Vacation Mission 1...Accomplished!

The Travel Album is finally ready to go to the store. This class/album has been a true labor of love. The paper arrived about a month ago, but I had to wait to finish working on another class before I could start. I knew I wanted to use the mask with alcohol inks for the cover and a few techniques from a CKU class by Debbie Schuh. I had most of it done about a week ago and then was cursed not once, but twice by the Bind-It All gods. Depressed and distraught (can you really be both or are they synonyms?) I couldn't face the book for a week. Last night I felt I could conquer my fears and finally get it ready to take in. After lots of practice on the bind-it all I was once again confident enough to try on the book and voila, finally! a good bind. I had to rework some pages, but I pretty happy with the overall result. Here are a few sneak peaks...










Here's the cover, I think it's my favorite part.


and a few of the inside pages. The goal is to make an album that can travel with you and you can add to as you go. Lots of pockets and envelopes to store treasures along the way. Added bonus...lots of ink techniques, I'm going to channel my inner Tim Holtz.



Just in case you're interested...the class will be on June 18th.

Weekend Wind Down

Yesterday was a wonderful day of scrapbooking in Ft Collins with the Pea group. I love these ladies! Amanda P was a wonderful hostess. I came home with 3 prizes, maybe some of Rachel's luck in rubbing off on me. Plus, thanks to a miracle of pre-planning I came home with 5 finished layouts. I think that might be a record for me for such a short crop.

Here's the first of the layouts to share...

is there anything cuter than tiny baby body parts? Look a little different than my usual simple style...totally, that's because it was for a 2 Peas challenge hosted by Ducky. As tough as it was it felt good to stretch my style.

Since it was such a long day, Tanner went to Camp Bow Wow for the day and night --- gosh it was strange not to come home to his happy face.

Today was a work day, we had a teacher quit just a we were wrapping up CSAP and a week before grades were due. That left me to pull her grades out of the curriculum and into our grading software for 180 kiddos. Not particularly my idea of fun, but someone had to do it. Also noticed she was behind on her grading of student writing. When it comes to our educational system nothing depresses me more than reading writing samples of high schoolers who can barely write. I wonder what the world will be like when it is run by people who believe an essay needs only to consist of two sentences, void of capitals and punctuation. I'm not the only one who wonders, ironically I clicked on this link on Arleigh's page and found the post End of Eloquence.

For the waning moments of the weekend I'm content to watch Iron Chef...battle garlic. Yumm-O. Here's your parting thought..."Garlic is the ketchup of intellectuals"

Challenges!?!

of the design kind...

I can't lie, one of the best benefits of working for a scrapbook store is getting to play with so many great products like this great 'seaside' textured paper from Prism...
Most of the time the new goodies are easy to play with and the ideas flow quickly.

Most of the time...

The there are a few things that boggle my creative mind, but it's good to give that part of my brain a break. This week I've been challenged with a couple of products that are way out of my comfort zone.

Challenge 1...Daisy D's Wonder Years Build a Page Kit...Bright colors, digi elements, so not me
Challenge 2...Bo Bunny's spring pink toile, but not just any toile, look closely this is toile with pigs

yes, pigs. I don't know what I'm going to with either, but I think the toile's going to be a bit easier. Maybe?

Stay tuned to see finished projects...