Happy National Scrapbooking Day

What a bright beautiful day it is too.  I finally think my mojo has been jump started and I am doing a happy dance since I have really missed creating these last few weeks.  I needed a little help this time to get going and sometimes there is nothing better than a class to get the juices flowing once more.

For National Scrapbooking Day, Jenn from The Scrapbox invited Debby Schuh up to celebrate with us and to give us some rocking classes.  Out of the three that she is doing this weekend, I could only fit one in our weekend schedule.  As the school year end gets closer and closer, I find the kids weekends get busier and busier and it is harder to fit in my stuff.

Any way....back to last night, I left my husband and children at home with some money to order in some food and off I went to have an evening full of inspiration and dirty fingers.  The class was a wonderful little album made with 7Gypsies product and is called "Pennies from Heaven".  There are lots of folded pages to make all kinds of interesting little pockets to store bits and pieces collected over the year.

The class was only 3 hours so the pace was quick to be able to get all 12 folded pages completed.  I finally got a chance to use the bindery punch as well.  What a cool little toy!!  If I made more mini albums, this would a "must have" tool.  Since I have only made 4 mini albums in 4 years, it would be collecting more dust in my house than not.  Maybe sometime in the future.....

Today, I am going to spend the time in between chauffeuring my kids to their various things putting the finally touches on the album.

As you can see, the cover is not complete and I still have a bit work to embellish up the pages but I must thank Debby for jump starting my mojo.  I really enjoyed the class and I am keen on getting this album completed and moving on to do a few layouts.  I might just have to see what kinds of challenges are out there in the cyberworld for NSD today.

Have a fabulous Saturday and a happy National Scrapbooking Day.

I have a new toy....

And it is really cool....this is what I picked up at The Scrapbox today:

I have been interested in this since I saw a video on Donna Salazar's blog.  It looked very cool so when Jenn had them in her store today, I tentatively, put one aside and asked for a demo.

Man, oh, man is this thing SWEET.  It ate through 4 pieces of chipboard at the same time.  Gave a nice distressed edge to a piece cardboard and worked well on a single sheet of cardstock.  I can see some really interesting effects with this baby.  I can't wait for the kiddos to head to bed so I can dig out my supplies and play with it tonight.

My only complaint is that it is loud.  Not excessively loud but I can see myself shutting some doors before I use it.

It is so much fun to have new toys to pay with. :-)

Mojo is on Vacation

Mojo is on vacation and it is turning out to be a much longer vacation that I would like.  I think she is partying it up in some beautiful local, drinking fruity drinks with umbrellas, hitting on all the beautiful men and just not ready to come home yet.  I just hope she is taking lots of good pictures so I will have something to scrapbook when she gets back.

It has been almost 3 weeks since I have done anything creative.  I keep planning to work on a layout or a couple of cards every night after work but I just end up staring at my supplies just not feeling any inspiration.  So I end up digging into my other favourite past-time instead....reading a good book or in some cases, a bad book.

I love to read.  It is insane the number of books I have in my house.  I am always in need of another bookcase.  Books are stacked every where.  There is not a room that doesn't have books in it.  You know you spend way too much money on books when your bookstore send you a Christmas gift every year.

My husband is just as bad as I am.  He loves to read but he is more of a plodder.  He takes his time and savours every word.  He will remember every little nuance in a book.  I am, on the other hand, a skimmer.  I will wiz through a book, catching all the high points, the important facts and plot points but I will not remember on what page this specific quote is located.  If it is a truly good book, I will slow down and savour it more but even still, I will read 3 books to his 1.  Needless to say, it means that I am always looking for something more to read.

So for these creatively unproductive three weeks, I have been catching up with my reading.  Here are a few of the books that I have enjoyed.

1.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer & Annie Barrows.

2.  Fallen by Lauren Kate

3.  The Help by Kathryn Stockett

4.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

5.  Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

It looks like the mojo vacation might last a bit longer since I just started two new books yesterday and today.  I also picked up 4 new books today while I was out shopping......and soon it will be time to do my yearly re-read of Pride and Prejudice as well.

Happy Tuesday...and hoping that mojo will stagger home soon....

Two more cards...

I like how these last two cards for the The Scrapbox turned out.

The first one is made using the reverse side of Prima's Strawberry Kisses "Cherry Blossom" paper.  I love the greens of this paper.  I used two different Martha Stewart punches to make the accents -- Hydrangea and Branch.  I dry embossed the flowers to make them three dimensional.  Add a little ribbon and a sentiment.  Voila...another quick and easy card is done:

Materials used:  Prism cardstock, Prima Strawberry Kisses pattern paper, KaiserCraft pearls, Spellbinders dies, Martha Stewart punches, May Arts ribbon, Krylon Gold Leafing pen, Tombo markers, Memento ink and pop dots.

The last card is a masculine card using a cute Penny Black stamp.  This stamp is so adorable:

Materials used:  Prism cardstock, Prism simply smooth cardstock, Prima Pastiche pattern paper, Ranger Distress Ink, cord, Copic markers, Krylon gold leafing pen, Memento ink, and pop dots.

This one took the longest to complete about 2 hours since I was working on the colouring.  Trying to blend the colours to get the effects I was looking for.  Since I don't have a lot of earth tones in my Copic collection nor do I have any warm greys, I had to use what I had to mute down the more vibrant colours that I used to colour the little fellow's clothing.  I also used the blender pen to remove colour that was too dark and to add in some of highlights.

Copic colours used:  B000, B02, B24, C2, E11, E13, E15, G99, R02, R29, YR0000, YR14, Y17, O, 110.

Now I just need to come up with something for my brother's birthday on the weekend. =)

All the lovely new things....

Oh my....all the lovely new things have started to arrive at The Scrapbox - lots and lots of yummy Prima.  I started to make a dent in my long wish list this week.  The scary thing is that more is to come.  I am going to be so very broke.  I might as well just have my paycheck direct deposited to Jen.  It would save me the banking fees.

One of my favourites of the Prima recent release came in this week...the Fairytale Roses.  These small roses are just too adorable and they are perfect for making a simple card look like it is a fabulous & much more complicated card.

This card is very simple.  I used the Krylon Gold Leafing Pen to outline the Prima Strawberry Kiss pattern paper and the Prism cardstock.  I, then, cut slits in the paper matching up with the design and wove a thin piece of ribbon through.

I used the Bow Easy to make a quick bow, added a few Fairytale roses, a butterfly made from a Spellbinder die and voila...a simple card that looks more complicated than it actually is - perfect for Mother's Day:

Materials used:  Prism cardstock, Kryon Gold Leafing Pen, Prima Strawberry Kisses pattern paper, May Arts ribbon, KaiserCraft Pearls, Prima Fairytale roses, Gold jewelry wire, Spellbinder's die, Tattered Angels Glimmer mist, & pop dots.

This card is one of three that I am making showcasing the new Prima for the ScrapBox.  You will be able to see them there starting Thursday afternoon.

Now I just need to figure out the other two cards.

Happy Sunday.