that's the hardest part.  Frequently I have to take it to the kitchen table to do it because even though I run a tight scrapping ship, in the middle of a project my desk is still a mess.

I hope that your December is filled with joy and merriment, food, laughter, family and love.  I feel so schmaltzy for saying that, but I mean it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Kicking and screaming towards the holidays...

I don't mind hearing Christmas music at the grocery store.
I don't care if you put up your tree the weekend before Thanksgiving.
When someone says "I'm finished my Christmas shopping" I'm happy for them and more than a little bit envious.

But, for the most part, I'm not one who gets into the spirit.  I'm not cranky or bah-humbug, I just...I just like routine, and Christmas (holidays in general, in fact) really messes with that.

So you can imagine my reaction when I found out that I had to create a Christmas decoration using Silhouette's Advent Calendar.  I was centered somewhere between a knot of dread in my stomach and full on panic.  And that lasted for days.  Every moment in the shower, driving to work, loading the dishwasher and folding laundry was spent wondering how I was going to pull this off.  Surely, I thought, my Christmas non-spirit would show through, and everyone would know I was a big, fat phony when it comes to Christmas cheer.

And maybe that was true in the beginning.  Maybe I was faking-it-til-you-make-it, but just as that implies, somewhere along the way a switch got flipped, and I started to have fun. Then I started glittering stuff and then I started having a LOT of fun.  And then I noticed glitter in Kerig's beard and, well, you just can't get any more fun than that!

Maybe you're asking yourself "So what did you do with it??"  Or not.  But let's proceed like you were actually curious, shall we?

After all the thinking about how I was going to do this, I finally came up with the idea of combining two of my favorite childhood Christmas traditions.  Our family didn't decorate the tree until Christmas Eve (I know, right?  Ridiculous!) so we didn't have the same level of daily anticipation that "kids these days" have. We did get the cardboard Advent Calendars, and the best part of them was hunting for the day.  What was behind the door was never really all that great, but there was something about looking at all the numbers and finding the right one - that was the exciting part to me.  The other thing that I liked was this thing that my aunt made for us.  It's too hard to explain, but it suffices to say that it had 25 peppermint candies tied to it and every night after dinner we got to untie one and have our mint.  Twofold greatness: candy AND getting to watch the line of mints get shorter every day!

So my thought for this was to combine the two elements I liked best - the hunt for the right day and candy.  On December 1st, this will be nothing but rows of numbered bags. On the first day, we'll find the number 1 bag, and have the Hershey's Nuggets that are inside, and then rehang the bag with the decoration side out.  Every day we'll repeat this process, and as Christmas approaches, it will go from boring rows of numbers to lots and lots of sparkling Christmas and winter scenes.

 Here's a couple of the decorated sides:

Ok. I'm not going to pretend that I don't have favorites.  And this snowman and that penguin? They're the favorites.  You can't tell in the picture, I don't think, but the snowman's eyes and coal buttons are actually black glitter.  Who knew there was an actual use for black glitter??  Well. Now you know! Adorable.  (That is so not humble. But I'm just so pleased with them!)

These are distant runners-up in the favorites category, but it doesn't matter, because the cumulative effect of all these little boxes is sheer Christmasy goodness.  This is going to stay on the shelf behind the sofa, where it'll get seen a lot and is easily accessible to for bag-flipping-and-candy-retrieving.

Be sure to stop by the Silhouette blog to see the other girls' ideas for the Advent Calendar.

And if you're wondering about supplies:
Simple Stories Snowflake-Chevron paper (for the bag)(I *love* this paper and wish I had some left over.  the black/grey chevron is fantastic)
Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love 6x6 paper pad (for the little patterned bits)(except the snowman's and penguin's nose - that's a scrap of BoBunny paper.)
Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love Mixed Sequins  and Lawn Fawn Peace Joy Love Snowflake Sequins are the random bits here and there.
The glitter could be from Silhouette or Martha Stewart, and the penguin's hat is glittered using Doodlebug's Sugar Coatin Chunky Glitter
All the shapes except the bag are from the Silhouette online store.  You can see the Silhouette blog post for clickable links for those.
The bag itself is something I made so it would fit perfectly within the structure of the advent calendar and be wide enough to hold a couple of Hershey's Nuggets.  If you're interested, ask for it in the comment section and I'll send it your way.
And, ohmygoodness, is that another aflairforbuttons flair? Why, yes. Yes it is.  And I'll tell you another thing: that link takes you to the set of flair that has the one I used, but I didn't buy that.  I actually did the 12 custom buttons option.  I just didn't have a need for 8 (eight!!) Christmas themed buttons.  So I picked a couple of Christmasy flair and then mixed in some more Caroline-friendly themes.  ;)  (No. I'm not in the aflairforbutton lady's back pocket.  I just love these flair pieces.)


