Thinking of You

I wanted to make a card to send to a friend of mine who is trying to recover from surgery and pack to move at the same time. Either is taxing enough, but the combination of the two could wear down even the strongest of us.

I was cleaning up my "favorites" and saw the Paper Player's sketch for this week and thought it would be a good starting point. I also wanted to test the capacity of my Silhouette to make intricate cuts. So, I purchased a cut out mat for a 12 by 12 layout and shrunk it down to a card size. Even dear hubby was forced to ask me what I was cutting when I was wandering around the house doing little tasks like filling the bird feeder, making hot chocolate and trimming the fur that mats on Chewie under her legs and the cutter just kept on cutting.

I was stunned by how well it did cut, although it's clear to me I probably should order a new blade. Then I just added some SEI ribbon, added a stamped sentiment to the frames cut out on the Cameo and glued the card together. Easy breezy.

Vroom Vroom

Despite my disappointment over not getting to go camping this weekend, I'm having a great time. The long weekend started off great with an all day Project Runway Allstars marathon with my sister, then a trip to the casino with the hubby yesterday and a matinee of Hunger Games. Last night, we listened to the Hawks win and watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Then today I got to play in my craft room all day (although I mostly played Slotomania and watched movies) and now listen to the Hawks win again.

Despite a lot of time in my craft room, I only finished one layout today, based upon Sketch Inspiration's sketch # 312, featuring pictures from our trip to Fontana for the race a couple of years ago (since tomorrow is the Fontana race this year, it seemed appropriate to work on a Fontana layout). I did a little digging through the Silhouette Design Studio store to find a checkerboard border that I used in strips, plus the Vroom title. I had found a great flag design freebie from SVG Cuts, but I needed the Designed Edition of the Silhouette Studio to make it work. Hubby didn't even bat an eye when I told him I wanted to upgrade. On quick upgrade later and I was cutting out my SVG Cuts flags (slick as a whistle)!

Then I used my button maker from Epiphany Crafts to make a cute little matching button. Viola, several hours later (of TV watching, a trip to Redbox, and some Slotomania) and my layout was done.

Last Paper Loft layout

I am sooooo tired. Yesterday was the longest day at work and today wasn't much better. I'm so ready for a good night's sleep. But before I slip off for some well deserved sleep, I wanted to share the last layout I made with the kit I bought from Paper Loft. This one turned out very different than the instructions. I changed the big title and also changed out the words on the second page to ones I thought were a much better fit (a little mushy but still a better fit). That's the thing I love about scrapbooking. Even if I'm simply lifting someone else's layout or, in this case, putting together a kit, I still can put my own spin on it.

I have to say that I really loved this Paper Loft kit. The pages were easy to put together and still provided enough extra sayings that I could swap them out for ones I liked better. Here I am just a little over a week later and I was able to finish four double page layouts. It was nice to change out all the layouts in my office this week and they look so nice displayed all together.

3rd Paper Loft layout

Well, it's near the end of another weekend and the start of a crazy busy week. I'm a little sad because it's finally hitting me that I'm selling my car. I've had it for a decade now and it's time to move up to a bigger car, but I'm still a little sad about selling my baby.

On the positive side, I've had a great weekend. It's been fun, a little work, and a little crafting. I found some time to clean up the debris in the back yard that didn't get cleaned up in the fall. Fortunately, I tackled that project this morning when it was sunny and nice enough outside for a short-sleeved shirt. Then an hour later it started snowing. Yes, snowing in March. What a Spring!

Then I made my first risotto ever. I didn't expect much. I mean, after all, Matt's the chef, not me. But shockingly it turned out creamy and delicious. I didn't even mind all the stirring, well a glass of wine helped. It's been so long since I had a glass that I forgot how nice a good glass of wine is.

So when all my chores were crossed off the list today, it didn't leave much time to play in my room. But I still managed to find pictures for the layout I put together yesterday. But, that's about all I had time to do.

Now it's off to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow will be a more than 15 hour working and Matt will be on his own for cooking. I'm sure he'll do just fine (at Burger King - bwaaahaahaahaa). Night all!

More Paper Loft

I was hoping to work on the rest of my Paper Loft layouts last weekend, but I ended up doing other things (like watching a reality TV marathon with my sister and cutting mats for my scrapbook frames). Then this week, I had a sinus headache that acted like a migraine for nearly four days because the pressure changes with our weather this week. If I wasn't at work, I was pretty much curled up in a ball in bed.

So last night was the first night that I haven't gone straight to bed, but I played Slotomania instead of crafting. I just wasn't ready to really tax my brain yet for fear that it might start hurting again.

