Working with what you have and GASC

I have been working with what i have for a few months now. Trying not to buy anything. Finding ways to use my stash (which, people, is considerable. I have a room full of scrapbooking, stamping, sewing and art supplies. Literally a room full of shtuff) I've mentioned before that in my favorite Rebecca Sower book she talks about not getting all concerned about having the perfect shade of cardstock. I aspire to this point of view. I am a color person. So lately I find that

yes - I can use up my stash - but to do so I am using up my neutrals. Things that go with anything. And avoiding color - cos if I use color it has to coordinate. It can't clash. My teeth will hurt if it does ok? So the other day - Thursday I guess it was - I decided i'd do some more laundry (see previous post) - and do a birthday layout. My daughter's last birthday. I looked through the photos and then went to my carsdstock and paper and thought WHAT am I going to do. I finally - i mean i spent maybe 10 minutes pondering the possibilities - chose this Bazzill orange. The daughter's favorite color is orange. There was some orange in the photos (miniscule as it was ) and better still - there was blue - which always will compliment the orange. (get your color wheel out if you are puzzled). Next I went to my patterned paper - I really need to use this stuff up. I flipped through a lot of paper and finally i happened upon this Imaginisce paper. (I have no recollection of buying this paper - at all.) And you know - it went really nicely and had stars all over it. I thought - she's my star so why the heck not. Some Quickutz Zoe font added and i was pretty much done. There were a lot of photos that birthday for some reason. I ended with 3 pages. Yes, I used my Creative Memories cutting system to cut out the photo of the cake (or rather the Ice Cream Pie - its a family thing). If you don't have the Creative Memories Cutting system, I highly recommend it. They have theeee best cutting stuff around.

Onward

The Great American Scrapbook Convention rolled into town again this year. I've gone every year. I hate to say it but it was not the experience it has been in years past. The first few years it was wild - you could barely move around and the noise was just incredible. Now granted I got there not long after they opened on Friday. I am sure that today it will be a lot busier. However, I wasn't finding the shopping so great. It's possible, because I have so much stuff, I just wasn't finding it tempting at all. I think its more that there just isn't the product that is knocking my socks off. I think its peaked out ladies. I've been saying this probably the last two years - the industry is gonna peak out and fall hard. Just too much all the time and really fast and finally there will be nothing i have to have.

Having said that - I did indeed buy a few things. First - I spied one scalloped circle giga punch by Marvy Uchida. I have the scalloped oval and was kicking myself I hadn't gotten the circle. There it was - and i wasn't going to hesitate cos I only saw the one.

I also happened upon a booth by a company I don't think i've seen before: Distinctly Me They were the nicest two ladies with some lovely products and, as I told them, the nicest layouts on display at the whole convention. They had the most classic layouts I've seen displayed. Not tons of product all over them - just well designed, good looking pages. And you could see their photos. The pages would sell anyone's products the way they were done. Anyway i bought a package of very pretty cork embellishments as well as a bottle of something called Paper Glide made by Inspired Crafts . They demonstrated this product for me and I was sold - it makes dry embossing very easy to do - the stylus just glides right over your paper.

Okay - I need to do non-Suzy things now. I do have a little special project I hope to share in the next few days. We'll see how much time I get to work on it over the weekend.

birthday layouts are like laundry

no sooner than you're done with it then it starts all over again
know what i mean?
i don't really mind doing them.
actually i enjoy looking at the pictures
i get nostalgic
birthdays past
i'm kind-of-a sappy sort anyway
especially about my kids (although i don't think they'd describe me that way)
however, i digress as usual
The point is my RTG file is full of birthday layouts waiting to be done.
Since yesterday was Thursday (my kids day - see the schedule to your right) i chose to do my son's last birthday (it's practically his next birthday! a big one at that)
I looked at what i had - a few pictures and a variety of birthday cards. There seemed to be a lot of green so i went with some green patterned paper. I mounted it on top of some white cardstock so it wasn't so flimsy.
I'd made a birthday card - hey June remember that class? - and thought it would make a good title - why make another when i had a perfectly good card to do the job right?
i did want to put a caption under the main photo - my son making one of his silly faces at me - he really is most cooperative of my picture taking - but he also is a little bit of a clown.
On the left side i made a pocket for all his birthday cards (i can't help myself - i save every card). The one with the pirate caricature of my son was drawn by my daughter - she's pretty darn amazing isn't she? And, for him - the card was perfect. He loved it.
So there you have it.
Just like most of the layouts i've been doing since adopting my Suzy philosophy - there's no award winning layouts going on here. no amazing design.
There is, however, lots of scrapbooking getting done.
And I'm happy with that.
oh - a few products i should note - Purple Onion Designs Submarine alpha for the "this is what 20 looks like" caption and some very old (but who cares cos its festive and birthdays are all about the festive) Making Memories green paper with dots. Also if you're curious - thats a MiMi accessory tote holding some other rubber stamps i have (decided against using them - they didnt have the right look and didnt fit the space well). I love this little piece of organization. I dont bring myself places to crop much - but just having 3 sets of tiny stamps all in one place is wonderful.

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.......)

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.

Birthdays

Huge subject of scrapbooks - birthdays - well, at least my scrapbooks.

I suspect its fairly typical in most scrapbooks.

One of those events that must be documented.

For every birthday, I take pictures of the birthday girl/boy, the cake, presents.

The usual I guess.

When the kids were younger we'd take pictures at their birthday parties.

I'd make sure to get shots of the guests, the cake, the presents.

Maybe capture a few of the games or activities at the party.

All kind of typical. I spose maybe someone would think - how boring.

But I don't. I really enjoy looking at those birthday pictures.

I love making the birthday party pages.

