Savannah Scrapbooking

Show and Tell!

Well I'd say it's been a while since I've had any scrapbook layouts to share, but low and behold, miracle of miracles, I actually managed to complete a few this past weekend at Tybee.

Between eats, drinks and laughs with my kooky friends, that is.

So let's have a looky shall we?

Yummm... I am LOVING our new Cricut Expression!  It'll cut big fat titles and images like the ones above.  Needless to say there was a LOT of Cricutting going on this weekend.

How wonderfully random is it that I found a whole pack of little polar bear die cuts at Sandi's freebie table in Raleigh a few weeks ago?  Perfect for our Polar Bear Plunge pages!

This birdie paper was another freebie... SO cute! Man, and I forgot how much I love this notebook paper punch (on the journaling box)... meOW!

And this was one of those layouts that's been hanging around haunting me for EVER... well, at least for the last three years.  Finally got around to gettin' her done.

Love the colors on this one.  And I found the little owl button in one of my containers of randomness.  He's adorable fo' sho'!

Oh I'm diggin' this one... even though it's kind of a cheesy title.  I stole the pics off of one of Miss Priss' friend's Facebook walls, haha!

And lastly, this little friend...

Uh oh... the next one will be the big 4-0! 

Well there ya have it, a weekend's worth of scrapbooking. It sure was nice! And now that I've got the Penthouse fairly cleaned and organized, maybe I can get back to scrapping on a regular basis... one can hope! ;)

Penthouse PURGE...

After seeing Sandi's scrumptious scrap studio, I got the itch to clean out and purge my own scraproom.  The Penthouse was bursting at the seams with a ridiculous accumulation of scrapcrap.  I didn't take any before pics, but let me just say that the closet was something that rivalled a beaver dam. 

However, after some serious sorting and a heavy hand toward the Goodwill box, it's clean and organized... and best of all EMPTY so I can stash my scrap tote in it...

...aaahhhhh, empty shelves... glorious.

I also shifted the Cricut 'workstation' to make more room since we'll be introducing our new baby, the Cricut Expression to the mix...

And I began the daunting task of cleaning off my side of the table...

... still a work in progress.

So far I've already taken a bin of 12x12 papers (leftover from the store) and my Crop n Style XXL tote, plus an assortment of stickers and embellies to Goodwill, but now I've got another load waiting to go...

Plus, while cleaning out the recesses of the closet, I stumbled across a couple of alphabets that go with the Revolution die cutting system...

Abigail and Beauty Queen.  Anybody want them?  I don't have the machine they go with.  Make me an offer... I'm cheap.

And I also found these...

Same goes for this set of relics from Savannah Scrapbooking (sigh... they make me a little nostalgic.)  They're full of QuickKutz alphabets (like a thousand dollars worth of 'em.) 

Whaddya think?  Ten bucks? Twenty?  Email me.  No offers and they go to Goodwill.  Goodness only knows what will become of them, it's sad to see my precious babies go, but at this point I haven't used them in over three years so they've gotta find love somewhere else.

Tomorrow I will continue the purge... my goal is to streamline my stash and free my brain from the overwhelmingness (uh, probably not  a word) of its enormity (definitely a word.)

Plus, I've gotta get my shit together because I've got a scrapbooking weekend (TYBEE!) coming up in less than two weeks and plan to get MUCH more accomplished than the last crop I attended... drunk or not.  Just sayin'.

;)

Sandi's Scrap Studio...

As promised (or teased, if you're a glass half empty kinda person) it's time for me to show you our friend Sandi's studio. 

Now let me preface this by saying that I met Sandi in my scrapbook store when it was in the Mall Blvd location.  She was new to Savannah. They'd moved down from Raleigh so her hubby could build a power plant or something really fancy sounding like that.  With no friends or family in the area, she'd found the scrapbook store and started hanging out with us.  She even helped us when we packed up and moved the store to the Piccadilly location. 

As most of us in the hobby, she quickly became addicted and began building her stash of scrap supplies (ie, scrapcrap) and after a couple of years in Savannah, finally got to move back to her home in Raleigh.  She hauled her stash back home with her and converted her sewing room into a scrap studio. 

