Stuff I've Done Lately

Having neglected Ye Olde Blog for an entire week, and having neglected the topic of scrapbooking for more than a week, I am now back (how are those Free Rice scores coming, Mary Kay and Houston? :)).

A week ago Tuesday I wrote an article on visual triangles for the Scrapbook Destination store blog. This Tuesday I posted about the new Jenni Bowlin Mini Die Cut Label Papers. Three of us are rotating Tuesday duties, so I won't be posting every week, but at least once every three weeks.

Here are some of my favorite things I've done lately:

1. A 6" X 6" birthday card:


2. A 12" X 12" layout:


3. Brokered a truce between Eli and his friend during a playdate: she wanted to play house and pretend to cook, he wanted to draw, and the bickering was replaced with great cheering when I suggested they open a restaurant with Eli responsible for making the menu and his friend responsible for the cooking. I ended up ordering the "samplr" plate, which was delicious! :)

Global Food Crisis

(Stepping out of scrapbooking mode here for a minute, please forgive me!)

With all of the election hoopla here in the United States, and the Olympic torch protests over China's treatment of Tibet, international news trends are not exactly making the front page of most U.S. newspapers. That's unfortunate, since a global food crisis is in full swing, and most people I've spoken with about this haven't read about it (or seen it highlighted on television news). The rising cost of fuel has driven food prices up and while we're definitely feeling the pinch here in the United States, the price increases are hitting many less-developed countries very hard. Instead of me going on and on about this I'll refer you to a BBC online news article from this week that provides a brief summary: Assessing the Global Food Crisis.

I encourage any and all of you who can spare some extra cash to consider making a donation to help alleviate this global food crisis. Whether or not you have spare cash to donate, if you have even a spare minute you can play the UN World Food Programme's Free Rice game. It's a multiple-choice vocabulary quiz, and for each word you correctly define, rice is donated. Individuals and corporations fund the donations, and as you play the game the banner at the bottom indicates who is paying for the rice you are helping to donate. The game is pretty addictive, and you get to learn some new words in the process. Habergeon, anyone? Or scissile?

(And, back to scrapbooking...Emily, I think perhaps I can turn this post into a layout with the very first word that came up when I did the random word generator: issue. I just might be doing this week's journaling challenge after all!)

Bike Rides and Printer Battles

First, the layout (which tells the story). I did this for Scrapbook Destination using the new Basic Grey Cupcake paper line (bicycle print patterned paper) and the new Scenic Route Grafton (polka dot paper and stickers).


I haven't done computer-generated titles or journaling in a while and this layout reminded me why. My printer prints at a 1/8" diagonal whenever I print on cardstock (but prints just fine on photo paper and regular printer paper). After wasting three pieces of my precious white Bazzill orange peel textured cardstock trying to get the printing straight, I said "Forget it!" and glued everything down anyway. Then I posted on 2peas to see whether anyone else had battled an HP printer over this and found some poor souls who were right there with me. No one had a solution to the problem (that I hadn't already tried), so I went to the HP website and used their online chat service center. "Sheryl" (or whatever his or her real name is) was quite polite, but her solutions didn't help. I've now been emailed a more complicated set of directions to try another fix. I'll let you know how that goes.

Old + New = Fun

I love it when I discover a new supply that also motivates me to use something older from my stash. With three trade shows every year, product is deemed "old" in scrapbooking pretty quickly - anywhere from six months to a year. One of the paper lines I loved best from the Summer 2007 CHA show was American Crafts' Metropolitan line, especially the grouping of papers with a light pink/hot pink/white/dark brown/light orange color combo. I used those papers a lot and then moved on to other things. Then, just a few weeks ago, Making Memories released their Animal Crackers line. I was at Archiver's and spotted the Ella felt shapes from this line and my jaw dropped. The buttons are the exact, and I mean exact, same colors as the Metropolitan paper. I bought them knowing that I'd pair them somehow. As I went through some of my March photos I saw photos of Sadie looking through her loot from the Easter egg hunt we went to and thought they were cute, even though they weren't the most stellar photos. Then I noticed that she was wearing her pink fleece and holding a light orange egg. Her hair is dark brown...immediately the product combo sprung to mind, I grabbed my new favorite Doodlebug Hopscotch alphas (these things are giving Thickers a run for the money, well, at least my money! :)), some cardstock, and a brown pen, and this layout basically scrapped itself!


I'd love to hear about product pairings that have helped you revitalize your stash. What new products are you pairing with older products?

Slight Delay

When I posted last Wednesday that I'd be back on Sunday or Monday I didn't know that I'd have more things come up. That'll teach me to make promises about posting! :P

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending an all-day crop at The Treasure Box in Fort Collins. Saturday reminded me that Colorado is not only full of amazingly friendly people, but amazingly talented scrappers as well. I had nearly no mojo on Saturday, but didn't really care since the company and the shopping were the real reasons why I was there. I picked up some older American Crafts Thickers that I hadn't been able to find in stock anywhere when they first came out. (If anyone is curious, it's the foam Smoothie font, which I bought in both red and light blue.) Me and my Thickers have become a statewide joke. I have them all in a wicker basket and I tote the basket to crops with me because heaven forfend I scrap without all my Thickers within easy reach! :) Until Saturday I was known for the Thickers avalanche (at a previous crop the Thickers tumbled). Now I'm known as "42." (And no, that's not my age :P) The lovely and talented Amanda Probst hosted the crop and was looking for excuses to give away prizes. I offered to count my Thickers so a prize could be awarded to the person who came closest to guessing how many I have. Counting them was a good excuse for me to sort them by color. I counted 41 at the crop (and Christyn won with a guess of 38, beating out Athena's guess of 37 in true "The Price Is Right" style) but I later discovered a set sitting on my desk when I returned home. I must add the disclaimer that I have gotten about a third of them free and another third at a discount, so I really haven't spent that much money on them.

Anywho...here's the one layout I did on Saturday. It was for a scraplift challenge in the Pub at 2peas. I lifted Stephanie Howell's "6 Wks" layout. Steph is amazing at shabby chic. Me...not so much! :) But...I'm really good at using Thickers! :)

Really, I'm Still Here!

It's just that I'm so swamped right now with non-scrappy life stuff. Just thought I'd post that since it's been a week since my last post and I don't want all 8-10 of my regular readers to worry about me ;) I promise I will be back on Sunday or Monday with layouts to share.

Public Service Announcement

You know those emails you get that warn you that you will get cancer if you eat food that has been microwaved in plastic, or that if you use your cell phone while filling your car with gas you will explode? Please, please, please check them out at Snopes before you forward them on to me (or anyone else). Please.

Thank you.