in the works...

so, here's a few random things that have been in the works:


1) My scrapping room is finally evolving into its (hopefully) final form. It's about time, too, since we've lived here for, oh, over two years now- LOL! I've never been very happy with the arrangement of the desks or the amount of light on the work spaces, and I've moved the furniture around at least 3 times, but I think I'm finally close to getting it how I like it. (I used to do this when I was little, too; I'd totally rearrange my bedroom at least once or twice a year- remember that, Mom?)  


Anyway, back to my current issue: I usually end up working in this room late into the evening, so decent light is a must! I have one decent drafting-type light on the main desk, but the only light the other work surface (which is our old kitchen table; how's that for re-purposing?) received was from one of those clip-type lights you can buy for around $5 at WalMart. Not exactly good lighting for actually seeing what you're doing! (and, since the desk was usually piled full of junk stuff when I wanted to use it, I needed another work surface for actually working at.) Tom just installed track lighting in his music room (lighting left over from our first apartment), and he suggested getting the same thing for my crafting space- that way, I can direct the light wherever I want it: brilliant!! (Of course, the room now needs to be cleaned, since the better lighting shows just how messy it actually is- please disregard the mess for now, and focus on the lighting!)

(once I get the shelves re-arranged, I'll take some close-up pics of the items on them to show you...
I have a pretty eclectic collection of stuff up there.

2) A couple new scrapbook pages, with more on the way. I recently signed up for a workshop on the scrapbooking site Two Peas in a Bucket, and have finally gotten back into the groove of scrapping. It's odd; my scrapping mojo comes and goes, and when it goes, it takes me quite a while to find it again. But for now it's back, and I'm taking advantage of it while it lasts! The class is The Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking, a 5-chapter course on scrapbooking taught by Shimelle Laine, with a humorous nod to Douglas Adams' classic book, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe. (which I need to read again, so I can get all the 'in' jokes that I think she's added into the class content.) The course is chock-full of handouts, ideas, videos, a private message board, 42 example scrapbook layouts, and tons of information, and so far I've made two layouts with ideas for plenty more! Here's my first two, both using some pretty old pictures from my pile of unscrapped photos:

Both layouts are about the flowers and flower garden I used to have back in Illinois. I spent alot of time gardening, but that was in a different climate, and before we had 5 pets and a house to take care of! 

(and before we lived in a desert- lol!) 

3) not so random, but spring is definitely in the works here in AZ! The high temps have been in the low 80s, the hummingbirds are extra-busy, and there are more hints of green appearing in the backyard grass. (the dogs are trying their darndest to find the greenest shoots to graze on... apparently they're confused and think they're sheep, rather than sheepdogs?!?) I guess they like a bit of salad with their dinner now and then- haha!


4) another random thing in the works for me isn't quite so fun: this Wednesday, I'm going to the endodontist to have a root canal re-done... re-peated... whatever the correct word is for that process-- Not fun!! But, neither is having an infected tooth, so I know it's best to get it fixed sooner rather than later, before it becomes more serious. 


5) a more-fun thing I have in the works is some cute Easter cards: I have the idea; I have the supplies; I just need to put those ingredients together and make them. (once I pick up all the crap straighten my desk, that is.)


6) one more fun thing in the works is a weekend scrapbooking retreat in May at the Phoenix Scrapbook Cottage, over National Scrapbooking Day weekend- it's the cottage's one-year anniversary (already!), and they're having special stuff for the weekend scrappers: door prizes, dinner provided, and other assorted goodies. Since they were instrumental in getting me back into scrapping again, how can I pass that up? (answer: I can't!) So, I hope my mojo stays around until at least then-- or at least, it better not go very far, so I can find it again by May! 

my scrapping style evolution-

I've been scrapping for at least 8-10 years (I don't really know for sure), and my style has evolved and changed over the years... it's pretty interesting to look at the difference from some of my older pages to more current ones! 

I started out using Creative Memories strap-hinge albums, and scrapping my pages in the 'Creative Memories' style... little or no patterned paper, white backgrounds, lots of stickers as embellishments, and borders / blocks for embellishing and journaling. 

Don't get me wrong; I'm glad I took the photos and scrapped them... but looking at them now, I don't really think there's much 'design sense' on these pages; they're just blocks of photos, etc. placed sort of randomly on the page. On the page above, I used letter templates to make my titles; I traced the letters and numbers individually, then colored them in with marker- talk about time-consuming!

Like so many scrappers of that era, I also cut some of my photos into shapes- luckily, I usually stuck with ovals or circles, rather than going crazy with stars or other shapes, like some scrappers did! And of course, every photo had to be matted (another 'talk about time consuming' thing). I did use patterned paper sometimes, as you can see above. I vaguely remember the scrapbook store I used to shop at, back in Illinois-- all the paper was separated by theme (baby, travel, birthday, etc) and the growing trend was to use themed paper that matched your photos. 

I also got into a new trend in page layout design in the early 2000's, with color blocking templates. (I think I even still have some of these templates, although I don't know why I kept them, since I haven't used them since at least 2005!) I do like how this particular layout turned out, actually, but color blocking like this required a lot of photo cropping and measuring (which I'm not all that good at). 

