Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Adding Pages Into An Album...

I had one of those "dreaded" days today which happens a few times a year... What's that? When I realise that my pile of finished layouts is getting out of hand and that I really, REALLY need to sit down and get them added into an album. I don't know why this happens really. I could just as well add them to my current album as I finish them. But somehow they end up in a pile. And as the pile grows I feel worse and worse for not taking the time to put them into my album. LOL! Anyone else doing the same? Or maybe you used to and then stopped this "bad" habit? I'd love to hear your "strategy" for finished layouts please.

At least now *phew* I can feel happy that all my layouts are in albums... for a little while. Until that inevitable pile starts again... LOL!

The layout above is the next in line for the "Go To Press" class. Writing down how your "creative process" flows. Which is a bit of a long story. Or actually rather simple for me. But this is a story for another day. :)

Monday, September 28, 2009

MeTAV...

Me: The Abridged Version...

...Cathy Zieske's Big Picture Scrapbooking class which is currently on it's last week. This is by far the best scrapbooking album I have ever made. No doubt. I never ever thought it would turn out quite this great. And it's not so much about the yummy album she recommended, or the pretty patterned papers, or anything like that. But about the details that she has made you record...

I finally have an album that is "me". And of course I have scrapped lots of layouts of myself in the past, but I have never really written down all those details that makes me "me". The things I love, the things I hate, favourite foods, collections, family details, music taste, qualities which I like about myself and qualities which I had more of. I let Ross read through my album as I finished it on Friday evening and he was going on about how amazing this was to have, even before he'd gotten to the letter "D". And of course it will be even more interesting to read through in a few years time. Now I just wish I had something like this for everyone in my family :)

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Love It Here...

Thanks for all the nice comments that you have left. I have just been on, one of many lately, walk to the pharmacy to pick up even more eye drops. I'm not joking when I say that I have a huge carrier bag full of medicines that's overflowing. Only a few weeks ago I had to take medication 16+ times per day (a combination of 6 different eye drops and pain killers) and now it's down to about 8-10 times per day. I try to not think about it but it can really get you down at times. Anyway, let's talk about something more fun...

Scrapping...

This is the next layout I have done for the "Go To Press" class. It's pretty much a scraplift of Shimelle's example and I really enjoyed doing a layout with a decent amount of journaling on. This is something that I'm usually quite bad at!

I'm off to start making some lunch. Hope you're all having a great weekend :)))

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Please Meet My New...

...laptop! It's a present from my parents and it got delivered on Tuesday afternoon. It's something I have chosen not to blog about in the past, but this year has been rather tough for me. I have gone through two eye operations with very painful, slow and tough recoveries. I'm recovering from the second one right now (some of the blog post you have seen during the beginning of the month were pre-scheduled ones as I physically could not see to write them!) and I still don't know whether this is something I have to go through again and again for the rest of my life. Not something I want to think about and something I try not to complain about.

However my parents have felt very sad for me (and rather helpless I guess, being in a different country) and wanted to buy me something to cheer me up a bit. I had no idea they'd been in secret contact with Ross and wanted to buy me a new laptop. I was speechless when I finally was told! :)

It's a Dell Studio 17 with 4 GB of RAM and a 500 GB hard drive (very much needed LOL!) And it's GREEN!! And I totally love it to bits!! :)) The 17" screen is amazing!! I totally have the best parents in the world - ever :)))

I'm currently spending all the time installing everything and moving my files over. I'm having some fun and games because at the same time I'm moving from Windows XP to Windows Vista. Oh joy! Still... I feel like the end is in sight (or "blurry sight" right now in my case!) soon and I already know that I loooove this machine :)

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Reading...

This is the next layout for the "Go To Press" class... "A Good Read":

A prompt about reading! I love reading and always have a book on the go so this subject was a happy one for me to scrap. I'm listening to an audio book right now and after that I will re-read the whole Twilight series.

My audio book? I've got to recommend this triology (I'm half way through book 2 at the moment) by Stieg Larsson. A Swedish author who died before his books really took off. Now they are huge and I mean HUGE. Films are being made and they are being translated into so many languages. So much so that he was the second best selling author in the WORLD last year. If you want a good read, really do try them: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest (this last book is only released in the UK on the 1st of October).

Monday, September 21, 2009

Tea Or Coffee...

A few weeks ago I told you about the class by Shimelle that I had signed up for, being very aware of that I had to work on it AFTER the class was finished (as I was not in the country at the time). So basically now I'm multitasking... working on Shimelle's "Go To Press" class and Cathy Zieske's "Me The Abridged Version" class.

This layout was done for Shimelle's 6th prompt. To document our daily habits of tea or coffee drinking. Me? Not so much. In fact ---> not at all. And I do find that people are rather surprised when I don't drink tea or coffee (it's not a choice as such, I just simply don't like either of them)... so I figured this "habit" of mine has never actually been documented. Plus I had some photos of a rather yummy cup of hot chocolate to use... so the perfect subject for this layout of mine. And I scrapped in colours that are so totally NOT me. Cream (ok, I like that), yellow (!!) and red. Having said that, I quite like the finished combination so it was definitely worth taking a step outside the box in terms of colours this time.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Thinking Of Pre-Ordering....

