more scrapbooking-- layout share: BFF's

and, an apology-- I realized that one of the layouts in the last post was one that I had shown you before-- sorry about that! I guess it was because of staying up really late... :D

Valentine's Page Kit

Last time I scrapbooked at the Scrapbook Barn in Gilbert, I got a page kit as a make-a-take, to make the page above. It's a nice-enough page, and all the supplies for it were included. In the course of the last couple weeks of scrapping, I used the word paper banner for another page so I needed to make a couple modifications to the kit to actually use it. When I looked at my photos, I decided to take my page in a slightly different direction... 

corrugated heart with my page title: bff's.  (I dispensed with the
computer printed title in the kit in favor of glittery Thickers)

So as you can see from the photo above, I decided to make a page about Prescott and Bisbee. They really are BFF's... wherever one is, the other isn't far away. After Bisbee had her teeth cleaning and extraction, she had to stay quiet for a week so she could heal.  Keeping quiet was tough on her, but it drove Prescott crazy that they couldn't play together! When one of them is inside and the other one is outside, the inside dog stands in the doorway and whines... and so on.

The finished page

I used some of the words from the leftover banner paper to add to my now floral banner, moved the heart title, and used two larger photos instead of one large + 3 smaller ones, but otherwise, the page was made pretty much like the kit. I think it turned out pretty nice, it's a topic I've wanted to scrap, and now I have!! 

(Calvinball for the win!)

cute pet photo interlude

me, totally zonked out on the couch, covered in cats.

 (This photo is from early January-- I was extra-tired from staying up for New Year's, I guess-- lol!)

Prescott, totally zonked out on the couch, a couple days later.

12-hour crop (okay, slightly less)

So, yesterday I went to a 12-hour crop at the Scrapbook Barn in Gilbert, from 10 am to 10 pm. For once, I put together page-kits ahead of time- a collection of photos and papers that I wanted to use / thought might work well with the photos, and tossed in a few embellishments. Some people do much more 'kitting' than that, down to designing the layout, including letter stickers, pre-cutting papers, borders, etc. but I can't do that much of it ahead of time. 

I didn't finish getting ready till the last minute (what else is new, right?), so I was a bit late getting there- had to buy soda and snacks, of course! I took the page kits, my tool box, a few stamps, and whatever other papers and 'stuff' I could grab at the last minute. So, while I had the papers and photos I wanted, I didn't have some of my other essentials, like my ATG tape gun (!!), scratch paper, or a ruler- lol!! I couldn't work without my tape gun (I was seriously contemplating calling Tom so he could meet me halfway to drop it off-- lol!), so right when I got there, I had to run out to buy an adhesive roller. I figured I might as well get lunch out of the way while I was out, too, so I didn't actually start scrapping till, maybe, noonish?? But, I did get some pages (mostly) done while I was there, had a great time, and already signed up for next month's 12-hour crop (when I will hopefully be a bit better prepared- but don't count on it!). 

I didn't get any layouts totally 'done' (most still need journaling, and some still need titles) but I made a good amount of progress. Enough rambling; on to the photos, right?? 

This is the first layout I worked on, and like usual, it took me quite a while to 'get into' the scrapping process. The photos on the pages aren't the greatest, but I really wanted to include them in my album, since having 'real, live' wild horses around was such a cool thing to me when I first saw them (and still is). The journaling will be based on a news story I found that talks about the history of the horses living on the reservation. And it still needs a title, which I'm going to cut with my Cameo. The layout was based mostly on a Scrapbook Generation sketch from the travel sketches book. 

(as an aside, the red patterned paper is a sort of 'bandanna' print paper; I remember buying it years ago when we drove through Santa Fe on the way back to IL and WI on vacation- crazy that I remember that, right? I'm glad I finally found the perfect layout for it!)

