A Scrapper's Tale

On Falling in Love with Paper

Have you ever just fallen in love with a scrapping product? A product that encourages you to stretch your design skills in new directions? I'm that way with Maya's Street Smarts collection at Scrapbookgraphics.

I downloaded one six-sheet paper pack, and quickly polished off three layouts. Two, I'm submitting to magazines, but here's the third, On Naming Cats.

That's my 17-year-old cat, Princess, who is without doubt, one of the most demanding and contrary cats you ever hope to meet.

The copy reads: In his poem, "The Naming of Cats," T. S. Eliot claims that all cats have three names: the name the family uses daily, a dignified name, and a secret name "that no human research can discover– But The Cat Himself Knows, and will never confess." Once upon a time, our cat had a serious and dignified name, but no one in the family can recall what it was. With her demanding ways and regal walk, our cat soon became known as "The Princess," and that is the name that has stuck. As for her secret name, that we do not know. She’s not the kind of cat to share affection or secrets.

Background paper is from Maya’s Street Smarts Backpack 4 ; frame from Sausan’s Bittersweet; envelopes from Trish Jones’ Journal Stuff; bow from ON Designs’ Bowset No. 3; alpha is ON Design’s Alpha No. 7; and fastener is from Meredith Fenwick’s Pieces of Me: Quirky Elements. Font is Jane Austen.

Re: Shutterfly Albums and Deadlines

Three months ago, I received an offer for a free Shutterfly classic album. In order to take advantage of the offer, it has to be completed by Nov. 15. So here I sit, on this gray and rainy Kentucky morning, with exacly FOUR pages completed out of 20.

It's going to be a gift for my grandson -- a story book about his visits to our house. Here's the title page. The book has a peek-a-boo cover so only Max's face will show when the book is closed. Wish me luck on meeting the deadline. :-)

Everything here is from the Scrapbookgraphics collaboration kit, Gratitude.

My Favorite Subject

It's just hard to explain the special bond between grandparents and grandchildren. You love the child as much as you love your own children, yet you have little of the responsibility. So it's as if you get all of the benefits of parenting without the headaches.

My grandson Max is fifteen months old now. For him, the world is a brand new place, an exciting place with all kinds of secrets to explore. I follow him around, taking his picture and writing down his movements. Here are a few layouts I've done featuring my favorite subject.

CREDITS: Papers, branches frame, and ribbon from Taran Conyer’s Tricks kit; font is her TK Honey Do font; date from Trish Jones’s Date Stamps 1; and template from Jen Caputo’s Sketch Collection 21.

Papers and buttons from the Michelle Godin's portion of the Funky Junky collaboration; ribbon from Jessica Bolton's Not Quite Men; staples from Michelle's I Met a Boy; and template from Janet Phillip's Clean and Simple 3 (part of her November Super Sized Grab Bag). The font is My Old Remington.

Papers and torn paper from Doris Castle's Trios: Classic; stitched swirl from Doris's Gathering Heart; and flowers from her Whispers kit. Overlay and photo tag from Berna Datema's Grungy Overlays 1; frame from Maya's Old World Treasures; bow from ON Designs Bowset No. 3; stitched circle from Lie Fhung's Artistitches 4; and glitter overlay from Fhung's Lumoz Whimsy Overlays. Diamonds from Michelle Coleman's Holiday Romance. Font is Jane Austen. Photo action from Virtual Photographer.

Special DSD Frameworthy Chat and Challenge

Be sure to join Kim Gabriel and me for a special one-hour Frameworthy Chat and Challenge tomorrow night, Nov. 3 from 6 to 7 p.m. EST in the Scrapbookgraphics chat room. We plan to talk about art and scrapping, but you know how we are. We'll go where the conversation leads us.

In addition, we'll be introducing a special Frameworthy challenge. Post your layout in the Frameworthy gallery and link back here (before 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, Nov. 4), and you'll get this awesome posting bonus from Krista Mettler.



Hope to see you there.

All Kinds of Great News

A few weeks ago, when I was working on a layout for a contest at Ztampf!, I told my husband that if I could choose one more CT to be on, it would be Lie Fhung's. Well, apparently wishes do come true, because I'm the newest Z! Girl at Ztampf! See my new blinkie.

I put together an All About Me page for the gallery there, listing ten things you may not know about me.

Everything is from Ztampf!'s lucious Phrench Phoebe collection. The fonts are Bernhard Fashion and Dear Joe Four.

