Scrapping Everyday Life

Hello everyone.  I have to say that yesterday was not my favorite day ever... However, it did have some redeeming moments.  Yesterday was ... dun, dun, duhhhhhh... Root Canal day for me!  In the photo above I am driving home from the dentist office so truly things went as well as one could possibly wish.  

Now, let me digress for a moment... Yesterday's LOAD 513 Clue prompt was the Lead Pipe.  Really?  A Lead Pipe in my scrapping?  No, this prompt was NOT working for me!  Until... I was in the dentist chair.  I suddenly realized that I was wearing a LEAD VEST for the x-ray!!  Lead Pipe - Lead Vest... I see a common word!!!  So I whipped out my iPhone and asked the staff to document my dental experience!

Clearly this is NOT my most glamorous photo ever!  But this WAS a real life moment!  And what did I do with this real life moment? I scrapbooked it!  If nothing else, when I die my descendants will know I believed in proper dental care!

(click to the layout to see it larger)

I put together a two page, three photo layout - using the LEAD prompt of the day all while documenting a real life experience!!  Not too shabby!

  So while yesterday was not my best day ever, a well timed dental appointment DID save my day as far as LOAD 513 went.  And today is the final day of LOAD 513.  I have truly enjoyed the experience!  Even yesterday's LO!! LOL.

By the way, remember that today is the FINAL DAY to receive order Close To My Heart's National Scrapbook Month Paper packet and the May Stamp of the Month.  

CLOSE TO MY HEART

 May Stamp of the Month - Pinwheel 

With a minimum qualifying purchase ($50), get your D-size Stamp of the Month set for just $5.00! Add the stamp set to your cart on this page at full retail price or, with your qualifying order, add it at checkout for the promotional price.

May is National Scrapbooking Month and CTMH has a very special offer to help you celebrate:

Dream Pop

April-May 2013 National Scrapbooking Month Constant Campaign

Get the exclusive paper packet for only $10 when you spend $35!

In honor of National Scrapbooking Month, you can get the yummy Dream Pop paper packet for only $10 when you spend $35 in May (valued at $19.95 retail)! This exclusive paper packet includes 12 cardstock sheets as well as 12 B&T Duos^® papers that were specifically designed for this promotion only—you can’t get these sweet colors and patterns anywhere else! Start National Scrapbooking Month off right with a unique paper packet at a bargain price and get your creative juices flowing! Also, consider hosting this month: Hostesses receive one paper packet free with qualifying May Gathering sales totals of $400 or more.

*Shipping/handling and tax apply. Not available for purchase at full retail. Offer valid May 1–31, 2013, while supplies last. Qualifying purchases must be current, retail-priced product.

Dates: Offer valid May 1–31, 2013.

Here is a sneak peek at this fabulous paper pack:

Defense Prompt Leads to Fun Layout

Hello everyone.  Today's layout is, of course, one of my LOAD 513 layouts.  The daily LOAD prompt (again they are all from the board  game Clue, or deal with mysteries) was a motive for a crime.  Last Saturday the motive was self-defense.  

I was at a loss for what to do with the self-defense prompt, but I saw several great ideas in the LOAD project gallery.  One of my favorites - someone took a photo of her facial care products and called that her self-defense against aging.  I wasn't as creative.  

I went digging through my photo stash and found this funny photo that Aaron photo-shopped of himself.  I am guess this was based on an X-man movie character.  Anyway, when I saw this photo and remember this great Close To My Heart Super Hero paper, I knew which direction to go with this layout.

During his college years, and shortly there after, Aaron took a series of photos where he is impersonating different characters... JFK, James Bond, a Battlestar Galactica bridge officer, etc.  I took three of those photos and added three of my favorite "Aaron" photos - Aaron teaching, Aaron and Crissie, and Aaron, Bethany, and Ian with Chip and Dale at Disney, and created a this fun, cartoon-ish layout.

I like that even though I used Studio J to scrap this layout, I could still personalize the voice balloons.   I enjoyed coming up with the caption, "Take that, Captain Slime Pants!"

This is a close up of the Aaron photos as well as the hings I added between two of the photographs.

Thanks for stopping by today and checking out my cartoon layout - Defender of the Plant Earth!  This is not my normal style of scrapping, but it was fun to create.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Hello everyone - happy Bitten by the Bug Monday!  For those who may be new to the blog, every Monday the Bitten by the Bug 2 blog has a Cricut challenge.  A specific Cricut cut or theme is selected by a team member and the design team must create projects using that cut or theme.  All of the projects must include the weekly Cricut cut.

