Crop Capers

I've been trying for nearly a YEAR to actually attend a crop with a group I joined! It's only 2 bucks if you come, and it's in a private home not too far from me. I finally went Friday night, and even with all the chit chat I finished a page and worked on two others, that each need "just one more thing!" LOL!!! Oh well, progress is progress.

I followed one of my sketches (see it HERE) for this particular page, and I've been dying to scrap these a long, long time! We were in Cancun and the waiter was a hoot, Gabe got him to pose with the margarita as he was serving it, and the picture came out great...this was even before we had a digital camera, so no retakes on these pics! ;)

I've been SCRAPPIN' :)

I'm not someone who normally scraps pages with just ONE picture, but I had a special request for a one photo layout a couple of weeks back, and why not!? I must say I do have a few lonely misc pictures that must be scrapped this way.

When I organized my pictures the other day I found a fun one of G & Syd playing Xbox! This was PERFECT for the sketch, and I just had to scrap it! They love to play "Dead or Alive" which is a martial arts fighting game...it's kinda funny to see them sitting on the couch, and kicking each others butt on the TV - LOL!!!

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Tomorrow is Friday and I am really happy with the sketch I'll be posting on SCS. If you are one of my blog subscribers, you get a sneak peek! Can't see this one anywhere else (yet), and look at me...I scrapped a sample! :)
This is my girl when she was still a brownie, her first year selling cookies actually. I feel kinda like I cheated though. I didn't stamp ANYTHING! :O But I did use the super YUMMY Designer Series Paper only available through the rest of this month - it's called Afternoon Tea. I also used these WAY cute dimensional stickers from K & Company. They are all about scouting, and how could I resist!? I've actually been hoarding them since cookie season began this year, and still have plenty of them left for some more current photos.
My one and only Cuttlebug alpha makes up the first part of the title, maybe once I get caught up on my June goal I will treat myself to another one! ;)

I hope you are inspired. I think I'm on a little roll and I'm really looking forward to another Virtual ScrapBooking Night (VSBN). I'm hosting a challenge myself on Saturday for the preview. It's like a warm up, the "big weekend" will begin on the 28th. You should pop in and check out the action. It's always a lot of fun!!!

The List is HERE

The new catalog with hundreds of new stamp sets is right around the corner...to be released in early August, so it's time to say goodbye to a few. You have until August 10th to order and the NEW catalog will debut on August 11, 2008.

Click HERE to download an alphabetical list, or visit the promotions page of my website. There is also a listing by page number. That can be the easiest way to go though your catalog and make your final "must have" list of the retirees.

What's on mine?
A monogram or two...or three!
Best Friends Alphabet - GREAT for scrapping, and you can never have too many alphas! ;)
Happy Camper - I just LOVE this cute set!

There will also be accessories no longer available in the new catalog, check back for more details beginning July 21, 2008.

Summer Fun!

Hey there!!!
I have been blessed with a boss that respects me and values the work I do. I don't have a REAL important job, but at this small agency, what I do is vital to the daily operation. Therefore I am very lucky to be working part time for the Summer! My "new" office hours are 8:45 - 12:30 which allows me to be the one who feeds my girls lunch and we have LOTS of fun activities planned for all these afternoons we will share together! *BIG cheesy GRIN* hee hee

One thing we did last week to prepare was list things on paper that we want to do. I gave the girls the freedom to write down whatever they want, and they only wrote 6 the first day. ha ha They filled up a sheet in no time after that and have told me their favorites.

Yesterday we made a little time after our trip to the library to decorate a little jar to hold these slips of paper. My original thought was to let them take turns drawing slips out and we will mark the calendar for a few days, and leave a few days "open." Some activities will require planning, so I'm thinking that will be the best way, but I'm sure we can can choose from the jar and have a "surprise" activity once in a while! ;)

ANAL-ytical Organization

Yes, it's true! I have a dark side, I'm inflicted with the analytical-perfectionist disease! I'm sooooooo obsessive-compulsive about organizing things. Which is pretty funny, if you could see the HUGE mess in my master bedroom, you'd be really confused by this. I think the issue is that only I can see the final result (in my head). You know, the big picture. So until I am READY to make it happen, it ain't gonna happen!

After a statement like that you might be surprised to hear I can scrap out of order. Well that's progress for me! I was stuck in a rut once, needing to stay in date order and NOT getting anything done except the baby books (since you HAVE to do them as the baby grows), and I guess I snapped out of it! Trying to stay chronological is silly!!! Why not scrap what inspires you now, and use up some older pics along the way for good measure?

Yesterday I was planning to to do just that. I have some cute NEW pictures I'm dying to scrap, and PLENTY of older ones lying about as well, but I was so disgusted with the tiny amount of usable workspace left on my counter, that I couldn't function. I ended up pulling things out of the cabinets beneath thinking I'd reorganize and get the stuff on top put away - HA! After it was emptied out I decided (for some unknown reason) that this would be the day I get ALL our pictures in order, and that's where I'd keep them! Never mind the poor neglected layout in progress.



Our pictures are already in photo boxes, and in date order...for the most part. But somehow the boxes have spread themselves to different areas of my master bedroom. Which makes late night scrappin' a challenge in itself. Imagine me looking for "that photo from 2003" and Gabe (Mr. wake up if the cat sneezes) sawing logs in the bed, not pretty! Makes it impossible to even go in there if he's sleeping. So I rescued the 2 boxes in the closet, 2 from the bottom shelf inside the TV armoire, and one in the corner next to the changing table/dresser. Let me tell ya, if we had a fire I'd probably go down with the ship, because I'd be all over the place trying to round them up along with our completed albums...which are in ANOTHER room! *yikes*

Just like most of us these days, I use a digital camera pretty exclusively. So you'd think I'd just have old pics and photo CDs. Well, not so much. I would say "oh, those pics are just too cute," and I'd copy them to a flash drive and get prints made with good intentions of scrapping them right away. Also, to save money, I try to order prints in batches of 50. So I've been collecting them in a drawer at my workstation (yes ANOTHER location) and they're crowding my embellishments! Fortunately I've labeled the envelopes for most of these with true picture dates, and I had to shift things around to include them in the photo boxes. But that's where I keep the CDs, so it's all good!



Now that the hard part is done and all my pictures are sorted. I'm on to phase 2. I plan to go through my albums and make notes of what is obviously missing. For example, my oldest has a March birthday, so if I open up the 2002 album and see Spring portraits and Summer vacation pics I know I need to pull photos to scrap her birthday for that year. I will also go through the archive CD to see if there is something out of the ordinary that I should include. Then I'm going to make a list of all the "missing" layouts for our existing albums and I'm challenging myself to finish at least ONE album this year. That way I can still scrap what I want and I won't be forced to stay chronological.

Well here's some more analytical craziness. I made a spreadsheet, which I'm sharing with you. >>CLICK HERE for a copy. I want to spread the organizational LOVE! hee hee Use it as a reference sheet to keep with your pictures. Just label it whichever year and type in the contents of your photographs. If you have prints like me, keep it in your photo storage with the appropriate year. If your pics are exclusively on CD, this would be a GREAT tool to keep with the disk. It will help you find that certain picture without viewing several disks or even going through a whole year wondering "when was that!?" You will have to view your disks to fill out the spreadsheet, but after you do, you'll be all organized!