         

     

These photos show a bit of my working process- I try out different photo arrangements from the sketches on plain white cardstock, decide which arrangement I like best, and take a picture of it so I don't forget how I wanted them. (This method works great for me, since my memory for this kind of stuff is horrible.)

a close-up of the embellishment cluster on the right-hand page-
I'll put something similar on the left-hand page, probably up near the title. 

This layout was based on one by Lisa Dickinson that I pinned ages ago-
you can see the inspiration layout on her blog, here. 

I've wanted to make this page for quite a while-- it's just a couple pictures I took last fall when we were on a short walk around the neighborhood, but I had a particular reason why I wanted to scrap them. During this walk, a car followed us around the block, pulled up to the curb, and the people inside got out and asked if they could pet our dogs. (To which we said, 'sure!' because they love getting attention!) The woman said they used to have a Sheltie years ago that they really loved, and seeing our dogs brought back good memories of their dog. We love our dogs, of course, but it makes me feel good to know that they could bring back good memories to someone else, so I wanted to document that. (that story will go on the library card.) 

A close up of the upper-left embellishment cluster: a bit of stamping, and a couple small pieces of patterned paper. The heart was popped up with foam tape. (I still need to add the date the photos were taken).  

A closer look at the heart cut-out card. I cut this card with my Cameo to be the same size as the photos (I used the small cut-out hearts on the corner embellishments), and backed it with a piece of patterned paper. To give depth and emphasize the cut-out areas, I added tiny (I mean, tiny!!) bits of foam tape between the card stock and patterned paper so it would cast a bit of shadow. (doing that was a pain, but worth it, I think.)

The letters stickers are foam Thickers, which are raised / dimensional.
I just love this font; it's beautiful! (they have a bit of glitter on, too.)

This was the fastest page I made all day, maybe my fastest page ever. I mean, really, really fast: it only took me about 15 minutes to come up with this layout and put it together! These were the first pictures I took of Zola, when I saw her in the pet store for the first time: I went in at lunchtime on a Friday and happened to see her, took the pictures, and went back to work and immediately e-mailed them to Tom-- 'hey, what do you think about getting another kitten?' Then I went back after work to see her again, and we both went the next day to see her again, ultimately deciding to bring her home! (I mean, really: who could resist that cute pink nose and the gray splotch on top of her head?!? lol!) The journaling will go in the empty 'quadrant' on the pink ledger paper, with a bit of writing on the heart tag at the top. Oh, and I just remembered- I do have a wood veneer heart that I painted white; it will go in the lower right-hand corner, to bring a touch of white to the other side of the page.

I have a couple more layouts mostly done, which I'll post separately. I hope you all had a good (scrappy, and otherwise!) weekend, and thanks for checking out my scrapbook pages!

pet pics--

even with all the bird and craft photos, you didn't think I wouldn't post any pet photos now, did you?? I don't take too many of them (not when they're awake, anyway) since they aren't all that keen on posing for me.

Bisbee and Ariel, just hanging out.

Zola barely sits still at all, so she won't pose nice, for sure!

Krista won't pose, either! :D

Butters, though, now- she poses.

And so does Prescott! 

random photo catch-up

yup, we're still here! We had a pretty low-key holiday that was spent mostly at home, with Christmas day spent at the home of some very close friends. I didn't really take many photos over last few weeks, but here's a few random ones:

Holiday flowers: Christmas cactus and Amaryllis

A couple weeks ago, I went to the local grocery store to pick up something food-related, and came back home with these! I entered the store through the greenhouse section- what can I say? LOL! These flowers remind me of the holidays growing up, because Mom and Grandma would both have their houses full of amaryllis (what's the plural for that, anyway?) and Christmas cacti during the winter. The white Christmas cactus is going gangbusters, while the magenta one, being smaller (it's the one on the left that's hard to see), has only got one flower open right now... the only word to use for the amaryllis is amazing!! There are two flower stalks: the first one has six (!) flower buds, and it looks like all six of them will actually bloom! Hopefully they'll all last, and I can keep them alive through the summer. (I'm not sure if my Midwestern-raised green thumb is up to the task here in the desert.)