She's told me about holding creative workshops at her home and having friends come over to craft and scrap, but I wasn't prepared for the WOW factor of her studio.  I was in the guest room calling Big Dave to let him know we'd arrived safely when I heard Kristine gasp from somewhere down the hallway.  She stumbled in the doorway of the room I was in and said, "James... you've GOT to come here."  I got off the phone and followed her down the hall and found myself standing in what I'm guessing is about 400 square feet of scrapbooking FABULOSITY.  (Approximately FOUR times the size of my little Penthouse studio.)

I heard angels singing. A unicorn slid down a rainbow. My heart fluttered.

And then I heard Sandi's hubby, John walk up behind me and say, "See what you started?"

Bwahahahhaaaaaa!   Oops... I guess I may have created a monster, but oh what a gooood monster it is.

And sure it's not neat as a pin or anything, but anybody who scrapbooks KNOWS this is a messy messy MESSY hobby.  So I'm thinkin' Sandi's studio is lookin' pretty darned awesome and well loved.

Check out all the separate work stations...

(An area for the Cricut Expression 2)

(Her main table.)

(A couple more small work tables.)

(A gadget table, with just about every cutting system ever known to mankind.)

Of course one of her favorite things is the Cricut die cutting system, and she's got over 200 cartridges...

I think the Cricut library made Kristine orgasm a little.

Check out this cute pen storage idea...

A cheapy wine rack from Goodwill and plastic cups from Walmart.  Thanks Pinterest!

Kristine and I wandered and dug and snooped and drooled for hours...

I love how she's got everything labeled and organized into categories. Yum!

And of course she's got her fridge and microwave handy...

We ended up using her two Cricuts to mass produce a bunch of die cuts that we knew we'd use on future layouts.  Both Friday and Saturday night we were up past midnight, and then I even ran back in there to cut some more before we left on Sunday morning.

Kristine was especially in love with the little knight paperdoll since she'll have four sons graduate from Windsor Forest high school when all is said and done...

Sandi, we had a BLAST in your studio...

And we will definitely be back! 

LOVE YOU SANDI!!!!!

 

 

Raleigh Road Trip!

Kristine and I are back from our whirlwind weekend road trip to see our dear friend Sandi in Raleigh, NC. 

Sandi and her friends host a Crop for A Cure every year at their church, and she finally lured K and I up there with the promise of free room and board, and unlimited use of her scrap studio.  I figured I was due for a good crop and goodness knows Kristine could use a weekend away from that job of hers (she's SO busy!)

So we packed up the Kia Friday morning and hit I95 for the 5 1/2 hour journey north.  The crop was Saturday from 8:30 to 5:00, and Kristine and I set a new record for LEAST productivity at a cropping event by completing a total of FOUR... yes FOUR layouts between the two of us.  (Me=3, K=1)   They were all two pagers, so that's gotta count for sumfin' right? 

We won door prizes, (I got some SUPER cool baker's twine from a company called The Twinery) and we got cute pink bags and scarves, and they had a freebies table which Kristine and I took FULL advantage of, bringing home loads of papers, embellies, stamps and even some storage/organizational thingies.  VERY cool!  Add the Panera breakfast and the Brio pasta lunch, homemade cupcakes and Chick Fil A chocolate chip brownies, and I'd say we got our money's worth, that's for sure.  Heck, who needs to complete pages when you can shop, laugh and stuff your face!

In addition to the crop, we hit Archivers... the Mecca of scrapbooking.   Unlike Michaels and AC More et al, Archivers only caters to scrapbooking and cardmaking, so it's packed from a to izzard with stuff that TURNS ME ON... and I've NEVER been in one.

I kid you not... I walked in that door and my eyes welled up with tears. It was joyous!!!

Clearly, not having a local scrapbook store has taken a toll on my scrappy mojo.  I NEED to fondle papers, caress stickers, toy with adhesives.  Heck, we could only finish half the store in the hour before they closed and had to go back the next day.  I want to live there.  In the store.  Forever.

I love you Archivers. 

Of course, all of this could be considered peanuts compared to the main attraction of the weekend.  Sandi's studio.  HOLY SCRAPCRAP!  Wait til you see it.  I can honestly say I have NEVER been in or seen a room that holds a candle to this studio.  I'm still trying to deal with my jealousy issues before I reveal it to you.  (Maybe tomorrow...)

IT

IS

AMAZING

(And it's bigger than my living room and kitchen combined.)

Yeeeeeeeeek! 