Birthdays are a big deal.

And the pictures and pages - well think about it like this:

Birthdays are probably THE only time you don't forget your camera.

Who doesn't take a picture of their kid blowing out the birthday candles?

And since you have that shot - the obligatory cake and candle shot - that's a little timeline you are creating for that person.

You'll always have that birthday picture.

And what they look like on that special day.

I suppose you could say the same about the first day of school picture

or the actual yearly school portrait

But the birthday picture -

It's always special.

Cos it's that person's special day.

And there is always a special smile - a real one - in those birthday pictures.

Anyway - here's the most recent birthday page I've done.

Actually I just finished it about 10 minutes ago.

And it took about that long to make - even better!

I used another one of those Making Memories Perspectives, my sewing machine and my Quickutz (this time the Zoe font).

Oh i forgot to mention - i inevitably make a pocket somewhere on the birthday pages - to hold the birthday cards. (I'm a packrat - I never throw out a birthday card).

The pocket this time is on the left hand side of this page.

I laid down a sheet of white cardstock - positioned the photos on it - placed the perspectives mat over the top and sewed down the right and left sides as well as between the two groups of photos . The perpective mat already had the large photo sewn to it.

I may actually get some more pages made today as this one went so quickly!

Mommy Love Note

So it was Thursday and time to do a layout about one of my children. I had put aside these pictures of my daughter in my RTG file with an entirely different patterned paper some time ago. I had bought this adorable Basic Grey paper with space ships all over it - really cute. When i laid it down next to the photos on Thursday i thought - ew - nope - that isn't going to do at all. It just was too busy for the photos and not the feeling i had in mind at all. And this is ok in my book. Even though i had ever intention of using that paper for this layout i realized it wasn't going to do. Refile paper and pull out something else. Again it was Basic Grey. But something that complimented the photos and not the idea behind them. Incidentally these pics are from 1998 - a trip downtown to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum (yes, we are very lucky to live so close to such amazing places to visit - Washington DC is a treasure trove of fun things to do for kids and adults). It was Space Day or something - and my daughter got to try on a real space suit - she looked so darned cute. Anyway these pictures are from an "event" however when i look at them - and when i went to make a scrapbook page about them - i had more of a "moments" thing in mind. I don't know of another way to label it - "moments". It is one of those terms that gets bandied about when scrapbooking is discussed. A lot of layouts with one photo and one word or short phrase. And i have to admit sometimes the ones i've seen in magazines had a phoney feeling for me. It just isn't me. Those of you who know me well know how much i detest the "explore, dream, discover" thing - the worst for me is "journey". How i hate that word. Almost as much as "awesome" but i digress. I want my scrapbooks to be me - and real. So i don't do too much of the moments thing. I am proud and happy to scrapbook events. But you know it IS all good. So when i took a look at these pictures of my daughter i thought - look at little miss confidence. You can just do anything you set your mind to cantcha? And truly she can. So - a moments layout was born. But i hate that moments connotation so i guess its more of a Mommy Love Note. When she looks at this page (in the near future or in years to come) she will know that I think she is amazing - that she has this tremendous I-can-do-anything confidence - and i know she'll be a success at whatever she chooses. And that is something i think might come in handy for her to remember on occasion when life gets tough.
Ok - friday is pets or special projects. Hmmmmmm

better late than never :-)

okay so i'm a little late with posting this.

I went to take a picture of it this morning (kinda conked out early last nite) and apparently i had unplugged my camera and it wasn't charged.

Then i had to wait for it to charge.

small sigh.

by the way i'm not going to be scanning pics of layouts.

scanning and then merging etc - too time consuming and definitely not suzy's purpose here.

the purpose again is to get moving and start scrapbooking

with no real concerns about what is hot and what is not

maybe using up some of my considerable storehouse of supplies

and tools

Now normally i would never use the colors i did on this layout of my daughter and driveway chalk drawings. And i bet there was a time i would have never used the patterned paper i did. It's this paper that looks like a driveway with chalk drawings.But one day i came upon that paper in the store and i thought hey that would go very nicely with those pictures. No real need for anything else. its decoration enough. I filed the paper with the pics.
I went to the ready to go file - everything is in large ziploc bags - and these pictures of her was the first available bag with pics my kids (it was Thursday).
So i pulled everything out of the bag and realized i still needed to pick out some cardstock. So i started looking through the cardstock and initially thought - no i don't have what i need. DING! Wrong answer. If i am going to get things done i really need to stop the perfection thing. You know what i'm talking about - theeeee perfect paper and theeee perfect cardstock color and theeee perfect embellishments. Nope. No more. Uh-uh
I remembered something i read in one of my favorite scrapbooking books - by Rebecca Sower. The book is Scrapbooking Life's Little Treasures
here's a link on Amazon for you
http://www.amazon.com/Scrapbooking-Lifes-Little-Treasures-Rebecca/dp/1929180330/ref=sr_1_1/002-9650614-4419251?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174660827&sr=1-1
She talks about "making do" and how she never gets bothered about having the exact shade of cardstock. "It's likely that when you're searching for that perfect shade of blue, at least two dozen other colors or shades will work beautifully".
Now that one stuck with me. Initially i thought - what are you crazy? I was a graphic design major in school. It's all about the color for me. Putting together colors etc.
But, in the grand scheme of things
- remembering my Suzy goals -
i thought you know - she's right.
Who is my audience here?
My daughter.
Will she care?
Not a speck (with this particular child, artist that she is, believe me, she won't care. It's just not her nature. )
So i looked through my stash and i picked the blue and the orange -
a lovely shade of cantaloupe
and orange is my daughter's favorite color.
cool
so there you have it.
Now lets see if i can meet a goal for today
ttyl