Holiday dogs! L-R: Prescott, Bisbee, Krista

 One of the Christmas presents we gave to the dogs (and ourselves) was taking all three of them to the groomers... don't they look pretty?!? It's a big job with a long-haired dog (way too big for us to want to tackle it on a regular basis), and the groomers definitely earn their money! (by the way, Tom is off-camera holding up a treat- that's why they're all sitting so attentively. They don't sit still on command for more than about 1 1/2 seconds, otherwise- lol!)

winterizing in the AZ desert!!

We've actually had a freeze warning in effect for the last couple days, so we had to 'winterize' a few of our plants- the Styrofoam cups protect the growing tips of the cactus arms from getting frostbit. It looks goofy, but it works! This is our night-blooming cereus, which is doing really well, so I don't want it to get frostbitten.

Winterizing method 2- this method doesn't work on cactus, lol!
The plant under here is a natal plum, a low-growing evergreen
shrub native to South Africa: click here to see a photo of it

Mom was asking me recently what winter in AZ is like, and if we really notice a difference. Besides the obvious temperature changes (it does get down to freezing occasionally at night, and every once in a great while- like every 5-10 years- there might be a visible snowflake or two falling somewhere in the Valley), there are some other differences. There are some deciduous trees that lose their leaves; the quality of the light and sunshine is much weaker (it's still lots better than having gray skies for months on end, though); it gets dark much too soon for my taste; and it rains occasionally (not like a monsoon storm, but a wet, damp, cold rain).  

One other way I know it's winter is when I'm running the water inside the house- the water takes forever to get warm or hot when you run it! LOL!! It's an odd thing, but there's a good reason for this: since the ground doesn't freeze here, our water pipes are buried very shallow underneath the ground. Because of this, the water never actually gets bona-fide 'cold' during the summer, and it also takes much longer to heat up during the winter. 

Afternoon-sun-basking kitties

One other way I know it's winter is that the cats get a lot friendlier, both with us and with each other. They get very 'cat-like' and hang out in the sun, or curl up on any blanket or afghan that looks comfortable. (including right on top of us, if we're sitting still!) They would never do this in the middle of the summer (not that they could sit in the sun even if they wanted to, since we have the sunscreens up to block the light). 

So, now it's on to 2013- both Tom and I are sort of glad to have 2012 over with, actually... what with my two surgeries and a cancer diagnosis, a cat illness and surgery, and a mysterious dog sickness (he's finally back to normal, thankfully), 2012 wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs, and we're not sorry to see it gone. Here's looking forward to a year of better health and good things to come, for all of us! 

(except for those pesky New Year's resolutions, one of which is for me to clean up my craft room: we were watching a Hoarders television show marathon over the holidays, and some of it was hitting a bit too close to home for comfort-- lol!)

a bit of an explanation...

If you looked at the writing on the journal pages in my last post closely, you may have seen that I wrote a good bit about someone being sick (good eyesight, Mom!). So I thought I'd better explain: Prescott was sick last week, and it was a bit of a rough couple days. (He's better now, thank goodness.)

Last Monday evening, he started favoring one of his hind legs, and that progressed over the next couple days to being so stiff and sore (? we're assuming, anyway) that by Wednesday, he wouldn't really walk at all, which was quite worrying! I carried him down the stairs and to his bed where he rested all day till I could get him to the vet. He just laid there, snuffling with a runny nose, and generally looking pathetic:

here he is, looking pathetic, with a 104.5 fever...
(fyi, a dog's normal temp can go up to 102.5)

I got him to the vet's office where he looked pathetic for Dr. V. and tried to hide behind the exam room chair (not his usual behavior, at all). The vet prescribed an anti-inflammatory steroid and a painkiller to help reduce the pain in his joints, and took some blood for a battery of tests. 