;)

 

 

 

I'll be making this VERY soon...

Make This Paper Pumpkin
created by Reminisce design team member Tami Sanders

---

1. Create a template for 1/2 a pumpkin using chipboard; cut it out.
2. Cut five papers the height of the pumpkin and twice the width. If your half pumpkin template measures 6" high and 3" wide, you would cut five 6 X 6 pieces of paper.
3. Fold each paper down the center so that the height of your template is the same as the height of the folded papers.
4. Trace the template on each folded paper, with the center of the template aligned on the folded edge. Cut them out.
5. Glue the folded pieces back to back, stacking them on top of each other. Continue adding and adhering pieces to the top of the stack, keeping the center folded edges straight.
6. Glue the chipboard template piece to the top of the stack. (In the samples, there was an extra 1/2 piece of paper cut to cover the chipboard piece. In the pictures to the right, the chipboard piece is bare, so that it remains visible).
7. Bring the back piece around to meet the chipboard piece to form the pumpkin.
8. Punch holes in the chipboard and back piece.
9. Lace ribbons or twine through the holes to keep the pumpkin together.
10. The stems were cut from cardstock with a 1-1.5 inch slit cut up the center of each stem. Slide the stem onto the pumpkin.
That's it! And since the pieces fold right up, you can store them without damage for next year!

 

Splurge!

I'm going crazy with creativity!

Blame it on the moon, the lack of stimulating television or quite possibly the time of the month, but I feel like I'm about to EXPLODE with inspiration to create, paint, write, and (guilty) shop! 

The living room's in the middle of it's new paint job, I completed a couple of scrapbook layouts the other night (I know, I've GOT to get them scanned for a show and tell,) my brain is running rampant with a new plot twist for my everlasting attempt at a novel.  And in another dangling appendage of this burst of inspiration, I did a little cyber shopping at my favorite scrapbooking site, A Cherry on Top.

Funds are ALWAYS tight at Dhuland, thanks to my worthlessness as a bread-winner, so I rarely shop for scrapbook supplies, but with our upcoming Tybee Time with Tim (Don't Ask Who Tim Is) Crop, I wanted to freshen up my scrap stash.

And, color me happy... the box arrived today!

 
I'm a HAPPY girl.

I was lured in by an email advertising a huge selection of clearance papers, but ended up blowing my budget on Basic Grey.

Lauderdale...

...It'll make great beach and summer pages.

Oxford...

...I plan to use it to document my love of books, our move into reading glasses, and some adventures in home schooling.

and Life of the Party...

...which I don't know what I'm gonna use it for, but just needed to add it to my collection (ie, hoard.)

I also got some stuff to scrapbook softball pics, and several other randoms...

 
Don't ask me what I'm gonna do with that monster paper from SEI... I just had to have it.  Scrappers, you know what I mean right?

Okay, gotta go... if you need me, I'll be lathered in adhesive and rolling on top of my pile of paper.

Purrrrrrr...

I've been wantin' to show you this forever....

...and I FINALLY remembered! (Yay me.)

It's this...

 

... and this...

 

(Check out the lava lamp at the top of the page~)

They're diecuts from the Cricut Feelin' Groovy cartridge, which my bff brought along for our crop weekend back in April.  And is it completely chocked full of 100 % grooviliciousness?  Um... YES.

 
Sid seized hold of the cartridge and after doing some gyrations that resembled the sensual bellydancing video On Demand, never left it alone... for the whole weekend.  She was smitten, that's all I can say. 

And I wish I had more of her creations, because she cut and assembled smiley faces, lava lamps, flower power stuff and more.  She was our very own Groovy Diva. 

So there. I know it's only fodder for scrappers and paper crafters, but I  had to show you yet another bit of cuteness inspired by Cricut. 

Hope you're having a stellar week!  Tomorrow's Friday, and I am READY.  Miss Priss has her spring dance tomorrow night and then her first game with her rec-league softball team, the Inferno.  Should be a GREAT weekend!

A bit more show and tell...

I found a pile of layouts that never made it to the ol' bloggy, so I thought I'd throw 'em on here...

 

I can't believe it's been two years since Big Dave and Miss Priss brought home that cardboard box of fluffy chickies.  Wow.