Thanks (as always) for stopping by! I hope your December is off to a great start!

Almost Finished

"Cakes get done, people get finished."  I wonder what little quirky sayings my children will remember about me?  Wow, new world record for digressing.

Last Friday I was heading in to class, walking the long way around to avoid some stairs (giving my knees a rest) and I looked up at exactly the right time.  I usually take the stairs, so I get a different, less photogenic view.  When I looked up and saw the school from this angle, with the tree and the glow of the inside lights - I knew I had to back up a foot or two and get a quick Instagram. 

Sometimes it seems to take forever for Instagram to boot up.  Especially if one is running a little late or if it's chilly (definitely the later for me, I'm usually pretty good about being punctual).  So while I waited I was thinking about I only had 4 more classes in the semester.  That day and one more week.  This is the last math class that I'm taking.  Next semester I'll have one more class, but I'll only have 2 or 3 actual classes - after that we'll be set lose for student teaching.  It'll be a TON of work for certain, but a different kind of work.  More meaningful, more immediate, more urgent, with bigger stakes and more direct feedback.  I'm a little scared and VERY excited.  And yes, all these thoughts ran through my head waiting for Instagram to fire up.

And I wanted to take some time to document this - the excitement, anticipation, nervousness and immediacy - before it was in the past.  

I have a pile of glassine envelopes - I think I picked them up at this weird bulk paper goods place not too far from here.  I've had them forever, and used some and there, oh, and here, too!  (Isn't it great when you have evidence that actually used stuff you bought??)  I also bought a huge box of library cards from a teacher supply store.  I think there were 500 cards in the box and it cost about $11.  I've used a ton of them, too, but barely made a dent in the box.  They've been great for journaling, die cutting and even just making lists or quick notes.  Today I used them for hand journaling.  *Gasp*! I rarely hand journal, for a whole bunch of reasons, but the library cards are liberating, especially in the glassine envelopes - it's easy to start over, the handwriting doesn't have to be perfect since it's pretty well concealed, and I don't have to worry about keeping it short, since I can easily stack lots of the library cards in the pocket. That's a win/win to me.

 Some detail shots.  I don't necessarily think you want or need them, but I'm getting into the habit anyway.  

Some favorites right now:

• Have I mentioned lately how much I ♥♥♥ aflairforbuttons at Etsy?  Oh, I have, haven't I?? Naughty blogger!
• I just found the font Grand Hotel at fontsquirrel.com.  Wait.  Wasn't I just talking about them recently, too?  Hmmm.  I'm turning into my grandmother maybe. 
• The "Math Notebook Washi" blends in too well, which is a crying shame.  It's beautiful.  Freckled Fawn is genius for making it. For me. Let's go with that. I like to feel special, and it's working. 

And there's no link for it, but I do like the swoopy way I did the stitching.  I don't know why I did it, or why I like it so much, but I do.  

And I wonder if I'm the only person who's guilty of using leftover tidbits from recent layouts, even it it might not actually work.  The little star (next to the heart)?  It's a leftover from a recent football layout.  The scalloped circle under the owl is a leftover scrap of paper from that same layout.  The scallop shape is one I just used in a Christmas project I'll share next week.  But when I knew I wanted a scalloped circle to ground the flair, I know exactly which one I wanted to use. And why. (It's the 5 scalloped circles from the Silhouette store.)  The little white tag and the red heart were also in my little bowl of leftover die cuts.  And the aqua blue thread was the thread on sewing machine.  It only just barely works, but it doesn't NOT work, so I wasn't going to go to the effort of changing it out.  I don't know if that's laziness or a sign that I've gone zen in my old age.

I hope that you had a fantastic Thanksgiving and are making it through Black Friday untrampled. 

Plan on stopping by Monday afternoon.  We did a fun project for the Silhouette blog and I'm really excited to see what the other girls came up with and I'll have some extra details and thoughts on here. 

See you then!