She thought it might be Valley Fever (a fungal infection that's endemic to this area; it lives in the soil and is usually asymptomatic) or tick fever (a bacterial blood infection that can be carried by dog ticks), but those both came back negative (thank goodness!!) and by today, he's almost his old self again...  

almost back to normal!

He doesn't have quite the energy necessary to keep up with Bisbee just yet, but everything else seems normal enough. We don't know what exactly happened to him, but hopefully it was some sort of a weird fluke and once we wean him off the steroid he'll stay his chipper, energetic self! (Like I wrote on one of those journal pages, 'it would be nice if we could all just be healthy for a while!') 

And now, a totally random photo: part of my snowman collection, decorating the niche in the hallway. Ariel keeps trying to jump up here and mess with them, so Tom had to arrange them across the front of the shelf as a barricade to stop her- lol!! (so far it hasn't really worked, either... she's such a stinker!)

the week (well, some of it, anyway) in photos

Wednesday afternoon, a storm moved through the valley- storms (and really, clouds in general) are unusual things here, so they're pretty exciting when they do actually happen.

 Yay, it actually rained! Enough to use the windshield wipers, even!! (although not right here; this is just after it started.)

Then, there was a duststorm... so, my nice clean car isn't nice and clean any more. :( But, there was rain!! so I won't complain too much.

another photo of the praying mantis from Friday. I love that you can even see his tiny antennae here!

Saturday morning, we ran some errands. 1) drop the dogs off at the groomers. 2) check out chest freezers and computers at Best Buy-- need to do more research before we buy, though. 3) stop off at Arriba's Mexican Grill for lunch-- they have some amazingly hot (and tasty) Hatch chile entrees. 4) Pick up framed artwork from JoAnn's. 5) back home, with leftovers for Sunday.

Arriba's interior is kind of 'kitchy' Mexican, but it's fun- an entire wall of plastic flowers, and these larger-than-life parrots everywhere. I thought this one was kinda funny, holding his can of beer. (when I took the photo, a sweet little old lady who had also been taking pictures asked me, "oh, are you a tourist too?" haha!! No, just a scrapbooker!

The first piece of framed artwork. My mom is an amazing sewer!! I started this piece of counted cross-stitch, oh, maybe about 2 years ago?? not sure... Anyway, I work really slow, and have a tendency to not finish things, even though I have the best of intentions. She worked on me for at least 6 months to give it to her so she could finish it for me. Finally, I conceded defeat (I was probably only about a quarter of the way done) and true to her word, she did finish it. 

But, that's not all- she also did this one, too!! These were designed by the same designer, and are about 18x22 framed. Gorgeous, right?? 

I know-- it is amazing, isn't it?!? I have no idea how many individual stitches there are in these, but they're so detailed, there have to be thousands... a huge thank-you to Mom, for spending untold hours on these with your needle and thread.

I'll post another photo or two of them, once we get them hung. I think they're going to go above our bed, and will finish off the bedroom perfectly! 

The dogs, after spending 4 hours at the groomers. They are so clean, the white fur is almost blinding! And, there's so much less hair on them, I can't even begin to imagine what the floor at the groomer's looked like after they were done!! L-R: Krista, Prescott, Bisbee. (Krista still doesn't know how to 'sit' yet; I need to work on that with her some more.)

Bisbee's hair is so silky smooth after they come back from the groomer's; too bad it won't last! (we haven't let them 'cut loose' and play outside quite yet; don't want them to get dirty too quick.) She poses so pretty! (when there's no outside distractions, that is.)

NSD 2012 (3rd installment)

And now, for something totally different... I switch gears from vintage inspired heirloom possessions to bright colors and doodling! 

but first: my Mom did say she remembers at least trying to make cookies with the springerle rolling pin... "They could have been used for building brick though. Anise flavored and very hard, at least the ones we tried were." (And that's why I only use the rolling pin as a decoration- lol!) Although it might be interesting to try as an experiment. I think I read somewhere that springerle cookies were sometimes used as Christmas tree ornaments; I guess if that's the case, it wouldn't matter if they were hard or not.  