This week's Cricut challenge cut was selected by my Design Team sister, Sharon.  Sharon feels that Life is a Zoo and she has asked the Design Team to create projects using any ZOO ANIMAL! I decided to use the door emblem Lion from the French Manor cartridge and create a card.

The house two doors down has a new owner and I thought it might be nice to welcome the new neighbors with a card and a home baked item.  Doug met the dad of the new family already, but I have not seen anyone yet.  But I want to be ready for when the family arrives.

I used two cartridges to create this card - French Manor and Cindy Loo.  Oh... and the Teresa Collins Black and White cartridge for the Imagine.  I began by printing a sheet of crown card stock using the TC B&W Image cartridge.  I honestly do not cut with my Imagine very often (read never), but I do print card stock on occasion.  I thought the crown were perfect for my Lion head card as the Lion is the Kind of the Jungle!!

So after printing the crown card stock, I selected black and white and gray papers to create the card.  The found the wonderful Gold card stock in my scrap drawers and had just enough to cut the Lion's head and the word welcome.

Inside I have lots of space to write a nice welcome note to the new neighbors.  

I finished the front of the card by adding Close To My Heart gemstones and black sheer ribbon to the card.

It makes the Bitten by the Bug 2 Design Team very happy when you, our readers, join us in the weekly challenge.  You have until next Sunday night to link your project to the Zoo Animal post at BBTB2.  There are a few rules for participating in our weekly challenges - most important is use the Cricut die cut machine and only enter NEW projects.  For the other rules see the sidebar on the BBTB2 blog.

This is my final week of LOAD 513.  I am afraid I may have withdrawals.  It too me half the month to really find my feet with LOAD.  What I have discovered is the I scrap differently with LOAD and I like including more than chronological events in my scrap pages.  This has been a learning and fun process!

Thanks for stopping by today.  I will be back with a new project tomorrow.

Defining a Generation Through Music

Hello everyone, TGIF!!  I did it again today... I put off the planned post in favor of my latest LOAD 513 layout.  This layout was so thought provoking and fun that I ended up actually turning it into a four page layout.  The first two pages are featured here today and I plan to only tell you about pages three and four.

Thursday's LOAD 513 was a weapon from the Clue game - the candlestick.  In an effort to come up with an idea, I was typing my stream of consciousness - Candlestick, menorah, burning the candle at both ends, burning out, jack jumped over the candlestick.... You get the idea.  When I reached "Jack jumped over the candlestick" I thought of Don's McLean's song, "American Pie" and the reference to JFK in "Jack jumped over the candlestick" lines.

American Pie took me to the thought of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" - a list of historical and cultural events in Joel's lifetime - all but 11 years, also my lifetime.  And then, because I couldn't just pick an idea and go with it, I started thinking of about music that defines different eras or events in my life time.  The sixties and seventies were full of anti-war and peace songs, one of my favorites being P.F. Sloan's "Eve of Destruction", released in 1965.  In May 1970 four student protester's were killed by National Guard at Kent State University in Ohio.  That fall Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young released Stephen Still's epic "Ohio" - better known by the name "Four Dead in Ohio".

In 1971 Don McLean released "American Pie", a musical poem that details music history of the 50's and 60's, with cultural and political references included.  McLean never really calls anyone by name, but the Music that died was Buddy Holly, The King was Elvis, the Marching Band that took the field was the Beatles, etc.  Jack Flash jumping over the candlestick - where this all started - was the assignation of President Kennedy.  When asked what the song meant, McLean once replied, "It means I will never have to work again!"  He was probably right!!

Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" is a highly percussive song from 1989.  The song was written because a student told Joel that his generation was inheriting a world that was a mess.  Joel thought about it and realized that the world has always been a mess - We didn't start the fire - and that it would continue to be so.  Good point.

These four songs - and yes, there could be others, I feel define my generation socially and historically.  I grew up in the 60's and 70's, watching in wonder the Civil Rights movement, the anti war protests, the British Invasion, the cold war, soldiers coming home, the POW's coming home, the American Bicentennial, Watergate and the Nixon administration which robbed us of our innocent belief in government (though truthfully that trust has been sold out LONG before).  I sang along with John Lennon as he Imagined... and with Elton John as he Crocodile Rocked!  We as a Nation protested the Olympic Games hosted by Russia, and we protested Apartheid.  So yes, these four songs do come close to defining my generation....