I'm so pleased to finally see a release date for this DVD (7th of Dec). I have been looking for weeks now and it has always said "release date not announced yet". We went to see the film at the cinema when it was released but Harry Potter films are something that I can watch over and over again. Not to mention that I need it for my collection as I can't have DVD 1-5 and not the final 3 DVDs (book 7 is going to be made into 2 films for those who might have thought I miscalculated there LOL!)

In other news: I'm still working hard on the Cathy Zielske class. And I'm still convinced that this will be the best (in terms of content=journaling details) album I have made so far, by a long, long way :)

Friday, September 18, 2009

Trying To Solve A Problem...

Sitting here trying to solve a problem... I have printed out some photos I need for the title page to my album, but I picked the wrong photo template file and consequently I have printed my photos too small. So much for paying attention. Grrrr!

Since I'm running seriously low on my ink (really thought it would have run out already!) and I need to get a few more things printed I just have to come up with a solution to my little problem. At the moment I'm thinking about going with a bit more margin around the general design (which is a grid and everything need to have the correct size). I should learn not to do things like this when I'm tired LOL!

[Supplies: Inspired By Sara - Bree Clarkson, Cherry Sweet - Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Beeping In Style - Lliella Designs, Cutting Templates - Edges - Misty Cato (all from SSD)]

The page above has nothing to do with my stupid printing problem but is a page that I did for Sweet Shoppe Designs. Not as part of my Creative Team work but just because I really liked the kits and I wanted to work with them. :)

Off to solve my photo problem...

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Echo The Bat...

Today I'm going to blog about something totally different to crafting as I just need a 10 minute break. My back is achy from cutting out 52 photos, other various bits of patterned paper and inking edges. So I'm taking a few minutes out to blog about...Echo the Bat. I got him!!

For those who wonder what I'm on about: I collect little Blue Nose Friends teddy bears and they have just made a very limited release to only a few shops of Echo the Bat. So this morning we went on a hunt for said bat and I'm so pleased we found him!! :)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Right Now...

Feeling a bit better today so I'm back working on my album for the BPS class. I just snapped this photo of my desk a minute ago:

The album is needing a lot of preparation. Paper picking, photo picking, journaling, lots and lots and lots of printing and cutting. Cutting patterned paper and letter squares to size. Then an awful lot of inking of paper edges. But once all these steps are done it will be a bit like a factory line for putting it all together - so it should come together pretty fast then :)

Today I'm doing a combination of cutting papers, inking edges (and that's a lot of paper to cut and edges to ink for the 26 pages we're working on right now!! LOL!) and I'm trying to find photos to go with each section of journaling. In total I need to find 52 (!) photos which we'll print at 3x3 using this cool photo grid that Cathy has put together for us (to print 6 photos to an A4 sheet).

Anyway, it's back to cutting and inking for me...

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

There Was...

...going to be a blog post from me today. But I'm not feeling so great today so I'll be back tomorrow. Sorry!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Continuing To Document...

Today I'm busy writing down more of my journaling for the class and making sure that I don't miss out any major parts for my album. My desk is a bit of a mess and I have checklists and word/journaling ideas every where on pieces of paper :)

[Supplies: Key To The Executive Washroom - Darcy Baldwin, Happy Place - Lauren Reid, I've Got A Lot To Say To You - Lauren Grier (from SSD)]

Above is a card made as part of my Sweet Shoppe Designs Creative Team work. I really liked the little paper strip in the kit from Lauren Grier that says "I've got to tell you"... and decided to use this as a base idea for my card. It turned out to be a bit of a "silly card" in the way that you pass on some secrets inside the card. Kinda made me think of teenage girls when I made it :)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

This Is What I'm Working On...

If you're taking the same class, you might have worked out what my little "peek" picture was yesterday... otherwise this might give you a better clue...

It's Cathy Zielske's latest BPS class - "Me: The Abridged Version". What you see in the picture is just the little pre-class jotter for writing down ideas. When I signed up for this class I didn't think it would be anything other than an normal class. But since I have been working on the journaling for this, I have come to realise that this will probably be the coolest album I have ever, ever done when it's finished :)

I don't know about you, but I tend not to manage to fit in too many "normal" things (details and info) in my albums. If I scrap about Christmas, yes I will write about the traditions of that day, what we did etc. And if I scrap a "moment" photo, I will scrap details about "when", "where" and "what happened". But very rarely do I actually sit down and document, in words, little every day details. This will be like an encyclopedia of me... things I like, things that annoy me, people most important to me, food that I love and hate, things that I collect, places where I have lived and for how long, hobbies & interests, music and my fave artists during the years, things that are part of my everyday life right now. Imagine just how cool this will be to read in a few years time?

