still busy

a little bird watching

(see http://smallsmackerels.blogspot.com/ )

a little card making with my girlfriends yesterday.

so no scrapping.

However yesterday afternoon i did a lot of scraproom cleaning

it seems i'm cleaning up in here once a week.

I make a lot of pages, cards, whatever

and the room turns into a disaster area

(as i pull things out of every nook and cranny - trying to use up my stuff)

I'm still not done with the cleaning up however my

drawing table is considerably less junked up

yesterday there were piles of stamps, stamp pads, stacks of cardstock

now just a few things.

so i can work i think now

In the meantime i've got a layout to share

A two pager with pics from a play my daughter was in. Some cardstock, vellum quotes, quickutz star die, a 3D keeper from Deja Views to hold a dried flower (daughter received at the play), and a cut up page protector to house the program from the play.

Now to stop blogging and get on with some scrapbooking (along with some laundry.......)

suzy's been busy

doing other things -

check out

http://smallsmackerels.blogspot.com/

among other things. i'll post them over there probably tomorrow

i've had a few layouts on my desk

which i've had to remove to make a few cards

so i'll get back on track soon

having family around all holiday weekend was also not conducive

to getting any scrapping done.

but that's ok

all those pictures aren't going anywhere

i did have a few interesting ideas however that i'll share soon

About saving memories when there aren't any pictures.

hopefully i'll be back tomorrow

in the meantime, another one of those layouts i'd made week before last. this one i used a vellum quote i had about family

It was wednesday

sorry i didn't get back to post yesterday. i promised to add some more things i'd done last week. so today i'll give you two:

i've been catching up on my daughter's school album. we're into a new album (pre-k thru middle school is huge - in horse terms it's one hand high LOL) i started for high school. Actually i should post the main page to that one soon. I like my idea - taking the index file pics and using them to create a cover page for her entire high school career. yeah - i'll post that one next week. Anway this photo shows you a bunch of pages i made to catch up on last year and the beginning of this year in her album. Homecoming from last fall, first day of school this year, the school portrait and a pic from summer school and her report card for the summer class she took (they offer classes during the summer at her school so they can pick up classes they need but can't fit into their schedule during the regular year). No fascinating techniques used here. Just a lotta Quickutz!

this page came about because i had three random photos of things (one from the spring formal which really wasn't too formal LOL) and two from the last day of school. So i thought why not just put them on the same page and call it a day. and it worked out quite nicely. i used Quckutz for the word Formal and a quickutz tulip die (i love that little die!) as well as Purple Onion Designs alpha Skinny Dip which is the cutest alpha and worked just right.

ok... i've gotta run.

It's Tuesday

but i'm not posting something yet about the category for the day - me

i will give you another pic of some pages i made last week but first i'm going to digress a little and tell you about 2 books.

The first one i just included in my sidebar - i'd pulled it out last nite and realized i should mention it here:

Scrapbooking Life's Little Treasures by Rebecca Sower

if you don't have this little treasure i highly recommend it. I think i've got most every idea book there ever was - up until about 1 year ago - when i decided they weren't doing me any good. (I don't want to put anyone's book down - i had just come to a place where it was not for me anymore. I was on my way mentally to the Suzy place i'm now at in my head - how's that?)

I absolutely adore this book. I return to it over and over to just look at and be inspired by. I actually have her other book Scrapbooking Life's Little Secrets as well - and a fine book it is - but the Treasures book will always rank among my favorites.

If you're interested I'm sure you can find it available from the Creating Keepsakes website.

Okay - i said 2 books

The second book is a novel.

Rockville Pike by Susan Coll

here's a link to it on amazon ( i wish i could figure out how to hide these links within the title - however )

http://www.amazon.com/Rockville-Pike-Suburban-Comedy-Manners/dp/B000OZ28JW/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-3756686-2294242?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179870804&sr=8-1

I'd read a review in the Washington Post some time ago about this book - named after a road in not-s0-far-away Maryland. I am always amused by books with familiar locales in them (and we always get hysterical at references to the area in movies - they always show lovely locations but the actual geography of living in the Nation's Capital area - well you never see the traffic in the movies and it never seems to take any time to get anywhere LOL) but what really intrigued me is that the main character gets involved in scrapbooking! It's a small but somewhat important part of the story. I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend the book but it was strangely amusing and the references to scrapbooking definitely had been researched (perhaps the author had been to a Creative Memories party or two).