Then, to top this week off, I received word that Memory Makers Online will be featuring my Just Like Pops (see last week's post) on their website tomorrow. What a great week!

It's a Compulsion

It's true. I'm one of the world's luckiest digiscrappers. Between my gig with Kathryn Balint and my CT work for Scrapbookgraphics, I have access to the work of more than 20 top digi-scrapping designers. My hard drive overfloweth.

So why is it that I still shop? Why do I still find myself trolling the blogs looking for freebies? Part of it is that shopping is just so much darn fun. But another part is that by experimenting with different designs, I get a chance to expand my own layout skills.

One of my most recent discoveries was the work of Lemonaid Lucy, aka Lucie. While I've admired Lucie's layouts, and chatted with her in the forums, I really hadn't seen much of her design work. So I was delighted to come across this little giveaway on her blog a few weeks ago.

Aren't those frames and ribbons lucious? I finally got a chance to scrap with this kit last night, and was tickled at how well her stuff worked with my ON Designs stash. The little guy in the hat is my grandson Max.

Papers and photo frame with ribbon are by Lemonaid Lucy; cardboard from ON Designs Cardboard Swirls; date from ON Designs Calendar No. 2; stitching from Ztampf Artistitches 4.

Mark the Calendar for Digital Scrapbooking Day

When I was small, I wanted to be Bewitched's Samantha. I practiced and practiced wiggling my nose, but as hard as I tried, I just couldn't clean my room that way. Once again, I'm wanting those magic skills. Only this time, I want to be able to participate in all the great activities occurring Nov. 3 during the first-ever Digital Scrapbooking Day. Dozens of sites are participating in the festivities, and it will be impossible to be everywhere I want to be.

I guess I'll have to limit my participation to two of my favorite sites, KB & Friends and Scrapbookgraphics.

The fun at KB & Friends begins at noon with chats, games and crops. There will be prizes given away throughout the day; and what’s more, the KB and Friends fairy will be fluttering through the forum, randomly giving away gifts, such as Betty Jo Martin’s Snowflake Cottage kit.

Here’s the chat room schedule for the big event:

• Noon ET: Karen Aicken, “Talk to Me,” a discussion of favorite products and ideas you have for new products
• 1 p.m. ET: Laura Lou Bashlor, “Slice of Life,” a continuation of the KB and Friends’ popular Slice of Life challenges.
• 2 p.m. ET: Carol Opalinski, “Slice of Life,” another chat based on the Slice of Life challenges.
• 3 p.m. ET: Kathryn Balint, “Bingo,” bingo game played KB and Friends’ style, in which you post your “bingo card” in a special forum before the event, then play along in the chat room. Prizes are kits from the store.
• 4 p.m. ET: Lynn Weber, “Scavenger Hunt,” a new version of the game.
• 5 p.m. ET: Becky Hansen, “Scrapbooking 365 Days a Year,” a chat you can’t miss because the prize Becky made for participants is fabulous and would make a great gift to give away for Christmas, too.
• 6 p.m. ET: The Lily Pond girls, a group of KB and Friends designers who are debuting a new product line.

Here's a list of all the activities at Scrapbookgraphics. Kim Gabriel and I will be hosting the Frameworthy Chat at 6 p.m. Eastern time. The oh-so-talented Krista Mettler has put together an awesome freebie for those who stop by. In fact, there will be freebies given away all through the day.

I took a sneak peek at the giveaways last night and you guys are going to be so impressed.

Donna and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Today's Studio Starts Challenge at Scrapbookgraphics was to design a layout using the theme, "What Was I Thinking?" As of yesterday morning, I didn't have a clue what I was going to do, but then inspiration came and hit me hard. :-)

I've been a little under the weather all week, fighting a head cold, and frankly, I'm still not doing so hot. And, I look even worse than I feel. My eyes are swollen; I have these huge dark circles; and my skin is so dry it crackles when I smile. So, I didn't really want to go to Wal-Mart yesterday, but our cupboards were bare. When you order pizza three nights in a row, the neighbors start to talk. So off I went.

There's something about that place that justs exhausts me, so I was relieved to find an empty line and check out. It was when I was paying that it dawned on me that I didn't remember putting my keys in my purse. So I rolled my brimming cart out to the car and there were the keys, lying on the front seat just where I put them. I dug my cell phone out of my purse only to find out it's not charged. So I rolled the cart back up the hill to a pay phone and called AAA. They said they'd have someone there within 45 minutes. I rolled the cart back to the car and set up camp. An hour and a half later, they finally showed up. By the time I got home, I was cold, miserable and hungry.