So, now, back to the scrapbook pages. All weekend long, the scrapbooking website Two Peas in a Bucket- yes, I know- don't ask me where the name comes from; that's just what they call it, lol!!  Anyway, all weekend long they hosted special events and challenges for National Scrapbooking Day on their message boards. My "Fresh" layout fit the criteria for one of the challenges (altering the chipboard dresses and and the picket fence), and I wanted to complete some more of the challenges.  This layout meets the criteria for 'bright colors,' don't you think??

I showed these photos on the blog before, but I hadn't scrapbooked them yet. I know they're not technically 'good' photos, since they're blurry, but I think the blurriness capture the feeling of movement I really wanted to use them to record the memory of Bisbee and Prescott having such a good time playing in the backyard. This layout was made for the challenge 'Bright Colors' and I think it delivers. It's a double-page layout (meaning the pages will stay together like this in my album) made up of one 6x12 page that holds the long, epic title, and the 12x12 page that holds the photographs. The paper is from the American Crafts Amy Tan Sketchbook collection, and it works perfectly for the fun, playful feeling I was going for with these pages. It has multicolored watercolor-look backgrounds, coupled with black or white doodling, and a very hand-drawn feel. I got this paper in a variety pack purchased at the most recent scrapbook store yard sale, I think-I would never have bought this paper on my own, but I quite like how it turned out here.  

The long, epic title on the lefthand page was all done to be tongue-in-cheek; this is not a 'serious' scrapbook layout at all. The title was made using my vintage typewriter, and practically every set of small letter stickers I own, along with a couple mini alpha stamp sets, with teal blue, cactus green, mustard, orange, and black ink. It took about 2 1/2 hours to actually do (why do I do that to myself?!? lol!) but I really like how it turned out.

The journaling/title reads: "Throughout history, there have been stories of pursuit- epic tales of glory, thrilling tales of the hunter and the hunted... Aesop's Fox and the Grapes; Jason and the Golden Fleece; Sylvester and Tweety Bird; Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. and now, there is: Prescott and Bisbee"  haha!! They spend sooo much time chasing each other, running crazily around and around the backyard, and every once in a while, one will 'let' the other one win. (except Bisbee cheats sometimes; she hides behind things, or plops herself down on the grass, to get a break and catch her breath- lol!!)

I added in a couple strips of another patterned paper (the hearts) to bridge both pages, but other than that, I didn't really add anything (didn't need to!) This is one of those layouts I'm really glad I have completed, and I'm sure I'll be glad to look back on it once it's in my album.

One last layout I started on Sunday afternoon, before I had to pack up all my crap stuff and head back home. Another one for the 'bright colors' challenge at the 2peas website! This layout also fit the criteria for a 'chevron' challenge as well, (the huge blue floral chevrons I added next to the title) and a third one called 'the final stretch' since I've had these photos printed for months, and never got around to actually doing anything with them.  The photos are from my trip last year to Artfest, and don't fit any theme or anything, so I felt pretty comfortable just choosing random paper and colors to put with them. (some people might think the paper overwhelms the photos, and yeah, maybe it does from a purely 'design' standpoint, but I really like the fact that the paper and mood captures the fun, and the visual 'overload' that was a big part of Artfest for me.)

I spent a ton of time on these chevrons, too- way too long, actually! I thought it would be easy to just hand-cut chevrons, but I should have known better, since I've always been 'math challenged' with stuff like this. I started trying to just mark them out with a pencil and ruler, but I kept getting the angles wrong. I finally resorted to googling 'chevron images' from the internet and tracing one that I thought would work. Even then, something looked wrong about them when I cut them out! By that point, actually, I think ANYthing I did was going to look wrong... so, I stuck them down and called it good. I finished up the journaling and white pen doodling when I got home. (just couldn't let National Scrapbooking go that easily, I guess- lol!! Actually, 2peas is leaving their challenges open through May 13th, so I have another layout in process- right now it's on the dining room table!) 