Okay here a few more layouts i've accomplished. Nothing fancy but I had a lot of photos of places in Washington, DC. We'd done a day downtown for the Cherry Blossom Festival and to see 2 of the monuments we hadn't been to (WWII and Korean War) and revisited a few others (Lincoln and VietNam). I used some River City Rubber Works stamps as well as Quickutz Zoe.

It's Monday

and its time to plan again
actually today i'll be going thru my RTG (ready to go) file
I've been getting so much done my file is getting smaller
this is a good thing
but it also requires that i see what needs to be done imminently and also to start planning some pages for the future - so when i've got time i can just pick up and work on something!
i'm pondering a few possibilities:

working on my wedding photos (not the official wedding photographer album - got that - i'm talking about all the photos people took that day and gave to us, the memorabilia from that time frame - that kinda stuff. i actually put all that stuff in an album years ago. during the first year we were married. I've been married - eek - over 22 years! so that means all that stuff is in a bad, i mean BAD kinda album. So i really need to make this a priority.)

working on my kids baby albums - from reading previous posts you have already assessed the ages of my kids - one in college and one in high school. so Yes - working on baby albums is long overdue.

those 2 projects alone could keep me busy for a long time. Not as much the wedding album - the kids baby albums and childhood albums. I've been working on their school albums for a long time and they are mostly up-to-date.

Ok so thats what i'll be doing today in my spare time - which is not so spare today but i'll do my best. I promised more pages so here's another.

i used Purple Onion Design stamps: Pink Flamingo Small, Skinny Dip (the word "smiles") is colored in with prismacolor pencil and the little flourish is from the Vintage Journaling set.
ok - go make some pages or plan something to make this week ok?

I know i know

I promised days ago i'd be posting all kinds of pages i've been doing.
And i will. I will keep my promise and post them.
I took tons of pictures of them.
It is just the way life is around Suzy's house.
Things happen.
And scrapbooking didn't go by the wayside this time
I have made even MORE pages in the last few days.
But blogging did go by the wayside.
It takes time - uploading photos etc etc takes away time i wanted to use to scrapbook when i could fit it in between little crises round here.

So... I promise - i will upload more but right now i'll throw one out into cyber space just to show you Suzy ain't full of baloney :-)
i don't think the photo is the best (i laid a bunch
of layouts on the floor and starting taking pics) but i was quite pleased with this one. I used stamps from my favorite company www.purpleoniondesigns.com
the alpha is pink flamingo large and the flowers are also POD stamps! cute huh? i stamped them and then used prismacolor colored pencils to color them in and used the Magic Colored Pencil technique to blend the pencil.
more to come hopefully tomorrow!
Oh - i forgot to mention i used a new punch from StampinUp to create that scallop border on the left. And yes that is me and my sisters - i'm the one on your left with the glasses.

Wednesday - Family Husband

I will probably return a little later to post something for today specifically but i'd promised to show some stuff i've been making. I need to do a few errands this morning so I'll post this one now and come on back later


I made this one about my (paternal) grandmother. I have more to tell about her but this was the first page with 3 photos of me and my older siblings. I used some Chatterbox paper that i love and stitched it. I also added 2 ribbons - on on top of the other and created a loop at the top which i kinda like. And finally i added some drawings of my own to illustrate. This for me was essential as my grandmother liked to adorn letters to me with her drawings. Whenever I find myself thinking about her i seem to draw the same little drawings: ones with strawberries, pudding, and smiling flowers in pots - all things that mean Mom-Mom to me. She was a wonderful grandmother. Oh yeah - i also used my quickutz index tab die. And the drawings were done with pen, ink and colored pencils (prismacolors natch)


I decided I will be doing more of my own little drawings in my scrapbooking. Seems much more me than anything else.

