New inspiration from CKC and the Disney/Pixar blog hop

So I've spent the last two days at the Creating Keepsakes convention. I went by myself on Friday and then yesterday took my Mom for the first time. It was a ton of fun, but I do have to admit that after a little while, all the booths start to blur together. It's much better if you can look at a few for a while and then go do something else. Despite the blur of the booths, my mind is filled with ideas, but I have projects I have to finish before I can really start letting the ideas pour out. A co-worker announced that she is leaving and her staff members came to me and asked me to do a "goodbye book" for her. I've done several of these in the past and they are really simple. It's just a picture of each staff member and a place for them to write her a little message. Usually, they are a snap, since I've kept the format, it's just a little updating of staff names and pictures. But it's been a while since I've done one and I didn't realize how many people have come and gone, so it took a lot longer today than I anticipated. But, it's ready for the pictures of the new people that her staff are getting for me. So maybe another hour or so sometime this week and that will be done. When I needed a little break from the digital manipulation, I finally found the time to cover this little notebook I bought a couple weeks ago when out shopping with my sister. It was a "green" recycled book that was pretty blah looking. I found a package of this argyle paper at CKC that I just loved and I had the ribbon on hand. A little glitter pen (that doesn't show up well in the picture) and voila... All I can say is that covering the front was a breeze, but it took a bit of time to figure out where to put the slit for the pen holder and the circles and slit for the elastic band, but it looks pretty good. The other to-do item on my list today (other than laundry) was to writes a few cards to friends who need a little pick me up. It seems like there's quite a few lately who have been going through some rough times. So if you read my blog you know that I have a bit of a stash of cards right now, so I didn't really need to make any, but I saw an idea in the Boxer booth at CKC about a card that says "I'm all ears..." and I knew that was perfect to send to a friend to remind her that whenever she needs someone to talk to, she can call me. So I went ahead and made a new one today to send to her. I guess I was more than a little inspired by the Disney/Pixar blog hop yesterday. They did a wonderful job with that one and if you are interested in seeing the hop, it started here.