How can this be?

I spent forever last night digging through my library-of-congress size stash of paper and I realized I have next to NO baby girl paper! That is just dreadful, don't you think? I mean, sure, I have no girls to scrap for, and all my friends and relations have only boys as well. (Seriously, all the babies in the generation down from me have been boys!) And sure, I have a ton of pretty, flowery paper I could probably use for a baby girl project. Bu it just wasn't what I wanted for this project. I finally found one piece I liked, but it's not super baby-ish. This is an altered comp book (one of my fave projects!) for my dear friend Toby's baby shower tomorrow. We're all SO excited that somebody is finally having a girl!

By the way, I think I know what I'll be keeping an eye out for at the Scrapbook Expo next month -- baby girl paper! (Along with about 1000 other things... this is me, counting down the days and saving up my pennies!)

ONE YEAR of JOY!

I am loving this scrapping non-chronologically thing so far. I did this layout for Regina Easter's Base Camp numbers" challenge over on her blog: http://regina-bittenbythebug.blotspot.com/. I knew when she gave us the details, this was just the sort of thing i wanted to do. And isn't my little guy a cutie? All the numbers and letters (with one exception) were cut from Base Camp as follows: small numbers at 1 1/4", big 1 at 5 1/2", "ONE YEAR" and "JOY!" at 1 1/4". "of" was cut with the Cuttlebug "Curls and Swirls" alpha. The tags (which will have more pictures of the big day" were cut from Zooballoo at 3", once on shadow (the dark blue) and once on silhouette (the colored outlines). Paper is from Basic Grey. TFL!

Family Ups & Downs = Time for Cards!

Whenever a member of my family or a loved ones has a happy event or a challenge in their life, one of my first thoughts is "Hmmm, what kind of card would work best for this?" Sad, I know, but there you have it. Here are two cards I made last night. The first is for my little sister, who is going through a very difficult time, and I wanted to remind her how much we love her.

If you'd like more info on this card, here is a link to where I've posted it, along with all the materials and instructions, on the Cricut messageboard:

http://www.cricut.com/messageboard/tm.aspx?m=991201

And this one is for my little brother, who just entered the MTC today in preparation for serving a two-year LDS mission to Nicaragua. Hooray! I am just SO stinkin' proud of him. As I thought about what advice I would give him and what I learned from my own mission, I just thought "make every minute count." So this card is based on the number of minutes in two years, which turned out to be a little too abstract, since I had to explain it to everyone... Oh well, you win some, you lose some!












The striped and polka dot paper are from My Mind's Eye, and the "Called to Serve" paper is from Rusty Pickle. I cut the clock from Going Places and the numbers from Base Camp (both Cricut). The corners are hand cut.

Stay tuned -- in a similar vein, I'll be making a card tonight for my brother and sister-in-law, whose adoption of sweet baby Noah is being finalized tomorrow!

I am a liberated scrapper!

So I finally decided to liberate myself from trying to "catch up," and I've really been having fun! Here are three pages that I've been wanting to do forever but I was trying to get caught up to them. They are all for the scrapbook I've been doing for my family -- it's 8x8, so it's easy to scan and make prints for everyone.

This first one is my sweet little nephew Noah, who is just the most precious baby ever. I decided to focus on how much everyone in our family loves him, so I couldn't pick just one or two or five pictures.... :) I cut the title with the Stamped Cricut cartridge, and the flourish stamps are from CTMH.

This one is my handsome little bro Nick and his sweet girlfriend, Crystal. Nick was just tickled pink when I asked for a copy of this pic to put in the scrapbook, and that made me really happy. Always nice to know your efforts are appreciated! I just love these scrumptious papers from Sassafrass Lass -- when I saw them at the store, I had no idea what I would use them on but I just couldn't resist. I thought they worked perfectly for this pic!

This last one is from our family reunion this summer. I think this would take the record for the fastest digital layout I've ever done -- I just set up the boxes, slapped the pics in there, and put in the faux label tape and little journal note. I love a fast page!

Do I dare?

Stop scrapping chronologically? I don't know if I can do it! I've always gone in order, but I have gotten to the point where I don't think I'm ever going to REALLY get caught up, and there are a lot more projects I have in mind that I feel like I just can't do until I get caught up. But then I think I'll have scrapper's guilt over the 11 months or so that won't be in the scrapbooks, if I just give up and start from right now. So I think what I'll do is work on the projects I actually WANT to do right now, then if I have extra time and energy and desire I can go back and work on old pics later. Anyone else have this same dillemma? Dilemna? How is that word spelled, anyway?

I've been nominated for

My friend Patsy Jackson has nominated me for a "Nice Matters" award! I feel so honored to be in the group she nominated. She does beautiful work -- you should really go check out her blog (there's a link in the list of blogs I love at the left). Now I'll have to think about who I'd like to nominate!

Going through scrapping withdrawals!

Well, we're still here in the hospital in Idaho Falls. We were hoping to go home yesterday, but it's looking like we won't be out until tomorrow at the earliest. At least Dan is feeling much, much better today. He's actually feeling great! We just can't go home until more of the infection is cleared out. So really we're both just sitting around bored out of our minds! Thank heavens my dad loned me his laptop, or I'd really go crazy. I miss my scrapping stuff! I have some fun projects I was looking forward to starting, and now I have all this time on my hands and no supplies. :)

Yesterday was a great day in one way, though -- my scrap space was featured in the Cricut Chirp! I was so excited when I got the email last week. It means I get a free cartridge, too, and I'm crossing my fingers that they'll hook me up with Accent Essentials (still waiting to hear if that's a possibility). I think the best part about it is just the gratification of knowing others think your projects are great, too!