The only good thing to come out of the whole fiasco was that I finally had something to scrap.

Template from Jen Caputo's Sketch Collection #21 ; numbered paper from Maya's I Got Your Number kit ; tag and string from Maya's Dumpster Diving Elements ; staples from Meredith Fenwick's Everyday Inspiration Elements; and dark papers and twisted ribbon from ON Designs Grab Bag No. 1 XL. Label from Atomic Cupcake and date brush by Denise Docherty. The fonts are Batik Regular and Century Gothic.

Getting in the Halloween Spirit

We never did much for Halloween when I was a kid. I grew up in a rural area, and it just wasn't that big of a deal. We looked forward to candy corn and candied applies, but I don't remember ever having trick-or-treaters coming to a door. It's quite a different story today.

I have one of those neighborhoods where folks literally truck their kids in for Halloween. Our streets are big and well-lit and everybody decorates their homes with pumpkins, lights and even caskets. Last year, we had about 200 kids at the door in a three-hour time span. This year, I'll be having a party for family and friends. As soon as I saw Sausan's Oogelie Googelie kit at Scrapbookgraphics, I knew it would be the inspiration for this year's decorations. Aren't her hand-drawn characters just charming?

The first thing I did was make my grandson a treat bag. I saw a bag similar to this in the Rachel Ray magazine and realized how easy it would be to do using digi supplies. And, it's cheap, too. You can catch the bags on sale for about $2 at your local craft store. I made this one using Jen Caputo’s Shapes Collection No. 1 and Sausan’s Oogelie Googelie. I simply created the design on a letter-sized sheet, reversed the image, and printed it off on iron-on transfer paper. A little ironing and I had a personalized treat bag.

My second project was to make some treat bag toppers for the party. This was another amazingly easy project. Using a 5x3 layout, I created the Treats side on the bottom half, flipped the image and created the Tricks side on the top half. I printed these out on matte paper, cut them out, topped the bags, punched some holes, and threaded the ribbon through. I'll be filling them up with cookies for the neighbors on Halloween night.

So all I have left to do is the shopping, the cooking, and oh yeah, inviting the guests. Guess I'd better get started.

Ztampf! Contest

Have you been playing along in Ztampf's 2nd Birthday Challenge? It's been an awesome 4-week contest that culminates this weekend with the announcing of the Week 4 winners and the Grand champion.

Each week three people have won $135 gift certificates, an album from KOLO, and a KOLO discount. This week, in addition to the three weekly winners, one person will win the grand prize of a $175 Ztampf! gift certificate, two albums, and a surprise package all the way from Hong Kong.

I was lucky enough to win in both weeks one and two, so I've been in scrapper's heaven, downloading like crazy from Lie Fhung's beautiful shop.

This week's challenge was to use two photos. I've entered two layouts, Dream and Imagination.

Everything here is from Ztampf. Fairy and star overlays are from Lumoz overlays (stars are blended); paper, stitching, glitter, mosaic flower and ribbon are from Phrench Phoebe; alpha set is Phrench Phoebe 1; wings are from A Perfect Blend; and frames are Naked Edge 1. The font is Dear Joe 4, and the photo action on the top photo is from Midnight Actions.

Everything here is from Ztampf. Background paper is Art Scene; overlay is Graphelia; wire border and photo clamp are Soaring; frame is Naked Edges; and glitter is Artistrokes: Soaring Strokes. Font is Arial.

Quirking It Up

Over at Scrapbookgraphics, I'm hosting Quirkshop 101, a six-week course on how to incorporate quirky techniques into traditional layouts. This week we're looking at extractions, how to use them and how to do them. If you're interested in participating, check in here. We're only in our second week so there's plenty of time to play catch up.

For this layout of my grandson. I used mainly the background eraser and the eraser for the extractions. I didn't even know the background eraser existed until this week, and I've been using Photoshop for years and years.

The copy, of course, is lyrics from the Cyndi Lauper song, Time After Time. The italicized copy reads, "Isn't it nice to know your mother will always be there for you?"

Background paper, tag, and funky circle from Sausan's Lil' Jake kit; city image is Sausan's Schnipp-Schnapp: Kidoki; date stamp is from Trish Jones's Date Stamps; and stitching from Traci Reed's Reckless. Fonts are Downcome and Dear Joe 4.