random photos

just some random photos from the last week's activities...

last Sunday, I met one of my friends (Jessica, also a co-worker) at 'As You Wish' for an afternoon of crafty artmaking. This store is one of those place where you can paint your own pottery and get it fired; they also recently added glass fusing to their 'menu' which is what we did. You pay a flat fee for the workspace, time, and colored glass, and pay separately for your glass 'base' (they have sizes from coasters up to a 12 in. platter), then pay for it to be fired in the kiln. You make whatever design you want, leave it with them to fire, then you pick it up when it's done. It was a really fun time!! They provided safety glasses, a cutter, snipping pliers thingamajigs, gloves, etc. and we provided the creativity. 

Here's my design, in progress- I did some abstract (easier than realistic!) cacti; an ocotillo with two prickly pear, sandy desert, and some clouds. It was harder to come up with a design than I thought it would be, but in the end, I liked my result. They provided boxes with pieces in all different colors, and you can cut whatever shape you want-- they also provide containers of 'frit' which is basically ground up glass, like glitter. That's what I used for the sand. The larger pieces are glued in place with good old Elmer's, and the frit is held in place with- wait for it- hair spray!!  That keeps the pieces in place till it's fired, when the layers of glass get fused together with the heat.

 Our rope cholla, with the first couple blooming flowers. There's many more to come-- it's just loaded with buds! The bees were happy about the new flowers, and were quite busy.

 The prickly pear is going to go crazy with flowers, too-- the bulgy bits you can see across the top of each pad are all flower buds!! It's also going crazy with new plant growth, too-- I'll need to prune some of the new pads off before they get too much bigger, to keep it under control.

A cute baby birdy in amongst bougainvillea blossoms. (do you like that alliteration?) This was taken at the Tempe Marketplace mall, outside the 'As You Wish' store... this mall has a lot of really pretty outdoor spaces with flower plantings, fountains, fire pits, and tables and chairs for relaxing. (they also have misting systems for the summer, thank goodness!)

 hibiscus (?) flower- also at the mall

 baby birdy's mama, coming to feed him. She didn't appreciate me hanging out there, so I left them alone after I got a halfways decent photo.

 talk about random, this one is definitely it! I just liked the swirly rainbow-colored design on this vending machine. (maybe I'll use this idea somehow in a scrapbook or art journal page someday.) 

 a couple more 'totally random' things: first is this bike rack design, also from the mall. Second is the fact that the other day I accidentally shut Ariel in the pantry for the entire day! LOL!! I looked for her before I left for work, but couldn't find her-- I figured she was upstairs looking out the window, but she popped right out of the door when I opened it to get the dog food in the afternoon-- darn her, she's quick! I don't know how she snuck in there without me seeing. (and she's quiet; she didn't meow at all, even when I was calling her! Luckily, she didn't destroy the place while she was stuck inside all day.)

 more totally random: just a shot of what can fit in my Fit. We unfortunately just had to get rid of our chest freezer- it finally gave up the ghost after 10 years of use and five moves... :(  Luckily, the local recycle place was having a free bulk hazardous waste dropoff, so we took it there yesterday to get rid of it. 

 the first prickly pear blossom-- when I first moved here, all the bright flower colors took a bit of getting used to, but I've since come to realize that they fit in with all the bright sunshine we have here. Paler colors would just be 'washed out' visually in all that bright light.

Look, our backyard is a putting green! Not really, but it does look as good as one- Tom spent a few hours today out in the hot sun (the high today was 100+) mowing and edging the grass for the first time. He mowed it down a bit farther than usual, to get rid of as much of last season's dead growth as possible. The dogs are still trying to find some leftover grass stems to eat, though!! sadly, no salad for them today.

Butters checks out my finished glass piece... I'm not sure whether she likes it or not; she'd probably like it better if it had cat food on it! I really like how it turned out! I don't think it's going to be used for anything though, except to decorate the kitchen (once I figure out how to hang it, that is).