Just a peek

I've been busy working on mini-albums. Lots of 'em. I'm still having some problems scrapping. I just don't feel like scrapping pictures so I've decided to give a go to the world of eBay. I've dabbled before and was able to maintain a decent balance for my scrappy supplies. I'd like to try to make a more regular income this time. In order to do that I need to keep listing stuff. :) So, my goal is to have 50 projects made or sold by the time school starts. I'm at about 18 right now including some I made but never listed before. I have plenty of ideas, but between summer school and other things I haven't had a ton of time. I'll get there though even though I have less than 30 days to get 32 done. EEK! Here are some of the covers of what I've photographed.

Back in the Groove, sort of

I have finally willingly and eagerly visited my scrapnook. :) It was a long time in coming. I haven't scrapped any pictures although I might do that tonight too, but I did make two mini-albums to sell on ebay. More than for myself I'm eager to get back in the groove of selling on ebay. A little money certainly wouldn't hurt our family, especially now that I have finally decided I'm ready to add a fourth member to our family. That's *HUGE* for me. HUGE. It's taken me over 3 years to decide that Xander probably wouldn't be an only child.

So, I made two mini albums today. Both using Chatterbox Greenhouse papers and using my Zutter Bind-it-All which just might be the coolest thing *EVAH*. So smooth. And each book only took 6 rungs of a full spine so I could probably make 2-3 more of the same size off of ONE circular spine.

That's all from here for now. Stay tuned for project posting. Coming SOON. *Weee*

I swear . . . .

Someday I'll scrap again. *sigh* No end in sight for the hectic"ness". Finished school on Tuesday, left Wednesday morning for the Upper Peninsula to see my parents, came home Saturday to spend Father's Day with my wonderful hubby and now tomorrow I start with summer school. So far I think I'm missing out on the slow paced summer I was planning for.

Trying to get back in the swing of things

Still trying. Poking along and not feeling very inspired. Several months ago we bought a new computer, desktop. It's awesome. It rocks really; has the TV tuner and I can record shows, etc since we didn't have tivo previously. BUT, the kicker is that it's Vista. And my WB isn't Vista compatible. So, I haven't used it. Now, I need to get the laptop all Wishbladified so I can start using it again. Maybe tonight I'll finally do that. :) I downloaded a bunch of GSD files for cutting. Fun new ones. Cool! I need to make some Father's Day cards and a Baby card too and I have a layout that's been on my desk for pretty much forever now. Scrapping has just never been so HARD for me as it has been lately.

Still MIA

Lots going on here. Lots. Trying to make decisions. Big decisions. Life altering decisions.

And trying to stay sane whilst the school year finishes up. I'm not sure I'm winning that battle.

Scrapping is still on the back burner. It use to be an automatic habit; now it's an afterthought. Something I think, "oh, I should have done some scrapping tonight." I'm hoping to rekindle my relationship with paper this summer. ;) Of course, by then it'll be too hot in my windowless hallway to scrap. HA! Might have to get one of those moveable air conditioners. ;)

But, the school year is almost over - 6.5 days left. Then it's off to the UP for a visit with the parents for a few days and then back again to spend Father's Day with DH and then Monday I start summer school. So, yeah, maybe by August I'll have some time to scrap. ;)

Cards

While I've scrapbooked for nearly seven years not, cardmaking was just one of those things that I sucked at. Well, lately that's all I've been doing. Truthfully, it's been nice and I think I'm finally getting a knack for it. That's a good thing in many ways. 1) It gets me using my scraps 2) It's a bit faster. 3) It's something else to submit to magazines 4) It's something to send in the mail to brighten their day.

The best of intentions

Ah, the best of intentions to scrap the weekend away went out the window when the weather turned out BEAUTIFUL. So, I spent lots of time ouside with my best little friend. And then I shopped online . . . a lot. I just want this house finished. I was waiting and paying it all off a little at a time in cash but I just pretty much relented and decided to buy everything now - it'll all be paid off in the next month or two and the headache and annoyance it will save me will be worth the few dollars in interest it'll cost me.

So I bought this bedding for the guest room/playroom. It's very colorful and will work great in the playroom. I swear it has every color Fisher Price and Little Tikes ever used. ;) The bedskirt will be white and the pillow shams are lime green. Can't wait until it gets here so I can get that room done.

I also ordered shelves for the living room. I'm tired of the boxes of books sitting against my wall. Plus, the bottom shelves are 14" which would be perfect for storing scrapbooks.