It's only when I'm sitting down and documenting all these thing that it's really dawned on me: wow, what a cool, cool album this will be. I really can't wait to finish it (which will take another few weeks still) and I will be eternally grateful to Cathy Zielske for coming up with this idea and for getting me to sit down and get all these important details, the things that make "me" me, on paper :)

Friday, September 11, 2009

A Little Peek...

A little sneak peek of what I'm working on right now...

More about it tomorrow :)

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Birthday Card...

This card has hopefully arrived in Sweden by now. It's a hybrid birthday card which I have made for my brother's girlfriend - it's her birthday tomorrow. I posted it late last week just to be sure it would arrive on time even though the post normally only take 2 days.

[Supplies: Forever Friends - Kristin Cronin-Barrow, Mayberry - Kristin Cronin-Barrow (from SSD)]

I really enjoyed working with these kits by Kristin Cronin-Barrow from Sweet Shoppe Designs. That bird is just too cute and as soon as I saw it I just knew it had to be part of the card I was making :)

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

These Are The Stamps...

For those of you who have followed the layouts I have posted during the last few days (for Shimelle's "Go To Press" class), you might have noticed the round stamps that I have used on quite a few of them. "Liberty" left a comment and asked what they were. These are the ones:

They are quite old now. I would guess I have had my set for maybe... 3 years or so, so I'm not sure how easy they are to get hold of nowadays. I would say it's one of my most used stamp sets that I own. If a layout is missing that little something, reaching for these stamps usually solves the problem for me. :) The best scrapbooking purchases are definitely the ones you reach for time and time again :)

If fact, I'd love it if you'd share with me what things are your best scrapbooking purchases? Please take a moment to leave a comment if you have time - thanks :)

Anyway, back to the stamp set. It's called "Sentiments Circles", it's made by Autumn Leaves and the code for the product is: AL2618. Hope that helps :)

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Family Time...

I'm on to a new prompt for the class (yay, I'm so pleased I'm making progress and keeping going with the prompts!!) - this time? "Family Time"...

Perfect for me as I had some photos that I'd taken in Sweden, only a few weeks ago, which I was dying to get into my scrapbooks - so great timing with that prompt. Not to much to journal about really but mainly people's names, the place for the photos and the date. These photos really make me smile :)

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Crafty? ...

This was an interesting prompt for the class...about being crafty... I journaled about my true feelings for this topic...

And how do I feel? Well, I think a lot of people close to me would definitely say that I'm "crafty". Me? I don't think I'm REALLY crafty/creative. I WANT to be creative and I ENJOY doing crafty things a lot. But I don't feel like I'm truly "creative" in the sense that I take the word to mean. I'm sure I'm too hard on myself. But a truly creative person, to me, is someone who has these brilliantly unique ideas ...and I never feel that's really me. Also "thinking outside the box" is very hard for me...again a quality that I think truly crafty/creative people have...something that I wish I was much better at. As I said though, this is just my personal opinion and I'm sure I'm faaar too hard on myself as usual LOL! After all, I only figured out this week that I'm very much of a perfectionist (like waaay too much for my own good) LOL!

Friday, September 04, 2009

Scrapping On a Rainy Day...

The weather is terrible here at the moment. So rainy and windy. Not to mention the darkness. Perfect weather to curl up in a big cosy sweater and get some scrapping done though. :)

A layout done for Shimelle's class on the subject of "having fun". It's a bit strange scrapping in 12 x12 (something that I gave up a few years ago) ...but I figured it would be fun to go with a different format for a change. It's unusual to work with a square starting point instead of a rectangular one...but it does give you some different possibilities so that's always good. And I'll be back to my normal scrapping format after this class anyway :)

Weekend soon - yay! Hope you're all having a good Friday :)

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Music...

Just before I forget, I wanted to answer a question that I got from Sue Bone: will I do Shimelle's "Learn Something New..." class? Well...the honest answer is that I'm not sure. I want to do it since I have done it for the last two years, but if I'm going to be realistic I really do not have the time to take on yet another class right now. Fortunately I get the prompt for free since I have done it in the past so I do have a few more days to think about it. Really, I should say "no" though LOL! I've got Cathy's class starting tomorrow, I'm working on Shimelle's previous class and I have some more plans for the autumn...plus normal DT/CT work. We'll see...

Anyway, as we're talking about classes... As I said last week, I'm now starting to work on Shimelle's "Going To Press" class. I've got 20 prompts to work through so it will take some time, but I guess I can only take it one layout at a time and I will get there eventually. This layout is for prompt 2 - about music and I really enjoyed creating it :)

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

The Start...

Last week I told you about Shimelle's "Go To Press" class that she ran in August. And about how I had signed up for it knowing that I would have to do the class after it was actually run.

Well, I'm doing pretty good so far without getting too stressed about "being behind". Anyone else out there with me...doing the class now? Please pop in and say "hi" if so. :)

Anyway, here's the first page for the class. An intro page to the album (Yes it will be a complete 20 page 12x12 album when it's finished. Pretty cool, eh?):

Apart from a few different embellishments, this is a complete scrap lift of Shimelle's first page. I thought I'd start out easy :)