My intentions for this blog are fairly simplistic: mostly I would like to use this space as a means of encouraging myself to continue creating and growing by forcing myself to share my progress with anyone who may be interested. While I may share bits of my personal life, what I really want is to share my scrapbooking with all of the amazing bloggers already out there.
So I fell short of my goal, sort of. I was trying not to buy any new product but when you are receiving the incredibly gorgeous new Crate Paper at the store with Lisa (who agrees all of it is drool worthy) well, your will power goes right out the window. And then you have to buy some Glubers and embellishments from Cosmo Cricket - they were the last pack of butterflies and doilies - I HAD to. And then you also have to buy some more flowers/dollies from Prima because you simply do not have enough! Sigh. The mania. It all added up to a delightfully (if I do say so myself) eclectic, yet matchy-matchy page. The title is care of our engagement photo photographer, the ever talented Ashley Champagne. She told us it might sound strange but "show love with your hands". It totally worked! We continually repeated this to each other during our pics in Jamaica too :)
I love this man. Tomorrow is our one year anniversary - eek! So excited!
Wow. This whole spring break thing is a really good idea. Went to TM today, played with Junior, Anna and Scarlet for hours. Got covered in drool. Loved it. Worked on my mask for the TM National Scrapbook weekend. Bought myself a staple gun and recovered some hideously defaced stools. All in all, a good evening.
Here's one of the culprits on the formerly maimed chairs.
And here is the stool in my basement now. I was too lazy to get out a sewing machine so I just folder the corners - anything is better than the ratty stool I had before. The fabric is from IKEA and was dirt cheap. I bought two yards and have a lot left over to re-craft into something else. I was so lazy that I didn't even cut off the excess fabric nicely. I was getting a bit concerned when David mentioned that I could take off the feet. Aha! I jammed the excess under the feet to hold it up and cut the rest off. Great cheat! Such a smart husband I have.
And a picture of the other culprit, just 'cause he's so darn cute!
Continuing my old school scrappin (in both product and technique), here is another page from my no tools, paints, etc. evening with Jen (sista from another mista).
I really have too much school work to do before the last day of school... before spring break (worst sentence, ever). A picture says a thousand words, question mark.
Here's another layout for my gratitude book. You may recognize the oldies but goodies: American Crafts paper, Heidi Swapp stickers, Basic Grey rub-ons, Prima flowers and Chatterbox letters. I realize that the last few pages have been wedding or engagement photos but what better times to be grateful for, right?
This picture is taken on the second floor (balcony setting) of the restaurant which housed our dinner in Jamaica. We are shakin' our boo-tays... and also rubbing them together. Grateful. (Use Charlie Sheen intonation for "grateful".)
My sister,
Jill Williams, is working so hard to make her dream a reality. I am so proud that she has decided to make the life she sees for herself happen now and not wait for some serendipidous happening in the future.
Need a home staged? A retail space re-energized?
I had a simply loverly evening with my sister-in-law. A glass of wine, the most delicious Papa Murphy's pizza (chicken, bacon and artichoke = yum) and the unquenched desire to "whack a stack". I packed up most of my scrapbooking room minus all of the tools/machines and we worked with what we had. I do know if I've mentioned this (you've probably noticed) that I have not bought anything new and have been using very old product. I have so much of it and most of it is still so nice! I'm trying to work a little greener. I've challenged myself to make 20 pages with only products that I have in my house. I'm loving the challenge so far. (My wallet thinks it's great too!) Jen came up with a new "technique" and was totally showing off... in a great way. I'll see if I can steal some pictures from her and post them later.
I'm off to a baby shower just now. Here is the card that I made for the latest edition to David's cousin's family. (Old Sassafrass stickers/chipboard and old Basic Grey paper)
I really have the craftin' bug lately but I keep running into the same problem, namely, teaching. I spent many, many hours today putting together a beautiful workbook for the next unit of Physics 20. I wanted to get so many pages done but I made myself finish the entire Physics booklet. Hopefully the students will appreciate it... I'm sure they'll all thank me... Ha!
I've decided that Murphy (last post) and this new page are going to go into a gratitude book. A book that I can keep out all of the time and use to remind myself of all of the wonderful things we (David and I) have to be grateful for. Really I could just take ANY of my old pages because they are all about things that make me happy, but part of (my) gratitude is being able to take time for myself to do the things I love. Making new pages is certainly one of those things.
So I had a superbly wonderful time at the Greater Edmonton Teachers Convention today. I went to an awesome session hosted by Dr. Gary Anaka. Brain-based learning. Wow. I love being inspired. I really love teaching (seriously, no sarcasm, it's stupid hard but I love it) and I'm so excited to get better at it. I have so many things I want to say about teaching it almost makes me want to blog about teaching and then I remember that it's hard enough to get me to post on this blog much less another! In addition to my wonderful session I had lunch with some fantabulous teaching friends, bought an adorable skirt and got some scappin' done tonight (as I do not have classes to plan for).
I'm really trying to focus on the positive things on our life right now, starting with good ol' Murphy.
Also, you may notice all of the old product on my last couple pages. I'm trying not to buy anything new and make several pages with the truck loads of stuff I already have. I even busted out the magic mesh (inspired by one of Lisa's latest posts)!