I did play on Saturday night when it rained a little. I made one page with the April OPAAT kit. LOVE these kits. They tend to be pretty girly, but I find them really packed full of goodies and look forward to them coming every month. They're having a DT call for the summer. I may or may not try out. Ironically, there's was the last team I tried out for as well. I was going to make a few cards as well, but I never got around to it. Maybe next weekend since DH is off on Saturday AND it happens to be NSD. AND, I ordered a few new goodies from Scrap Supply including the For the Record stamps from AL and the Bind it All machine. I figure the binding machine can be used in my classroom as well which means TAX WRITE OFF! :) Love dual purposing. My kiddos just wrote autobiographies in English class and I encouraged them to "be creative" and "add pictures." I never called it a scrapbook though for fear of turning the boys off to the project. Anyway, I'm sure I can find a cheaper source of wire bindings and then I can bind all of their projects for them. :) Plus, I'm thinking of reviving the ebay mini-album business this summer. I might try regular mini-albums rather than paper bag albums.

Free weekend

Alright, I'm home a lot on the weekends. I'm a bit of a homebody truth be told. :) I like being here. BUT, the last 4-6 weekends have been full of house related work. It's slowly all coming to an end now. My scraproom is now a spare room (which I'm hoping to turn into a nursery in the very near future), the hallway is my new scrap space and in my bedroom is a new computer armoire. Lookin' GREAT all the way around. I feel like we're using our space a LOT better. We have decorating to do but nothing else major. I ordered new shelves for the living room tonight since JCP had free shipping.

So, this weekend I was kind of looking forward to the rain so I could hole up in my new scrap area. It's suppose to be nice this weekend now, but I just might go ahead and stay indoors this weekend anyhow. I have new goodies that haven't even been opened yet including an April OPAAT kit and an order from RMH. PLUS, I ordered some more goodies last night. *blush* What can I say, I haven't scrap shopped in awhile. :)

Hopefully I'll have some new stuff to share, or maybe I'll make something that I'll deem worthy of "holding onto" for another 12 months. :D I'm solo parenting again this weekend though so I've got to hope that nthe new temporary playroom in the spare room keeps the squirt occupied so I can do some scrapping. I did also promise some cookie baking. And we have to grocery shop, but other than that, I'm not going to do ANYTHING that I don't feel like doing.

Nonstop

Life has been b.u.s.y. We've now had every room's carpeting replaced. We've dragged 1/2 of our belongings to the garage and I've gone through it ALL deciding whether it REALLY needed to re-enter the house. We've ordered new furniture and built new shelves. We've put up 5 new closet organizers. I've purged, purged, and purged some more. I've spackled and sanded and primed and painted and now I am exhausted. It has been a LONG month of projects. And we're not done. The garage is still a mess. I need to have a garage sale. I still need to organize all of the stuff I've thrown onto the shelves in the playroom/guest room. I need bedding still and the whole house needs a good top to bottom cleaning. Someday soon, when it's allllll done, I'll share pictures. :)

I didn't make it to 50

I proably should have set a more realistic goal. Like 20. I think I hit 20. I had what, 12-15 things done before. Then I made another 5 cards or so (I've been on a card kick lately) and I finished another layout. :D AND, I broke down and ordered stuff. AND, I have a basket full of more stuff from my most favoritist scrappy site. There were only a few things I loved from CHA and Scenic Route was one of them (of course). LOVE SR. The other thing has been out awhile - the curvy cutter circle system and I love me some circles so I bought that too.

I'll have to post my cards later. They don't suck as bad as my cards usually do.

Sharing

It's been awhile since I've shared much of my scrappy work. Before I took my break I accumulated lots of work I wanted to shoot off to publishers before posting. Then I stopped submitting and never posted. So, here's some work - MOST of it is nearly a year old now.

This was a gift I made for my MIL for Mother's Day. She loved it. I never submitted it because it was a TEDIOUS project. I do, however, have all of the supplies for another one that matches MY living room this time. ;)

An untraditional twist on a birthday layout. :)

My boy - now a FOUR year old, but this was him holding up three fingers last year.

My niece; cute little monkey girl.

Downsizing

I have officially downsized. :) So far I actually LIKE it. Now, it COULD be that I was getting a smidge bored with my old room, or it could be that I know that I was taking up too much space. At any rate, my space is almost complete.