I used Studio J to digitally scrap these pages.  This was necessary because of the photos I chose to use.  I found era specific photos as well as the candlestick and fire images.  After selecting specific phrases from each of the four songs, I began writing my journaling.  I must say it is very difficult to cover this topic in one journaling block!

I enlarged the journaling for you so that you can understand the difficulty of fitting this information onto the pages.

I truly enjoyed researching and scrapping these pages.  Page three and four feature the same "papers" and colors, but no photos.  Just a title, a couple of embellishments, and the lyrics to the four songs.  Do you know HOW LONG American Pie is?  Two full columns in very small font!

If you would like to see this entire layout larger, just click on the photo below and it will open in a new window.

One last note, one of the funny things about my LOAD 513 experience?  I am sort of missing the boat.  It is supposed to inspire quick layouts from the prompt.  Well, clearly this was not a quick layout... And even though I am doing LOAD my way, I am having a great time with this!

I hope some of you might consider joining me in the next LOAD adventure - because I WILL do this again!

Life Lessons I Learned From Scarlett O'Hara

Hey-o everyone!!  I had a completely different post planned for you today, but I decided to bore you with yet another LOAD 513 layout - because I had so much fun with this one.  Yesterday's prompt was the "Miss Scarlet" character card from Clue.  A lot of people used red on their pages or embarrassing moments, etc.  But I went for the original "Miss Scarlet", Scarlett O'Hara-Hamilton-Kennedy-Butler!   I am assuming that I do not have to add that Scarlett is the main character in the Gone With The Wind saga.... If you did not already know that, sign off of your computer right now and go to the nearest library!!

As I contemplated Scarlett O'Hara (for several hours, btw), I realized that even though I do not like her as a person (or would not if she were a person), there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from the way the character lived her life.  Both positive and negative influenced lessons.

I did a Google search on Scarlett O'Hara and found a lot of photos, character analysis, and funny comments.  The photos from the movie and having read the books, helped me compile my list of life lessons.  Without further ado:

I am not going to comment on every lesson listed above, but I am going to mention a couple.  As obsessed as Scarlet was with Tara, she was the sister who saved the plantation and the family, admittedly through scheming and hard work.  If we get rid of that scheming element, home and family are very, very important and are worth working to save - And that was a good lesson.

I confess, without the corset photo I would not have thought of the good underwear lesson. But hey, we do need quality underwear to hold all of parts where they are supposed to be instead of where gravity tries to place them!

Finally I would like to mention "Fiddle-dee-dee".  I always thought Scarlett was being dismissive when she said this.  My thoughts on that phrase have developed with age... I think she was saying "don't tell me it won't work, don't tell me I can't do this, don't try to hold me back...."  If nothing else, through most of the book/movie, Scarlett believes in herself and her ability to get what she wants.  As women, we can learn from that.  Believe in yourself!  Trust yourself!

I hope you enjoyed my Scarlett layout.  I add the photo able so that you could see the circle stitching... This is a great way to add texture to card stock/backgrounds.

To see this layout larger, click on the photo below.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Miss. Scarlett today!

Jealousy (Tongue in Cheek) Layout

Hey-o everyone!  Today I am sharing last Saturday's LOAD 513 (LayOut A Day May 2013) layout.  As a reminder, all of the prompts are about the Clue game or mysteries in general.  Each day of the week has a theme - Saturdays are always Motives for committing a crime and last Saturday the motive was JEALOUSY!

I decided to have a bit of fun with photos from MFK's (My friend Kathy) son's wedding.  My daughter Bethany (on the right above) and Kathy's daughter Diana were in the mix of young ladies trying to catch the bridal bouquet.  The irony (to me) was that neither of these ladies were in relationships at that time (March 2012) and both are in wonderful relationships now!  As you can tell from the photos, Bethany beat Diana to the bouquet.  The photo above was a bit staged, but also a bit serious... they both wanted the bouquet!

After the bouquet toss our girls were friends again - even doing a bit of show dance to "All the Single Ladies" (if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it!).  As you can see above, our girls were showing the attitude during their dance!

I am sharing a close up on the title because I want to share how different stitching methods can be used on your layouts.  I tend to do a lot of straight stitches or zigzags, but I like the blanket stitch above and the running stitch below.  I think that stitching can add such great details to layouts.