I went all out on this page and made an origami bird to go with the theme of this layout, which was a visit to a Japanese garden with my parents. (although you'd never know that, since I didn't leave any blocks on the page to include journaling!) The origami bird gives a tiny bit of dimension to the page, but my pages were mostly flat when I first started scrapping.

Here's a page I did last year-- it's sort of like the color blocking layout above, although it's much more loose and collage-ish in style, and even includes dimensional things such as ribbon, brads, and charms. I think the fact that I do art journaling has influenced my scrapbooking style; it's not quite so rigid any more. (in addition, this series of pages documents an art retreat I attended last year, so I wanted to emphasize that quality in the page design.) 

I also stopped using the 'strap-hinge' style album, since it was pretty rigid in terms of the page order- you had to glue the papers right to the pages, and couldn't rearrange them once they were in there. This was way to restrictive for me since I now like to scrap 'what I want, when I want' and not feel 'forced' to scrap what was next in order chronologically. I switched to 3-ring binder style albums so I can slip the pages into page protectors and re-arrange them however I want them.

I think the fact that I now take digital photos has also influenced my scrapping style- before, I somehow felt I 'had' to use all the photos I took since I paid good money for the film and for developing them. (Or at least to use a lot more of them than I do now, anyway!) 

Now, I take so many digital photos, I couldn't ever hope to scrap them all-- this has been helpful, actually, because now I can pick out the few (or the one) that best captures the feeling, mood, or event, instead of trying to cram all of them onto the pages just because I took them. On the page above, I actually used a photocopy of my own artwork as the background paper, and tried to capture the colorful, chaotic feel of the photos with the papers and colors I chose.

I also scrap things other than 'events' like birthdays, holidays, or special events... the photo above is one page of a layout I did that with photos of graffiti I took on a day out last summer in downtown Phoenix. I wanted to echo the graffiti-feel of the photos with the page layout, in the ink splatters and the gray / cement colored paper I chose. This layout was done for no other reason than to showcase the photos, and try a few new techniques.

While I don't love some of the details on this layout (I fussed with it longer than I should have), I think I did the photos justice with the layout I made, I learned some new techniques that I like, and found some that I don't like so much. And it taught me a lesson that sometimes, I should just 'leave well enough alone' with my art. But it also showed me that I can get over my sense of perfection and that 'not-perfect' is perfectly fine.

I still do 'event-based' layouts if the photos call for it; the 2 pages above are from a trip we took to Las Vegas in September 2009. I just scrapped these pages a month ago, actually-- yay!! for scrapping out of order, and for only scrapping the photos I feel capture the moment the best. I'm also putting my opinion and feelings onto the pages more than I used to (they're my scrapbooks, after all!) so these pages record my feelings about Las Vegas, not just the where-what-who-when type of things. 


I can see a change in my scrapping style over the years, although I don't think I really have a 'signature thing' that defines my style-- I still do color blocked layouts sometimes; I sometimes still do who-what-where-when journaling; I still use page borders and stickers occasionally... I may even cut a photo into a shape now and then, although I'm not exactly sure about that one! 


Thanks for taking a walk down my scrapbooking 'Memory Lane' with me; has anyone else's scrapping style changed over time? I'd love to hear about it!

I've started a second blog!

I've started a second blog for posts about more random things- pieces of my various collections, photos I think are interesting, and other random things that I can't think of yet... I've wanted to showcase some of them for a while, but thought it might be better to have them there, rather than 'cluttering' up this blog, if you don't want to see them.


Check it out here at my new blog: vintage & stuff...


hope to see you there!  :-)

obstacles...

I ran a couple errands today at lunch (well, tried to, anyway) but ran into a few obstacles. This was one of them:

 a roadblock and a detour, on my way to the library. So much for returning the overdue books! (no, not really-- the detour was only a block or so out of the way. And I only had one overdue book.)

 This pic shows the actual reason for the roadblock- tonight's Republican Presidential debate was being held at the local Performing Arts Center, and they were setting up for it. (I gotta say, that was kind of surreal to think about, that a nationally-televised political event was being held just a few blocks away from where I work!) After making my way past the trafficade and dropping my books in the bookdrop, I headed for here:

 Another sort of surreal place- I believe this is the only typewriter store in the entire Valley area. Even just reading the name, "Mesa Typewriter Exchange," seems so odd... With the prevalence of so many mega-huge, big-box stores that sell everything from tube socks to an oil change in the same place, it's almost refreshing to find a place that specializes in such a niche product.

 I need a new ribbon for the typewriter I picked up at the estate sale a few weeks ago... the black ink is getting pretty faint and the red ribbon won't type at all... they certainly should have it here! Along with alot of other cool typewriters and stuff to look at, by what I can see from outside. Aren't the typewriters in the window cool? I can't wait to see what all they have inside!

 But, then, I saw this. Another obstacle!! Oh, well; I'll have to go back. (Tomorrow, after the debate is over. And after work, so I can look as long as I want-- I hope the owner doesn't mind my taking pictures!)