This is what you see as you come up the stairs. Just a little corner, but it's my corner and it is more than some people have. I went with a fresh green color. The wall to the left is "Wheat Bread" which starts downstairs and comes up that wall that it shares with the stairs. The green helps the space retain some brightness, plus my mom bought me a super bright daylight lamp too. And, as you can see I decided against the plastic boxes from the previous post. I saw these baskets at Walmart and decided they just looked nicer. Since I cannot shut the door to this space I want lots of hidden storage. I need to buy two more tomorrow, they'll go on the shelf missing in that gap there - I ordered another shelf from the Container Store, since there's room it might as well get used.



My counter top is wider too. That helps. I cut the melamine myself tonight. (My dad likes to buy me power tools; I used a jigsaw but I think I need to let dad know that a table saw would be lots handier ;) )I was going to wait until it warmed up (because we got 3 inches of snow today) but I couldn't stand not having it done. HA! When we first moved into this house three years ago, my scrap space was the first room completely set up. Some things never change. Our house is a complete disaster area right now! We got new carpeting in our bedroom, the hall/landing and the living room. So there's lots of displaced stuff. PLUS, we're currently installing closet organizers in every closet of the house so there's more displaced stuff. UGH! I cannot wait for everything to be put away, but it'll probably be like this for another month because tomorrow we're ordering the carpeting for Xander's room and the spare bedroom.

Anyway, here's the other cabinet which actually holds most of my stuff, and you can see my clock there which is still in the package waiting to be hung. :)



So I'm all set to create. While I was on hiatus I printed some pictures to scrap later . . . I spent all afternoon looking for them to no avail. BAH! Maybe I'll try some cards; cards have always been my weak spot. I made some sketches for cards awhile back though so perhaps I'll dig those out and see if I can remember how to scrapbook at all.

Once upon a time . . .

Once upon a time I kept my blog pretty up to date. ;) I've been keeping up three journals - this one and a two private ones on another non-public site. Most of my ramblings have been going to the latter. Nothing exciting, just the mundane ramblings of my life - one journal is related to the shopping/renovating going on in the house and the other is just our lives. :) Life is just busy.

New carpeting is being installed Friday and then the real moving around begins. There are at least 3 new closet organizers to be installed and 1/2 of a room (which use to be my scraproom) to be disassembled. I haven't scrapped much at all lately; I got burned out of it physically and emotionally for awhile I think. When I do scrap, I still enjoy it, but I just can't get myself to DO it as much as I use to. So, I've made the choice to downsize. It'll need to be done in the end anyways since the guest bedroom will become a nursery in the next year or two OR the house will be put up for sale and I want people to see the room as a bedroom. The hallway/landing space. Ehhhh, that's expendable. I picked up a soothing green color for the one wall that will be painted a different color than the wheat bread brown. I ordered my elfa wall shelves, a new cabinet and some new accessories. Since my storage needs to go verticle now more than ever I want the storage to be attractive. There are no longer doors to hide everything. I had another cabinet where I hid all of the ugly steralite storage, but since I have to go verticle with my elfa shelves, gone will be the ugly containers. Luckily I scored some pretty inexpensive goodies. The accessories are all colorful and lively since the wall colors won't be quite so wacky anymore. ;)

Here's the clock I ordered:

These boxes:

This drawer unit from the Container store:

Everything is ordered, now I just have to wait for it all. This weekend is carpet rip up weekend. Exciting, yes?

Ah well, is spring finally around the corner?

Doesn't seem like it. It was -5 last night and they're calling for 3-6 more inches of snow tonight. BAH! Last week was more winter than we've had ALL winter; we even had two snow days. And while I usually allow for snow days to foster my creative energies, this year not so much. I'm just not feeling like taking pictures or scrapbooking or anything. Right now I guess the energy is all on the house. I've decided that if we cannot move NOW, since we really don't know that we're going to stay, I'm going to do the things I want done to have this place make me happier. Starting with new carpeting which will be installed ASAP. Measuring is done and Home Depot called today so we just need to go in and look at the estimate and decide which rooms to start with. :)

In other fantastic news, it's only Tuesday but this has been a smashing week. Monday my new 430EX flash arrived with diffuser and today we FINALLY got DSL. Insane that it wasn't available here in my corner before, but it wasn't. NOW we're all set up and ready to go though. That makes it loads easier to share and upload pictures, that's for SURE.