Tuesday - Pocketbook Lover

So here's a page about me 'cos it's Tuesday.

I don't think I've ever done this many pages about myself - it's because I'm working that Schedule (over to your right - a day for each topic)

And that is really a great thing

Most of us never take the time to scrapbook anything about ourselves right?

Well, I haven't done much of that.

I've got a lifetime of photos to do (and while we won't mention my age, suffice it to say that's a lotta pictures!)

I had this picture of me at around 3-1/2 years old holding - no, more like holding on for dear life - my pocketbook. It just cracked me up - perfect evidence in photo form that I've always loved a purse. And i'm all dressed up in a pretty dress with a matching little jacket. (very much the fashion at the time for girls of all ages dontcha know - although i still don't know why i'm holding a black purse - it doesnt match and that was definitely not the fashion. My mother dressed us impeccably when we were little. We had hats, shoes, gloves, coats - the whole shebang. Perhaps she didnt deem it necessary to match the purse for the one occasion - whatever)

There's a lot of information in that one little picture for my kids but i did just focus on my pocketbook-love.

I would like to note here that the color is completely off in this scan. The cardstock has definitely a salmon cast to it - to go perfectly with my dress. I got lucky and had a piece in my stash that went quite nicely. I put two pieces of ribbon together side by side - it is pretty thin ribbon but the color was right. I used a Marvy punch i had to create the border - which, if you can see it, is reminiscent of the trim on my little jacket.

And lastly the pocketbook charm.

Maybe 3 years ago I was in a local bead store looking for - beads - and saw this little charm. I snapped it up the minute i saw it. I knew I would use it one day - most likely on a scrapbook page.

So - with the pocket book charm in mind - here's my advice for the day:

If you see something cute - inexpensive - and you know you'll use it one day:

Don't even think about it - buy it.

If you don't, you won't find it later - trust me.

Perhaps my taste is boring.

I prefer to think of it as classic. :-)

I don't have much in my stash of supplies that I wouldn't use today.

Or in 5 years from now.

So picking up something I knew I'd use - like this charm - is something i do on a regular basis. But again - I stay to the classic look that i love.

Not a lot of trendy stuff per se in my stash of shtuff.

Oh I forgot to mention the mat for the photo is my favorite Stampin Up floral background stamp. I stamped it slightly crooked.

Not on purpose i assure you.

But it is a true test of my perfectionist rehabilitation that it doesnt bother me in the least it is a little off.

My page is done - HA!

And also - the alphabet stamps are made by www.purpleoniondesigns.com (wow what a surprise huh?) - the name of them is Pink Flamingo. So cute!

ok....on to taking a few pictures of the layouts i've been doing the last week or so

Monday morning hello

As you can see to my right - Monday is my planning day.
Sort of a catch all day in my scrapbook world
In addition to planning some pages to work on the rest of the week
I'm cleaning up in my little craft room here.
I know i'm very lucky to have a room devoted to my stuff
It keeps it all in one place
although when it is messy
as it is now
i often take things out of here and work downstairs
which for me is productive - i still get to work on things -
yet this room has reached the point of explosion.
The "i can't stand it" level of mess
It makes it impossible for me to think in here with so much stuff
on the floor, all over my drawing table, on my computer desk.
I am one of those people who can indeed work in the mess
I can find things in piles of mess
But to be creative, and productive, I need a little order
So Monday's are good for planning, cleaning up and starting new.
I'm also hoping to get a little scanning of old photos done
That's a long range project i've been working on.
Tons of photos from my childhood that I'm scanning into my computer
Categorizing by the people in the photos
When i'm all done - it's going to take months - i plan to give a CD of the pictures to both of my sisters. They are big subjects of the photos along with myself, our brother, parents and grandparents. My sisters will love this gift. Everyone in my family loves to look at old photos and reminisce.
Between today and tomorrow i also will be taking some pictures of what i've been making.
Latest pages.
I also want to mention a few other things:
In case you haven't visited Purple Onion Designs lately you may not have noticed - POD is in June's Creating Keepsakes hilighting the fabulous vintage postmark set! Check it out here
www.purpleoniondesigns.com and click on the "As seen in Creating Keepsakes" - great samples at the bottom of that page too.
If you didn't get a chance to see Martha's shows last week - they were all about scrapbooking. There are some great videos from the show on her website. My absolute favorites were the segments she did with Darcy Miller who showed off theeeee most wonderful scrapbooks she has made.
They are my kind of scrapbooks - real old-fashioned - tons of scraps, bits and pieces of their lives - scrapbooks! Check out these links and watch the videos. I think it may just remind you what we all started scrapbooking for - it did me