But this morning after getting the laundry started, putting together a crock pot chili and finishing watching Tuesday's episode of The Biggest Loser (I swear that this is the worst season ever. I don't find any of the remaining players inspiring and there's quite a few of them - Conda, Conda, Conda, did I mention Conda? - that I really don't enjoy watching at all. I hope next season they get back to contestants who I actually like), I settled into my craft room to watch episodes of the United States of Tara on Netflix and work on my Paper Loft layouts. The reality is that I probably would have got more scrapbooking done if I had watched a little less Tara (why is that show so mesmerizing? Oh, yeah, because Toni Collette is an amazing actress. I've loved her work since I saw Muriel's Wedding nearly two decades ago) and didn't get conned into making caramel corn for the hubby, but I still managed to get a little bit done.

The left page of this two page layout isn't exactly like the instructions. The instructions didn't have any title or words on the left side. I put it together like they showed, but it just seemed to be missing something. Then I found this phase that wasn't going to be used for any of the other pages and decided it would do the trick.

Well, it's late and I'm tired so it's off to bed now... Night all!

The Paper Loft...

This is the fifth year I've been to CKC and each year it's been a little less spectacular. Old favorites have gone out of business, fewer companies come to show off their wares, and the crowds thin every year (well that last one really it's only a bad thing because the less people come, the less vendors come). I really cannot wait for the economy to turn around so it can be the magical time it once was, where my feet hurt at the end of the day from walking through so many booths and I have an overwhelming sense of guilt at the amount of money I've spent.

All recession issues aside, I still did manage to spend a little money (but far less than I usually do so no guilt this year...). I didn't take any classes this year, but I did have to buy the "Totally Awesome Layouts" class pack because, well, the layouts were in fact totally awesome.

So here's the story... I walked three whole rows of the sales floor without buying a single item. That's right... three rows of stuff that looked great, but not quite great enough to get me to stop and buy something I would have to lug through the next few rows since I could get it at home for the same price. Then I stumbled into the Paper Loft. They had some cute camping and fishing layouts but then this one layout caught my attention. Actually, it was a saying on the layout: "I loved you yesterday, I love you still. I always have..... and I always will." Now I'm not usually one for mushy things. But it really just hit me the right way.

So I looked for the kit for that one. I couldn't find it. I found others that went with it, but not the one I was looking for. Then a super sweet sales associate asked me if she could help. She told me that it was the class project and wasn't available for individual sale. Well crap. I didn't have time to take the class to get it. She said I could take a picture and then just buy the paper and try to build it at home, or, better yet, I could ask if the supervisor would let me buy the class packet. Sure enough, she did. She started telling me how to put it together, but, really, it didn't look that hard. Those who know me know I rarely need instructions at card camps and such. For some reason layout and card construction just clicks for me.

So the hardest thing about this double page layout was finding portrait pictures. In fact, that was so hard that each one of these is actually a landscape picture cropped for a portrait opening. I have three more double page layouts from the class kit and they are equally adorable. Fortunately, I already have pictures picked out for one so I hope to finish most of them tomorrow before my sister shows up for a reality TV marathon.

Since I didn't spend as much money at the convention this year, maybe I'll just have to pick up more kits over at the Paper Loft.

Thank you card from the furballs!

Today a co-worker brought me a bag of kitty treats.Her daughter had won them in a gift basket from a local natural food store, but they don't have cats. My co-worker immediately thought of my herd and brought the bag for me. It's salmon flavored, so I wasn't sure if my all things but fish loving furballs would like them. Well, no fear there! Turns out, they LOVE them, I mean eat your finger off if you don't get it out of the way of me eating this treat LOVE them.

So fortunately, I had a kitty themed thank you card all ready in my stash to send off. Now I just have to go hide the bag carefully and then get some more from the store.

It's been a long time...

...Since I did a full layout. I guess I've been in card mode a lot lately. Plus I really haven't much creative mojo or energy lately. It seems like all I do is go to work and sleep. But this weekend, although it went way too fast, I had just had a great time and felt more like myself. We went to an afternoon hockey game yesterday with my parents and had a great time. Today we went to my niece's 11th birthday party. Then a little grocery shopping, some laundry, a little yard work, a new recipe for dinner (Cheesy Potato Soup - so easy and quite delicious) and I even found some time to play in my craft room tonight where I was inspired to do a layout of this great picture of my parents after a long exhausting day at SeaWorld in 2009. I used a PageMaps layout (aren't they fabulous?) for inspiration. I used a piece of Colorbok paper from a pad I found at TJ Maxx (love the great deal on paper there) and a lot of designs from the Silhouette design studio (the banners are new ones this week).