But, now, duty calls and I must be a slave to the stack of papers I brought home with me. It turns out that lugging them around doesn't burn quite as many calories as I might have previously thought. ;)

Home Improvement

Well, here I am not doing much scrapping. Life has still been so busy and exhausting that I haven't yet found my happy medium. I've been doing a lot of thinking and soul searching about my job, family and home in that time. I'd love to move, but it's going to be at least another year or two before that will be a possibility so inbetween now and then we're going to do everything we can to make our home a nicer place and more valuable when we sell.

So, I thought I'd go ahead and use my blog to organize my thoughts on that topic for now. :) We're trying to update and make tasteful changes but still keep it on the cheap.

Outdoors we need to keep landscaping but I don't have a plan for that yet. What I do know that we need is:
1) A shed $800
2) New light fixtures

Option A
Option B
Option C ** Current Favorite

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $900

Living Room
1) Carpeting: $1000
2) Paint Closet: $25
3) New Closet shelving: $40
4) Closet doors: $40

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $1105

Back Hall
1) Paint closet and ceiling: $25
2) Doors to closet: $60
3) Optional: front loading washer and dryer $1500
4) Optional: Counter top to mount over washer and dryer $50
5) Door to back Hall: $50

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $135 to $1685

1st floor Bath
1) Medicine cabinet: $35
2) Light for over cabinet: $80
3) Paint: $25
4) Fan/overhead light: $90
5) Door: $50

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $280

Xander's Room
1) Carpet: $400
2) Paint closet: $25

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $425

Kitchen
1) Counter: $200
2) Carpet for stairs: $500?

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $700

Upstairs Hall
1) Light (already have)
2) Paint:$25

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $25


Upstairs Bath
1) Floor: $60
2) Paint: $25
3) Door for Linen Closet: $60

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $145

Master Bedroom
1) Carpet: $500
2) Door: $60
3) Closet door 1: $40
4) Closet door 2: $40
5) Remove paneling and paint drywall: $50
6) Closet organizers: $100
7) New Bed: $1000

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $790

Third Bedroom
1) Carpet: $500
2) Door: $60
3) Closet Doors: $120
4) Remove paneling and paint: $50

ESTIMATED TOTAL - - - $730



GRAND TOTAL - - - $6235 to $7785

Not too bad considering the overall improvements that will be made. :)

Overzealous

Fifty is a big number.


Yup, fifty was the plan for buying new stuff . . . me thinks I'm going to have to drop that number. LOL! Heh.

I'm currently sitting here with a mess. I've been trying to work but NOT doing anything for so long has made me more slow and indecisive than before. Not so good.
- I have 3 finished layouts
- 2 layouts finished minus journaling
- 8 finished cards
- 1 layout that's been sitting here since Oct that we'll call 50% finished
- 1 Christmas ornament

Now I have lots of supplies left, and lots left to scrap. I think I counted like 10 pages of Xander's 3rd year so far. BUT, I only have 12 projects done. sheesh. At this rate it'll be summer CHA before I buy anything. *gasp*

Challenge

Sometimes we need a little challenge to get movin' no? That's my thought anyhow. Part of what I loved about submitting and being on a team was the challenge of completing something within a deadline, and completing something "worthy." As in pub worthy. ;) It's been months since I've submitted or designed for a team, but I wanted to challenge myself to get back into the scrappin' arean. :) So . . . to kill two birds with one stone I am challenging MYSELF to use up some of my stash. CHA is coming and I have GOT to use up some of my stuff before the new releases start coming out. I am challenging myself to complete FIFTY projects before I purchase anything new (other than adhesive, of course). They can be cards, mini-albums, altered object or pages but there need to be 50 things done. Not sure I CAN do it, but I'm going to see what I can do. I'm thinking mini-alums might be a great way to go so I can sell on ebay and make MONEY for those CHA goodies. ;)

So, in honor of my challenge I've been trying to squeeze in scrapping here and there over the new year. I have one altered project, an ornament I finished just in time to put the tree stuff away; I made some cards for the winter months; and I have 1 layout on the scanner now and another on my desk. :) Feels goood to get scrappin' again. Off to work some more.

Life sometimes deters plans

Our life took a bit of a turn; went off the beaten path (for us) back in November when E took a different job. It's still just a part time job, but it has a SCHEDULE unlike subbing so it enabled us to take Xander out of daycare except for the days E works. It's a very nice set up monetarily.


But everything has it's price . . .