http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=8713f6d63d272110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=darcy's%20scrapbook&rsc=ns2006_m1
and
http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=5f11d69a31571110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=darcy's%20wedding%20scrapbook&rsc=ns2006_m2

still scrappin

just being a bad blogger
Actually in the last two weeks i've gotten a lot of pages done in between this and that.
What i need to do is take a few pics. I promise i'll do that for tomorrow
In the meantime - i did do a bit of scrapbooking on National Scrapbook Day. While i was cutting and gluing etc I watched QVC which was having a little scrapbooking day. Those are always fun to watch. I didnt buy anything which is a good thing. Still trying to whittle down my sizeable stash. The only thing i'm finding is that i'd like some cardstock.
I seem to use the same colors over and over.
And now i'm pretty much out of all my favorites.
I'll have to make do in the meantime - which may encouage a little more patterned paper useage. I adore patterned paper - not unlike most scrapbookers i know. I have found that while i love the paper I don't use much of it on my pages. I definitely use it on my cards. But the pages - not so much. I have tried to figure out why and the only thing i can come up with is - the paper fights too much with the kind of photos i take.
Like I've said before, I'm no photographer. I love to take pictures but have no inclination whatsoever to become a some faboo photographer. I'm recording moments with my photos. I don't want to get all caught up in the photo taking. I am happy to just point and shoot. And i don't want to pose anyone - other than lining up family members to fit them all in the shot!. There are times when I do closeups and attempt to get a better shot - but a lot of my photos have extraneous things. The things either get cropped out or they don't. And if they don't - well sometimes the things fight with the paper.
At least that's what i think is the problem.
And as problems go - that's pretty minor right?
see you tomorrow with some pics

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

yes, i've been among the missing - suzy did get in a little scrapbooking over the past week but no blogging time. i'll be better i promise. Things happen and stuff to do is all.
However i couldn't let today pass by to check in and hope y'all are celebrating the day by doing a little scrapbooking.
Me - well right now as i type here -
i've got QVC on in another window on my computer screen :-)
I'm not buying anything - i have enough stuff right now
(truly the understatement of the year - or many years)
but its fun to watch and there are always great ideas to be had.
Actually what i did right before i came up to my little scrap room here -
i was taking pictures
:-)
my daughter just got home from her all night cast party
(we went to see the final performance last night)
Her dad collected her from the party house - there is always one brave set of parents who host the party (and really they aren't that brave - these are a bunch of absolutely awesome kids who, at the most, might get a little loud - but they are the most amazing high school kids I've ever had the pleasure to meet - so not brave parents - perhaps lucky to live close enough to the school to host the party!) Anyhow he picked up our daughter and brought her home and she did what she does every time she comes home from one of these cast parties....
she heads to the family room couch
and falls asleep within 5 minutes.
The kid has been running on fumes for weeks (school and practice for the play has been keeping her running from 5:30 am when she gets up to at least 10:30 pm when she has gotten home)
so today is her sleep catch up day
and i always take a picture of this couch crash
cos i think it sums up this part of her life pretty well. :-)
(and not incidentally how we - her mom & dad - feel as well - we need a long nap too!)
so are you taking pics of things like this to remember these little moments?
I hope so - if you aren't - think about it, k?
Happy NSD kids!