 

 
 
 
 
Love this monster paper... and the 3-d embellies are from last year's K&Company Halloween line.  Ah, a fun way to use up my excessive stash of Halloween stuff on a non-Halloween layout.  Yum!

Alrighty... hoping to get a few more layouts finished soon and will definitely share. ;)

Show and Tell!!!!

Lest we forget the original purpose and intention of this here bloggy, I have actually SCRAPBOOKED three layouts... SCANNED them in... and will now PRESENT them to you for your perusal and (hopefully) viewing pleasure.

 
I've gotta be honest, when I first bought this cute little ducky paper by Anna Griffin, I had NO idea what I would ever do with it.  But dangit, it was SO cute and had the matching green houndstooth and pastel polka dots to go with it.

Oh heck, I just put it in my basket and hung my head in disgust at my paper addiction. And then the paper sat on a shelf for what, like a year?  No... really? Yes.  (Oh scrappers, you totally know what I'm talkin' about here, don't you?) So needless to say, I was quite pleased that I had the opportunity to use it here on the layout about Miss Priss and her friend's babysitting service.  I threw some KI felt letters on it, added some cute ribbon and brads, and voila.

Next, we have a fun one that posed a bit of a paper dilemma...

 
See, I had this super cute Bobunny paper, but only one piece... the sunshine was on one side and the clouds on the other.  I wanted to use the sunny side because it seemed to fit with the pics of Miss Priss sliding down the pole (remember "Say Say My Playmate"... and the part about "slide down my rainbow"... well it could have been a ray of sunshine right?)  But I absolutely loved the cute cloud paper. 

The final verdict? Well you can see, I cut it into halves and used both sides. I think it's pretty cute, and journaling in the clouds was fun.

And finally we have this one...

 
I'm thinkin' it's Bobunny paper.  I pulled out the old acrylic stamps to make the journaling block, and because I printed our statistics out on white paper, I inked and outline them to make them coordinate.  All in all, I think it worked.

Now,  in case you don't have a redneck in or around your home who's strutting around with turkey call in hand, you may not realize that it is officially turkey season in Georgia.  This brings me GREAT joy, because not only does it mean that Big Dave is happy as a dog with thirteen peckers (huh?) but it also means LOTS of time spent far far away from Dhuland and in a hunting blind in the middle of a field or forest.  And do you know what that means?  LOTS of time for SCRAPPING!!!  I mean heck, there's no reason for me to be a productive contributing member of the family when he's not around right?  And heck, the kid can feed herself right?  And if I leave the backdoor open the dogs will go pee pee potty whether I'm there holding their paw or what, right? 

So hopefully this means I'll have more show and tell REAL soon. WOoHOO!!

(I love turkey season!)

A GREAT idea for scrapbookers!

Holy moly, let me tell you about the superdee dooperdee idea my good ol' buddy ol' pal, Sid came up with for organizing her photos.

See, Sid has two kids, and she's the kind of concientious mom who actually tries to make sure she creates a balanced amount of scrapbook layouts for each child.  Oh, did I mention that she's doing separate scrapbooks for each child so they don't have to worry about a family feud over who gets the childhood albums?

I know there are loads of scrappy moms out there who are doing the same thing, so I thought I'd share how Sid keeps herself straight when it comes to which photos she's already scrapped and whose album they're for.

 

Now, let me say that this is for her digital photos, not old ones from the prehistoric days of film (~shudder~.)

She used Photoshop, but I think most photo programs allow you to print a contact/index sheet.  Using a five column format, she selected the year she wanted to print and chose the contact sheet print option.  (Am I saying this right Sid?)

 

She can make notes, mark the photos she's already scrapped, and flag the ones she wants to print for the next time she scraps.  This way she doesn't get bogged down browsing through folders on her computer and wasting time that could be better spent creating layouts. 

It took several hours to get done, I mean heck her 2010 photos took up 82 pages, but now she's got this great resource binder...

 

(You may want to set your printer to 'draft' or a low dpi resolution when you're printing these pages off so you can save some ink.)

Isn't this cool?  I don't really need this kind of set up because I've only got the one kiddo and rarely take more than a handful of scrap-able photos each month anymore. (My 'to-be-scrapped' photos are down to half a shoebox.)  But I can totally see how someone who has loads of photos (or loads of youngin's) might want to put together a book like this.

Love it? 

I do too!!

Thanks for sharing Sid. ;)