I will admit that I was quite spoiled by the amount of time I got to myself previous to this new job. Anytime after dinner I could take off up to my room and tinker around. Saturdays and Sundays I often spent hour upon hour in my room altering, printing, and scrapping pictures. Never a complaint from E, and certainly none from Xander because his daddy is unequivocally his best buddy. Friday nights we'd go out for dinner together. In the evenings E and I would watch a movie or I'd scrap some more. Some weekends we'd take off for the mall/city for a day of browsing (since our tight budget allows for little shopping) . . . it was a blissful existence.

Sadly that is no longer my happy little existence which is part of why I have scrapped nothing other than gifts since October. Okay, I made myself ONE ornament with the December Kit from One Page at a Time. Have to make the kits worth buying you know! ;) Anyway, E works 5 days a week 2/3-10. And three of those days are ALWAYS Fri, Sat, and Sun. *sigh* It's been a difficult adjustment. Truthfully, I'm not adjusting well at all. LOL! I'm lonely so I spend most of my time on a site that I joined way back when I was preggo with Xander. It's essentially an online playgroup. So I chat with them and write in my journal there since my life is including very little creative endeavor these days. By the time I get Xander in bed at 7:30 I'm exhausted from working all day and playing single parent all evening. Then I still have papers to be graded. Most nights I'm so tired that I'm asleep by 8:30 or 9:00 myself. Even tonight it's barely touching 9:00 on a Friday night and bed is sounding like a great plan. Weekends aren't much of a break since E leaves at 1:00 for work. It's just been hard; I don't particularly do well with change. :P I know that there will come a time when this will become "normal" for me and won't seem so hard, but right now I am just exhausted and Christmas Break wasn't all that revitalizing this go round. So, that's where I'm at now. Not scrapping much and just trying to keep my head above water. Once things become routine then I may be able to FIND the time to re-add those things I've had to cut back on - like scrapping. :)

Creative Energy

My creative energy was at a standstill for awhile. Since October maybe. The last layouts I created were with the KI Memories Halloween papers. Then I moved onto mini-albums for ebay, and then I stopped completely. I love making the mini-albums so I don't know what happened there. I guess I just got too busy, or too stressed or maybe a combination of both.

Then came the holidays. More stuff to do and less time for scrapping maybe. BUT, I always "make" stuff for Christmas. No matter if I say I'm not going to or plan on it, I ALWAYS end up making something. So, I've been *thinking* about getting back into my room. Today, I FINALLY did it. And I've got to say it felt darn good. :)

I altered a flower for a bow holder for my niece for Christmas, or AM altering. It's not quite finished. I've started two ornaments. I'm working on a calendar for my mom. I think the flow is returning. Best of all, I'm finally using all those RF stamps I bought ages ago. :)

O Christmas Tree

Growing up in the Great White North we had a real Christmas tree . . . for awhile anyway. I wish I had the pictures to support the story, but alas I do not.

Every December we would venture out to my Grandpa's house, way out in the middle of nowhere where he owned some obscene amount of acreage. We'd drive out and find ourselves a "great" tree. Indeed, some of those trees probably were great. Ironically though, perfection is not the theme of this story and perfection is NOT what I remember or what has been passed on through the great tale of Christmas trees in our family.

When I was about 4 or 5 my dad took me with him out to the woods to find the tree. I guess my mom and brother must have stayed back, been sick, etc. My dad wasn't usually the doting father and for the most part I was not a daddy's girl, but the year I was five, my dad and I were close because he was laid off from his job and spent the afternoons with me after I got home from kindergarten. So, that year when we went into the woods together he let ME choose the family Christmas tree. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Well, if you are a parent you know that any Christmas tree is beautiful to a small child and trees with snow on them are even more beautiful. I chose THE tree, a tree that was "perfect" in my little childhood eyes. My mom . . . she did not see the perfection that I saw in that little tree, so in our small family circle it became known as "The Charlie Brown Tree."

The following year it was my brother's turn to choose the ole' tanenbaum. He was 6.5 years older than me and certainly a 12 year old could choose a better tree than a 5 year old right? One might think that. Mark went out, maybe even by himself, across the road from our house, and back he came with a sled full of pine boughs sticking out. It's the kind of tree that I'm shocked my dad could even get through the door. It was ROTUND to say the least. In fact, I think the tree my brother chose might be better described as a bush. The star on the top was so buried in the branches you could barely see it. And so it was affectionatley called the "bush tree."

THAT was the last year of my childhood that we had a real Christmas tree. From the next year on we had an artificial tree. That was fine, and it was more "perfect" in the traditional Christmas tree sense. So, while we all try so hard to achieve perfection during the holidays, perfection doesn't always make for the best, family stories.