This layout was created using Close To My Heart's Studio J digital scrapbook program.  I have to admit that I was never a bit digital scrapper, but traveling earlier this month and trying to keep up with LOAD caused me to spend a great deal of time in the Studio J program.  I have come to love it.  I still did traditional scrapbooking last week at the crop, but I like digital scrapping sometimes too. 

The cost of Studio J is free. Once you complete a FREE registration, you can use the program on-line for free and only pay for what you want to have receive.  If you want only high resolution jpegs only the cost to download the jpeg is $2.95 per set.  If you want to receive both the high resolution jpegs and the 12 x 12 printouts, the cost is $6.95.  You will need to order at least 8 pages (four double page layouts) at a time to have the pages shipped.  I received my first five sets of digital layouts in the mail today and I am thrilled with them.  

I will not give up traditional scrapping, but I have enjoyed using Studio J for part of my LOAD layouts.

For more information on Studio J, just click on the name and you can play in the program.  Be sure to watch the helpful videos if you are new to digital scrapping!

Light the Way Lantern

Hello everyone.  Welcome to another Bitten by the Bug 2 challenge.  This weeks challenge is being hosted by our talented design team sister, Sarah from Love, Love and Scrap.  Sarah has challenge the design team to "Pass it on"; use the Cricut to create a project that you would give away.  This could be a card, package, scrapbook, etc.  I chose to go with a home decor project.

This is one of my hybrid projects - I cut the lantern and window with my Silhouette Cameo.  After assembling the lantern, I used my Cricut to cut the decorative elements on this project.   I used two cartridges to cut all of the decorative elements used - the two Close To My Heart cartridges - Artist and Art Philosophy.   

If you do not own these two cartridge you really need to add them to your cartridge library.  I use these two cartridges more than any other Cricut cartridges I own, with Art Philosophy being my #1!    Click on either cartridge name to be taken to my CTMH on-line store.

I cut the two butterflies on the front of the lantern with the Artiste cartridge.  I created double layer butterflies to add more dimension.   For the remaining elements I used Art Philosophy - the flowers, branches, individual leaves, and the sentiment tag at the bottom front.

I used parts of three stamp sets to stamp to stamp the cut images.  The flowers were stamped using one of the flowers from A Blossom set:

The branches and individual leaves were stamped with the two leaves from Girls Rock set:

And the tag was stamped using The Best Things set:

I liked this little lantern so well that I decided to use it for my Stamp Club project last Saturday.  I changed the colors a bit so that the stamp club made peach colored lanterns with brown window panes and orange or yellow accessories.

 

My friend Susan (MFS) was the stamp club hostess and she snapped a few photos.  I love this photo below of Toby and Shelly looking confused while in the background Beth shops away having completed her lantern.

Lila is happy to have completed the lantern, now she just has to embellish!

 And Jan, the showoff (!!) is displaying her finished lantern!!  Jan is awesome and she can show off anytime she wants to!

At Bitten By the Bug 2 we love it when you join us in the weekly challenge.  Please enter only NEW projects that use the Cricut on the project.  Link to the Pass it on post at BBTB2.

CLOSE TO MY HEART

 May Stamp of the Month - Pinwheel 

With a minimum qualifying purchase ($50), get your D-size Stamp of the Month set for just $5.00! Add the stamp set to your cart on this page at full retail price or, with your qualifying order, add it at checkout for the promotional price.

May is National Scrapbooking Month and CTMH has a very special offer to help you celebrate:

Dream Pop

April-May 2013 National Scrapbooking Month Constant Campaign

Get the exclusive paper packet for only $10 when you spend $35!

In honor of National Scrapbooking Month, you can get the yummy Dream Pop paper packet for only $10 when you spend $35 in May (valued at $19.95 retail)! This exclusive paper packet includes 12 cardstock sheets as well as 12 B&T Duos^® papers that were specifically designed for this promotion only—you can’t get these sweet colors and patterns anywhere else! Start National Scrapbooking Month off right with a unique paper packet at a bargain price and get your creative juices flowing! Also, consider hosting this month: Hostesses receive one paper packet free with qualifying May Gathering sales totals of $400 or more.

*Shipping/handling and tax apply. Not available for purchase at full retail. Offer valid May 1–31, 2013, while supplies last. Qualifying purchases must be current, retail-priced product.

Dates: Offer valid May 1–31, 2013.

Here is a sneak peek at this fabulous paper pack:

I will be back with more LOAD layouts and a card or two to share this week.  Thanks for stopping by today!